Category Archives: New York

Rudy Giuliani’s son Andrew announces run for New York governor

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35-year-old, who served as special assistant in Trump’s White House, declares: ‘I’m a politician out of the womb’

Andrew Giuliani, the son of the embattled Donald Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, has announced he will run for New York governor in 2022.

The 35-year-old, who served as a special assistant in Trump’s White House and is a former contributor to the hard rightwing Newsmax television channel, made the announcement on Tuesday, declaring: “I’m a politician out of the womb.”

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New York City Pride organisers to ban police from marching until 2025

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Event organisers say police are threatening to some in the LGBTQ+ community, while NYPD called decision ‘disheartening’

Organisers of New York City’s Pride events say they will ban police and other law enforcement personnel from marching in their annual parade until at least 2025 and will also seek to keep on-duty officers a block away from the celebration of LGBTQ+ people and history.

In a statement released on Saturday, NYC Pride urged members of law enforcement to “acknowledge their harm and to correct course moving forward”.

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Relief, reluctance and confusion: New Yorkers react to mask-free guidance

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The CDC says people who have been vaccinated no longer have to wear face coverings in public – but not all are enthusiastic

When the CDC announced this week that people fully vaccinated against Covid-19 mostly didn’t have to wear masks indoors, many Americans saw this news as cause for celebration, feeling a sense of freedom after 15 months of itchy and cumbersome face coverings.

But in New York City, which was the US’s first coronavirus hotspot last spring, not everyone was rushing to rip off their masks, despite the official OK to do so.

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‘Sad and so unfair’: Palestinian Americans celebrate a painful Eid

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The violence in Gaza and Jerusalem has made the conclusion to the Muslim holy month a somber event for many

The sound of the call to prayer resonated through Astoria Park in Queens, New York, on an Eid that saw sunny weather and an opportunity for human connection after a year spent apart during the pandemic.

The conclusion to the Muslim holy month of Ramadan is usually marked with a celebratory breakfast, new clothes, and a chorus of “Eid Mubaraks” and “Alhamdulillahs.”

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Judge dismisses NRA bankruptcy case in blow for US gun lobby

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Federal court says claim was not filed in good faith, paving the way for legal bid by New York state to close the group down

A federal judge has dismissed the National Rifle Association’s bankruptcy case, leaving the powerful gun-rights group to face a lawsuit from New York state that accuses it of financial abuses.

The judge sitting in Dallas was tasked with deciding whether the NRA should be allowed to incorporate in Texas instead of New York, where the state is suing in an effort to disband the group. Though headquartered in Virginia, the NRA was chartered as a nonprofit in New York in 1871 and is incorporated in the state.

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‘Like purgatory’: diaspora in despair as India sinks deeper into Covid crisis

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Indian Americans scramble to secure oxygen canisters for family members, desperately work to raise funds and pressure US legislators to lift vaccine patents

Since the pandemic began, Fatima Ahmed has lost 29 of her family members in India and one in the US to Covid-19.

A few days ago, her uncle died in his car as he was driving back home from a hospital in Hyderabad, a city in southern India. “All the hospitals were at capacity, so they couldn’t take him in,” said Ahmed. “He pulled over and he called the rest of the family, the khandan – before he passed.”

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Top New York restaurant Eleven Madison Park goes vegan

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Daniel Humm, owner of foodie haven with three Michelin stars, says modern food system ‘simply not sustainable’

One of New York’s top fine dining restaurants is abandoning meat and going for a plant-based menu after its chef and owner posted a message on its website saying the modern food system was “simply not sustainable”.

Daniel Humm is the driving force behind Eleven Madison Park, which has won three Michelin stars and is one of the top names in Manhattan’s elite foodie scene.

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New York deserves better than Andrew Cuomo’s towering folly Rowan Moore

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The state governor seems determined to give the city’s famous skyline a lumpy revamp

Andrew Cuomo, the governor of New York state, is currently resisting calls to resign over allegations of sexual harassment. So what better way to prove that he is definitely not a phallocratic bully than to “ram through”, as one outlet puts it, a super-tall tower called Penn 15, and a vast development around it?

It’s not just that its name reads like the personalised licence plate of an inadequate and not-literate male. It is also that this lumpy object will compete on the New York city skyline with the nearby Empire State Building – Penn 15 would be bulkier than its famous neighbour and almost as tall. It is part of the Penn District, a proposed “campus” that will rip up several city blocks and replace them with what, on the available evidence, looks like further big lumps swathed in bland and generic design.

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Judge rejects Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to dismiss charges that she recruited girls

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  • Epstein non-prosecution deal ruled not to protect Maxwell
  • Judge agrees Maxwell can be prosecuted separately for perjury

A judge on Friday rejected Ghislaine Maxwell’s arguments to toss charges that she recruited three teenaged girls from 1994 to 1997 for her then boyfriend, Jeffrey Epstein, to sexually abuse.

A US judge in Manhattan denied claims that a non-prosecution agreement Epstein reached with federal prosecutors over a dozen years ago protects Maxwell from prosecution.

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Ghislaine Maxwell: prosecutors defend new indictment as July trial looms

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  • Defense complains of ‘gamesmanship’ and may seek trial delay
  • Arraignment on new charges due in New York this month

Prosecutors in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell have defended a late expansion of charges against her, saying it became necessary because a woman spoke after the Briton’s arrest about abuse at the hands of Jeffrey Epstein in the early 2000s.

Related: Ghislaine Maxwell faces new charges, including sex trafficking of a minor

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New York man charged with hate crime for attack on Asian American woman

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Police say Brandon Elliot, who was previously convicted of killing his mother, faces assault charges for attacking 65-year-old woman

The suspect wanted in an attack of an Asian American woman near New York City’s Times Square has been arrested and charged with felony assault as a hate crime, police said early Wednesday.

The arrest comes after the man was seen on video kicking and stomping the woman on Monday.

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Digested week: I’m taking tentative, post-vaccine first steps in a changed New York | Emma Brockes

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A first trip to a restaurant is bliss. But reopening has brought new tensions too

It’s a weird time in the life of the pandemic as the vaccinated, half-vaccinated and yet to be vaccinated venture out and tentatively try to co-mingle. I’m half done, shortly to be full, on the basis of which, in a moment of rashness, I promised to take my children to a water park in New Jersey on spring break. Too late now, but it’s something which, on reflection, it might have been worth living without antibodies for a few more months to avoid.

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‘They aren’t used to losing’: wealthy New York enclave battles over offshore windfarm

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Wainscott, a hamlet in the Hamptons, offers a new obstacle in Biden’s renewable energy plans as ‘Nimbys’ fight back with petitions, lobbyists and lawsuits

Should Joe Biden’s plans for a huge expansion of renewable energy across the US survive the gamut of congressional bickering, a very different obstacle threatens progress – wealthy homeowners who enjoy sweeping scenic views.

Wainscott, a hamlet in the wealthy New York enclave of the Hamptons, is the unlikely setting for a rancorous battle over what would be the state’s first offshore wind farm. A flurry of angry letters to the local newspaper has escalated to petitions, the hiring of high-powered lobbyists and now lawsuits, in what could presage similar quarrels elsewhere as the Biden administration seeks to support a national boom in new wind turbines at sea and on land.

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New York senators urge Cuomo to resign after governor refuses to quit

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Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand release joint statement after governor addresses media

New York’s two US senators, Chuck Schumer, who is also the Senate majority leader, and Kirsten Gillibrand, joined national and state representatives late Friday afternoon in calling for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s resignation.

Cuomo had earlier again refused to resign after a group of New York’s most powerful and prominent Democrats in the House of Representatives joined calls for the governor to step down over the multiple sexual misconduct allegations against him, and scrutiny over his administration’s misreporting of Covid-19 deaths among nursing home residents.”

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Convicted drug trafficker testifies that he bribed Honduran president

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Ex-cartel leader says he bribed Juan Orlando Hernández with $250,000 in exchange for government contracts and protection

A convicted drug trafficker and former cartel leader has testified in a New York court that he bribed the Honduran president, Juan Orlando Hernández, with $250,000 in exchange for government contracts as well as protection from capture and extradition to the United States.

“It was for protection so neither the military nor preventative police would arrest me or my brother in Honduras and so we would not be extradited to the United States,” Devis Leonel Rivera Maradiaga, a leader of the Honduran drug clan Los Cachiros, testified in the trial of alleged drug trafficker Geovanny Fuentes Ramírez.

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Cuomo faces most serious allegation yet as aide says governor groped her

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New York Democrat has been accused of harassment by five other women and is under investigation by state attorney general

An aide to Andrew Cuomo says the New York governor groped her in the governor’s residence, marking the most serious allegation among those made by a series of women against the embattled Democrat, according to a report published in a newspaper Wednesday.

The Times Union of Albany reported that the woman, who was not identified, was alone with Cuomo when he closed the door, reached under her shirt and fondled her. The newspaper’s reporting is based on an unidentified source with direct knowledge of the woman’s accusation. The governor had summoned her to the Executive Mansion in Albany, saying he needed help with his cellphone, the newspaper reported.

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New York woman discovers secret apartment behind bathroom mirror

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Samantha Hartsoe was trying to find source of cold air in bathroom and made discovery that brought to mind horror film Candyman

After Samantha Hartsoe stumbled upon an entire three-bedroom apartment hidden behind the bathroom mirror in her own New York home, she chose to ignore the lessons of any good horror film – and explore further.

“Curiosity killed the cat, curiosity is going to kill me,” the Roosevelt Island resident told NBC New York. “I can’t not know what’s on the other side of my bathroom.”

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Cuomo suffers major blow as top New York Democrats say governor must go

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Senate leader and assembly speaker weigh in but Cuomo says quitting over sexual harassment claims would be ‘anti-democratic’

Andrew Cuomo suffered a major blow on Sunday in his attempt to stay as governor of New York in the face of allegations of sexual harassment and workplace bullying and a scandal over nursing home deaths under Covid. The majority leader of the state senate and the speaker of the assembly, two of the most powerful Democrats in New York, said it was time for Cuomo to go.

Related: The New York attorney general holding Trump and Cuomo accountable

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US experts warn new Covid variants and states reopening may lead to fourth wave

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Cases could plateau at a point equivalent to summer 2020 peak, while vaccines have reached relatively few people

Public health experts encouraged Americans to continue social distancing and wearing masks at a potentially critical inflection point in the pandemic – one in which highly effective vaccines could provide relief, but fervor to reopen public life could unintentionally spread new Covid-19 variants.

The warnings come the same week Texas and Mississippi flung open the doors to normal social life in their states.

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