People in two tiny West Africa towns are stunned by the deaths of sisters, nephews and mothers in a tight-knit immigrant community
Early on Sunday morning, Ebrima Dukureh, 60, answered a phone call at his home in the Gambian town of Allunhari.
It was his nephew, Haji Dukureh, 49, calling from New York City, to check in – as he often did. The two men caught up on news, asked after each other’s families and exchanged blessings.
Continue reading...Cases seem to be subsiding in states with high vaccination rates, but observers are reluctant to make firm predictions
In February 2021, Dr Craig Spencer wrote in a Medium post that he was as “eager as anyone to see the end of this pandemic. Thankfully, that may be in sight”.
“Covid cases and hospitalizations are dropping,” wrote Spencer, director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center. “Vaccines are getting into arms. So, what happens next?”
Continue reading...Prosecutors make offer ahead of sentencing in effort to bring swift closure for the victims as Maxwell’s team push for new trial
If Ghislaine Maxwell is not granted a retrial in her Manhattan federal court sex trafficking case, prosecutors are prepared to drop pending perjury counts when she is sentenced, they said in a 10 January letter.
Prosecutors said they were prepared to dismiss the perjury counts in an effort to bring swift closure for the victims and prevent them from being re-traumatized at a possible second trial.
Continue reading...The mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, on Monday revised the death toll from a high-rise fire in the Bronx on Sunday, saying 17 people were killed, two fewer than originally thought.
Adams said nine adults and eight children had died. He did not immediately provide a reason for the lower count
Continue reading...Thomas Welnicki expressed interest in killing then president in interview with Capitol police in July 2020, complaint says
A New York man upset with what he perceived as Donald Trump’s threat to democracy was criminally charged on Monday with threatening to kill the former president, who he once referred to as Hitler.
According to an unsealed complaint, Thomas Welnicki, 72, from Rockaway Beach, expressed interest in killing the then president in an interview with US Capitol police in July 2020 and in several calls to the Secret Service the following year.
Continue reading...The Democratic congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has tested positive for Covid-19.
In a statement on Sunday evening, the office of the New York progressive said she was “experiencing symptoms and recovering at home.
Continue reading...Nineteen people have been killed, including nine children, and dozens more injured in an apartment building fire in the Bronx borough of New York City. ‘The numbers are horrific,’ said New York City mayor Eric Adams. ‘This is going to be one of the worst fires that we have witnessed during modern times here in the city of New York’
• The figure in the headline of this article was corrected on 10 January 2022
Nineteen people have been killed, including nine children, and dozens more injured in an apartment building fire in the Bronx borough of New York City. ‘The numbers are horrific,’ said New York City mayor Eric Adams. ‘This is going to be one of the worst fires that we have witnessed during modern times here in the city of New York’
Continue reading...Nineteen people including nine children were killed in an apartment fire in the Bronx in New York on Sunday, one of the worst fire disasters in the city in 30 years.
Thirteen people remained hospitalised in critical condition, authorities said late on Sunday afternoon. In all, more than five dozen were hurt.
Continue reading...America’s biggest city is seeing another winter spike, but with good vaccines and a new message many residents say this wave feels different
In the spring of 2020, Hart Island, a mile from City Island in the Bronx, was a focal point of grief in New York. It was here, at the city’s public cemetery or potter’s field, the final resting place of more than a million people, that officials ordered trenches dug to accommodate those the coronavirus was expected to kill.
The trenches were never filled. Many bodies were returned to funeral parlors or stored in mobile freezers on Randall’s Island, better known for music festivals and the Frieze art fair than cold storage of corpses.
Continue reading...Filippo Bernardini is accused of impersonating publishing figures to steal manuscripts, in scam that has stumped authors and editors for years
A mysterious fraudster who impersonated publishers and agents to steal book manuscripts in an international phishing scam may have finally been caught, with the FBI arresting a 29-year-old man at John F Kennedy airport in New York on Wednesday.
Filippo Bernardini, an Italian citizen who worked at UK publisher Simon & Schuster, was arrested upon landing in the US on Wednesday. The FBI alleged that Bernardini had “impersonated, defrauded, and attempted to defraud, hundreds of individuals” to obtain unpublished and draft works.
Continue reading...Arguments via videoconference come day after unsealing of 2009 Epstein settlement as judge promises ‘a decision pretty soon’
Lawyers for Prince Andrew and Virginia Giuffre, who has long accused the royal of sexual abuse, faced off in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, in his attempt to dismiss her civil lawsuit.
The arguments via videoconference came a day after the unsealing of a 2009 settlement between Giuffre and the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Continue reading...Letitia James reportedly issues subpoenas to pair as part of fraud investigation into former president’s business empire
The attorney general of New York state has subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump as part of its fraud inquiry into Trump’s businesses, the New York Times reported on Monday, citing a court document.
The document was filed by lawyers for Trump in response to Letitia James’s decision to subpoena the former president himself.
Continue reading...Prince Andrew’s lawyers believe 2009 agreement could shield him from Giuffre’s civil sexual assault lawsuit
A crunch week in Prince Andrew’s fight to avoid a public trial over claims he sexually assaulted a 17-year-old trafficked by the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein begins on Monday, when a New York court unseals a confidential 2009 deal between Epstein and the alleged victim.
Lawyers for the Duke of York, who “unequivocally denies” the claims made by Virginia Giuffre, believe her agreement with Epstein could shield him from her civil lawsuit accusing him of sexual abuse in 2001.
Continue reading...New York tradition brings some normalcy as coronavirus pandemic leads to cancellation of shows around the world
A Miley Cyrus wardrobe malfunction, a celebrity rant about outgoing New York City mayor, Bill de Blasio, and the traditional dropping of a six-tonne ball in Times Square were among the highlights as America welcomed the new year, and bid good riddance to the old one.
The New Year’s Eve tradition of crowds at Times Square returned this year, though with only 15,000 of the usual 60,000 spectators there to watch the ball, encrusted with nearly 2,700 Waterford crystals, descend as couples embraced, some still wearing their masks.
Continue reading...Four employees and assistants were described in a 2007 non-prosecution agreement as ‘potential co-conspirators’
The conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell on sex-trafficking charges this week has increased the scrutiny of others who worked for or socialized with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein for years, and their knowledge of the pair’s activities.
Attention has largely focused on prominent male associates of Epstein, including Prince Andrew, who faces a civil suit brought by Virginia Roberts Giuffre. Giuffre alleges the Queen’s son had sex with her on three occasions two decades ago when, aged 17, she had been sexually trafficked by Jeffrey Epstein, allegations Andrew vehemently denies.
Continue reading...Americans face stay-at-home celebration again as some mayors scale back or cancel public events amid Covid surge
Americans are again facing a stay-at-home New Year’s Eve as US political leaders and senior health advisers have urged people to scrap party plans and avoid larger public events as daily cases of Covid-19 break all previous records.
In New York, attendance at the Times Square celebration known as the Ball Drop – in essence, tens of thousands of people watching a 12-foot geodesic sphere inlaid with Waterford crystals descend a long pole – has been capped at 15,000, down from pre-pandemic 60,000, with organizers encouraging revelers to watch it on TV or online.
Continue reading...Omicron threat stokes fears coast to coast but leading public health expert says ‘We know how to keep schools open and safe’
As US regional health authorities reacted with alarm to a jump in child Covid infections that caused some school districts to announce returns to remote learning, a leading public health official questioned the need for schools to close, saying: “We know how to keep schools open, we know how to keep them safe.”
Over the past three weeks, as Omicron-related cases soared in New York City and elsewhere, the number of children hospitalised in New York with Covid-19 quadrupled, the state health department said.
Continue reading...Cheap street pizza is one of New York’s charms, but could supply chain problems and inflation this spell the end?
“Well, you can never go wrong with bread, cheese and tomato,” Lou Reed, poet of the New York streets, would sometimes remark as he passed by one of the city’s multitude of pizzerias.
The late musician was a fan of Coney Island’s legendary Totonno’s, close to the site of of one of the first recorded pizza parlors established by Italian immigrants in the 1880s.
Continue reading...ONS figures are highest on record so far; Christmas for many in disarray as US and Australian airlines say flight crews hit by Covid
Here’s a story that echoes the cancellation of flights happening over the US.
Thousands of Australians have had their domestic flights cancelled in the hours leading up to Christmas, as frontline staff were ordered to test and isolate amid a rise in Covid cases.
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