Keith Grayson’s death was confirmed in a statement released through Hot 97, the radio station where he hosted The Drama Hour
The pioneering hip-hop artist Keith Grayson, who performed as DJ Kay Slay and worked with top stars, has died of complications from Covid-19.
Grayson’s death at 55 on Sunday was confirmed by his family in a statement released through New York radio station Hot 97, where he hosted The Drama Hour for more than two decades.
Continue reading...Frank James, who allegedly shot 10 people on a subway train, openly talked about struggling with mental illness
Days after a man who openly talked about struggling with mental illness allegedly shot up a subway train in Brooklyn, the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams, called for his state to continue prioritizing an increase in the number of available psychiatric hospital beds.
Adams on Sunday said he understood the medical community’s shifting its focus to fighting the deadly coronavirus during the last two years, but at this point in the pandemic, it needed to pivot to addressing shortages in psychiatric services.
Continue reading...Frank James, 62, arrested in Manhattan a day after attack on subway in Brooklyn in which more than 20 were wounded
Five people who provided “critical information” that helped lead to the arrest of the man charged with this week’s mass shooting in a New York subway will share a $50,000 reward, police announced.
The suspect, wearing a gas mask, had filled a crowded subway car traveling through Brooklyn with thick black smoke from a canister and opened fire last Tuesday on morning rush-hour passengers, injuring more than 20, including 10 with gunshot wounds.
Continue reading...Mount Vernon’s crumbling sewage infrastructure has for years caused unsanitary backups in homes and pollution of local rivers
After decades struggling with failing sewage infrastructure, the majority-Black city of Mount Vernon, New York, is getting a significant funding package aimed at preventing unsanitary backups in homes and stopping pollution from leaking into local rivers.
New York’s governor, Kathy Hochul, announced on Friday that the state will dedicate $150m toward projects that include repairing and replacing the city’s collapsing sewage pipes. Some of the funding is set aside for families affected by the sewage failures. It would also help bring the city into compliance with federal court orders to stop raw sewage from pouring into the Bronx and Hutchinson rivers, which flow south into New York City’s Bronx borough, as the Guardian reported last year.
Continue reading...After an arrest in the Brooklyn subway shooting, Tahhan has become a social media star. But there’s plenty of credit to go round
In the aftermath of the Brooklyn subway shooting, social media has found its latest star.
Zack Tahhan, 21, was quickly anointed as a hero on Wednesday following the arrest of Frank R James, the suspect in the attack that injured 29. But the real story, it seems, was more complicated – and Tahhan wasn’t the day’s only hero.
Continue reading...The manhunt ramped up for Frank R James who had rented a U-Haul found at a scene, keys to which were recovered by the police
Millions of New Yorkers began their commutes to work and school on Wednesday morning as law enforcement officers continued searching for the gunman who shot 10 people on a subway train during yesterday’s morning rush hour.
The manhunt ramped up for 62-year-old Frank R James, who police have identified as a “person of interest” in the mass shooting, but who Mayor Eric Adams on Wednesday said was a suspect.
Continue reading...A press conference updating on the Brooklyn subway shooting that happened this morning in the Sunset Park neighborhood just wrapped up, with officials updating that 16 people were injured in today’s attack, including 10 people who were shot, and five people who are in critical but stable condition.
Officials also noted that other injuries from the incident included smoke inhalation, shrapnel, or panic induced from the incident, but said that the shrapnel was not from an explosive device.
Continue reading...Biden says ‘we’re not letting up until we find the perpetrator’ as manhunt under way for shooter
A gunman wearing a gas mask filled a crowded New York subway car with thick black smoke from a canister and opened fire on morning rush-hour passengers, injuring more than 20, including 10 with gunshot wounds.
A manhunt was under way on Tuesday after the shooter, described as a heavy-built Black male about 5ft 5in tall, wearing a green construction-type vest and hooded grey sweatshirt, fled the scene of the shooting. Officers were searching for a U-Haul truck with an Arizona license plate as of Tuesday afternoon, police told multiple media outlets, and the vehicle was later found.
Continue reading...Democrat Brian Benjamin pleads not guilty to several charges, as arrest creates political crisis for governor Kathy Hochul
New York’s lieutenant governor, Brian Benjamin, resigned on Tuesday in the wake of his arrest in a federal corruption investigation, the state’s Democratic governor, Kathy Hochul, said.
The development created a political crisis for Hochul seven months after she selected Benjamin as a partner to make a fresh start in an office rocked by scandal after Governor Andrew Cuomo resigned amid allegations of bullying and sexual harassment.
Continue reading...Ng, 49, found guilty of helping to embezzle money earmarked for development in one of biggest frauds in financial history
The former Goldman Sachs executive Roger Ng has been found guilty of helping to steal billions of dollars from Malaysia’s 1MDB sovereign wealth fund after a lengthy trial brought by US prosecutors, who described the fraud as one the largest financial scandals in history and who hoped to show that individuals are always at the center of corporate wrongdoing.
A New York jury found Ng, 49, once Goldman’s top investment banker in Malaysia, guilty of helping his former boss Tim Leissner embezzle money intended for development to benefit Malaysia’s poor from a fund connected to Malaysia’s then prime minister, Najib Razak, and then to launder the proceeds while bribing officials in Malaysia and Abu Dhabi.
Continue reading...Takeshi Ebisawa accused of planning to purchase surface-to-air missiles for rebel groups in Myanmar and distribute drugs in US
US authorities have arrested a leader of a Japanese crime syndicate on charges of plotting to distribute drugs in the United States and purchase weapons including US-made surface-to-air missiles.
Federal prosecutors in Manhattan said Takeshi Ebisawa, who they described as a leader in a network of Japanese crime families known as yakuza, and a co-conspirator agreed to buy the missiles for rebel groups in Myanmar during conversations with an undercover Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
Continue reading...Attorney general Letitia James requests calls for fines until Trump complies with order to turn over files related to his businesses
New York’s attorney general on Thursday asked a state judge to hold Donald Trump in contempt of court for not turning over documents she subpoenaed for her civil investigation into the former US president’s business practices.
In a court filing, attorney general Letitia James said Trump failed to abide by his earlier agreement to comply “in full” with her subpoena for documents and information by 31 March.
Continue reading...Larry Ray accused of psychological abuse at the prestigious Sarah Lawrence college, in trial that echoes Nxivm case
New York is accustomed to high-profile trials, the details picked over like canapés at a cocktail party.
But the trial of Lawrence “Larry” Ray, on federal charges of sex trafficking, extortion and conspiracy has caused revulsion and horror, and raised troubling questions that go far beyond criminal justice.
Continue reading...Maxwell repeatedly requested a new trial after a juror on her case failed to disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection
Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid for a new trial has been denied, the judge in her Manhattan federal court sex-trafficking case said on Friday.
The daughter of the late British media baron Robert Maxwell repeatedly requested a new trial after a juror in the case failed to disclose childhood sexual abuse during jury selection.
Continue reading...Dominic Taddeo, 64, pleaded guilty in 1992 to killing three men in 1980s mob wars for Rochester, New York, crime family
A New York mobster who killed three people and attempted to kill two others has escaped from federal custody after recently being moved to a halfway house, according to the Bureau of Prisons.
Dominic Taddeo, a hitman from a Rochester-area crime family, pleaded guilty in 1992 to racketeering charges that included the killings of three men during mob wars in the 1980s.
Continue reading...Elsewhere, a unionization vote by Alabama workers is pending as hundreds of votes were challenged
Amazon workers in New York are close to voting to form a union – a major win for labor activists who have failed in previous efforts to organize at the tech giant that is now the second largest private employer in the US.
Workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Staten Island will find out on Friday whether or not they want to form a union, Amazon’s first in the US where it now employs over one million people.
Continue reading...State attorney general Letitia James says her office has every right to question Trump and his two oldest children over possible fraud
The attorney general of New York state is asking an appeals court to uphold a lower-court ruling requiring Donald Trump to answer questions under oath, after a civil investigation uncovered evidence he may have misstated the value of assets like golf courses and skyscrapers on financial statements for more than a decade.
In papers filed late on Monday, the office of Letitia James said it had every right to question Trump, who is appealing against the lower-court ruling, as it seeks to determine whether the misrepresented values shown to lenders, taxing authorities and other business interests constituted fraud and, if so, who committed that fraud.
Continue reading...State and county taxpayers will be asked to commit $850m in public funds toward construction of the Buffalo Bills’ new stadium which has a state-projected price tag of $1.4bn as part of a 30-year lease agreement reached on Monday.
New York state will commit $600m in funds, which will be in included in the budget due on Friday, Governor Kathy Hochul announced in a press release. Erie county will commit $250m toward the project, with the NFL and the Buffalo Bills committing $550m in financing.
Continue reading...Howard Hubbard made admission during a deposition last year as part of a response to dozens of claims filed in New York
The former bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Albany, New York, has acknowledged covering up allegations of sexual abuse against children by priests in part to avoid scandal and protect the reputation of the diocese.
Howard Hubbard made the admission during a deposition taken last year as part of a response to dozens of claims filed under New York state’s Child Victims Act. A judge ordered the deposition released on Friday.
Continue reading...Eric Adams says officials will place people in ‘healthy living conditions with wraparound services’ as debate swirls
New York mayor Eric Adams has ordered that every homeless encampment in the city should be taken down within two weeks, arguing that the situation is not only dangerous to those living there but to the city itself.
“We’re going to rid the encampments off our street and we’re going to place people in healthy living conditions with wraparound services,” Adams said Friday, though he provided few details on exactly how that extra provision would be provided for them.
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