Category Archives: New York

New York attorney general alleges Trump firm misled banks and tax officials

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Court filing says investigators are seeking to question Donald Trump and his two eldest children

The New York attorney general’s office has told a court that its investigators have uncovered evidence that Donald Trump’s company used “fraudulent or misleading” asset valuations to get loans and tax benefits.

The court filing late on Tuesday said state authorities had not yet decided whether to bring a civil lawsuit in connection with the allegations, but that investigators needed to question Trump and his two eldest children as part of their inquiries.

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New York and other north-eastern US states see a rapid fall in Covid cases

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Despite decreasing positivity rates, hospitals continue to struggle amid a surging patient load and staff shortages

New York City and some north-eastern US states appear to be seeing rapid decreases in their numbers of Covid-19 cases in recent days, raising the possibility that the Omicron wave has now already peaked in some parts of America.

In New York City the rolling seven-day average of new cases was less than 28,000 a day on 16 January, down from an average of more than 40,000 on 9 January.

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‘I have a lot of things to say’: one girl’s life growing up homeless in New York

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For nine years, New York Times journalist Andrea Elliott followed the fortunes of one family living in poverty. In this extract from her new book, Invisible Child, we meet Dasani Coates in 2012, aged 11 and living in a shelter

• Read an interview with Andrea Elliott here

She wakes to the sound of breathing. The smaller children lie tangled under coats and wool blankets, their chests rising and falling in the dark. They have yet to stir. Their sister is always first. She looks around the room, seeing only silhouettes – the faint trace of a chin or brow, lit from the street below. Mice scurry across the floor. Roaches crawl to the ceiling. A little sink drips and drips, sprouting mould from a rusted pipe.

A few feet away is the yellow mop bucket they use as a toilet, and the mattress where the mother and father sleep, clutched. Radiating out from them in all directions are the eight children they share: two boys and five girls whose beds zigzag around the baby, her crib warmed by a hairdryer perched on a milk crate.

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Woman pushed to her death in front of New York subway train

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Police have a man in custody in connection with the 40-year-old woman’s death at Times Square station in Manhattan

A woman was pushed to her death in front of a subway train at New York’s Times Square station.

The man believed responsible for the incident on Saturday morning fled the scene but turned himself in to transit police a short time later, the police commissioner, Keechant Sewell, said at a news conference with the mayor, Eric Adams, at the station.

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Ghislaine Maxwell to be sentenced in New York in late June

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Maxwell was convicted last month of recruiting and grooming teenage girls for Jeffrey Epstein to abuse

Ghislaine Maxwell is due to be sentenced in late June after her conviction last month on charges including sex trafficking and conspiracy relating to the recruitment of teenage girls for financier Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse.

US district judge Alison J Nathan announced the 28 June date on Friday even as she waits to resolve defence claims that a new trial should be ordered after a juror’s public admissions after the verdict about his childhood sexual abuse.

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Wounds of Bronx fire felt half a world away in the Gambia

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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.

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Is the US nearing its Covid peak? Experts warn against letting guard down

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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?”

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Prosecutors willing to drop Ghislaine Maxwell perjury charge if no retrial

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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.

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‘This is an evolving crisis’: New York mayor Eric Adams revises Bronx fire death toll to 17 – video

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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

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New York man charged with threatening to kill Donald Trump

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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.

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez announces positive Covid test

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  • Progressive congresswoman ‘experiencing symptoms’
  • Office says political star had booster vaccine shot last year

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.

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‘The numbers are horrific’: New York City apartment building fire kills 19 – video

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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

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‘The numbers are horrific’: New York City apartment building fire kills dozens – video

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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’

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Fire in Bronx building leaves 19 people dead, including nine children

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  • More than five dozen people injured and 13 in critical condition
  • City fire commissioner says space heater caused the blaze

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.

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Omicron drives Covid surge but New York a long way from pandemic’s early days

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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.

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Literary mystery may finally be solved as man arrested for allegedly stealing unpublished books

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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.

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Prince Andrew’s lawyers fight to dismiss Virginia Giuffre lawsuit in court

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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.

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New York attorney general subpoenas Donald Trump Jr and Ivanka Trump – report

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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.

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Court to unseal deal between Jeffrey Epstein and Virginia Giuffre

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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.

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New Year’s Eve: Times Square crowds return, NYC hails new mayor and Miley Cyrus battles wardrobe malfunction

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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.

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