Digested week: the soundtrack of this pandemic is teeth grinding

Bruxism is now so severe that some patients can grind down with a 100kg force

Virus numbers are down in New York, while the positivity rate remains high – hovering at 8% – bringing new safety guidelines from the Centres for Disease Control. If you can’t find an N95-grade mask, says the CDC, try double-masking: putting a cloth mask over a disposable medical one, with a wire pin to close the gap over your nose.

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Charges dropped against woman who called police on Black birdwatcher

  • Amy Cooper completes therapy involving racial bias instruction
  • Video of encounter in New York’s Central Park went viral in 2020

Prosecutors in New York have dropped a charge against Amy Cooper, a woman who achieved widespread notoriety after she confronted a Black man birdwatching in Central Park who asked her to put her dog on a leash.

Related: Amy Cooper made second call claiming black birdwatcher tried to assault her

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Johnny Pacheco, co-founder of New York’s Latin label Fania, dies aged 85

The Fania All-Stars player and record-label impresario worked with Latin music giants including Celia Cruz and fostered a more intense, political salsa sound

Johnny Pacheco, the co-founder of trailblazing salsa label Fania Records, has died aged 85. The cause was complications from pneumonia.

A representative for Fania said Pacheco was “the man most responsible for the genre of salsa music. He was a visionary and his music will live on eternally.”

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Andrew Cuomo insists New York didn’t cover up nursing home Covid-19 deaths

Governor, who has faced calls to resign, acknowledged that officials should have moved faster to release some information

Under fire over his management of the coronavirus’ lethal path through New York’s nursing homes, Andrew Cuomo insisted Monday the state didn’t cover up deaths – but the governor acknowledged that officials should have moved faster to release some information sought by lawmakers, the public and the press.

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Nicki Minaj’s father, Robert Maraj, killed in hit-and-run accident

Maraj, 64, was walking along a road on Long Island at on Friday when he was hit by a car that kept going, police say

The 64-year-old father of the rapper Nicki Minaj has died after being struck by a hit-and-run driver in New York, police said.

Robert Maraj was walking along a road in Mineola on Long Island at 6.15pm on Friday when he was hit by a car that kept going, Nassau county police said.

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New York subway stabbings: two dead after series of attacks on homeless people

Police believe four separate stabbings on the city’s A line are the work of one man

An unidentified man could be responsible for four separate stabbings that occurred within a few hours in the New York City subways, leaving two people dead, authorities said.

The assaults happened between Friday morning and early Saturday, New York police department officials said during a news conference. Authorities believe all four victims were homeless.

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New York Trump investigation looks at $280m in loans – report

Wall Street Journal says prosecutors interested in loans relating to four Manhattan properties

While there was good news for Donald Trump in Washington on Saturday, as his second impeachment trial ended in acquittal, troubling news came out of his native New York.

The Wall Street Journal reported that prosecutors in the city are investigating about $280m in loans to the Trump Organization, related to four buildings in Manhattan: Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue; a skyscraper at 40 Wall St; a hotel and residential building on Columbus Circle near Central Park; and an apartment building on the Upper East Side.

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Paul Manafort can’t be prosecuted in New York due to double jeopardy, court rules

Former Trump campaign chairman had faced mortgage fraud charges similar to federal case that put him in jail

Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign chairman, will not face mortgage fraud charges in New York, after the state’s highest court declined to revisit lower court decisions that barred prosecuting Manafort on double jeopardy grounds.

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Crash survivor speaks after world-first face and double hand transplant – video

Doctors at New York University’s Langone Health have successfully completed the world’s first face and double hand transplant. Twenty-two-year-old Joe DiMeo underwent the 23-hour procedure two years after he suffered third-degree burns to 80% of his body in a car accident. The procedure is a world first and has allowed Joe to dress and feed himself as well as use weights as part of his recovery

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‘A second chance’: first successful face and double hand transplant completed

Joe DiMeo underwent a 23-hour surgery in August after suffering third-degree burns over 80% of his body in a 2018 car accident

Doctors at New York University’s Langone Health have completed the very first successful face and double hand transplant, a historic first.

“We’ve succeeded in a tremendous undertaking that shows we can continue to take on new challenges and advance the field of transplantation,” Dr Eduardo D Rodriguez, who has led at least four face transplant surgeries, told NBC’s The Today Show.

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‘Simply horrible’: Rochester mayor laments police pepper-spraying girl

Two officers have been placed on administrative leave and another suspended after video footage emerged

The mother of a nine-year-old girl has accused police of “excessive use of force” after her daughter was handcuffed and pepper-sprayed in Rochester, New York.

Two were placed on administrative leave and another suspended on Tuesday, after police released video footage of the incident, which showed the nine-year-old being pepper-sprayed as she sat in the back of a squad car.

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‘Blinding snow’ storm batters New York City and US north-east– video

A powerful winter storm has engulfed the US north-east, blanketing much of the region in heavy snow. The storm is expected to bring nearly 2ft of snow to New York, Boston and several other cities. ’This is a dangerous, life-threatening situation,’ New York's governor, Andrew Cuomo, said while declaring a state of emergency in 44 counties and New York City. Mayor Bill De Blasio also declared a local state of emergency - suspending in-person classes, restricting non-essential travel and putting coronavirus vaccination appointments on hold. ‘You're going to see two to four inches of snow per hour. That is extremely intense snow. That's blinding snow’

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New York Times ‘disciplined’ top Covid reporter accused of using racial slurs

Paper says Donald McNeil Jr ‘showed extremely poor judgement’ in using racist language on a Times-endorsed educational trip

The New York Times has confirmed the paper investigated and “disciplined” its high-profile public health and Covid-19 reporter after he used racial slurs during a trip with high school students in 2019.

Donald McNeil Jr, a 45-year veteran of the paper and its lead reporter on the coronavirus pandemic, was accused by a number of students of using the N-word during a Times-endorsed educational trip to Peru. The reporter also suggested he did not believe in white privilege and used stereotypes about Black teenagers, according to complaints filed to the paper, which were reported by the Daily Beast.

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Inauguration week: tears, rage and a brief feeling of fondness for George W Bush | Emma Brockes

It was overwhelming, joyous, pastry-filled, but then there was the comedown

It’s a subdued Martin Luther King Day in the US, and we take a bus across town to visit MoMA. I haven’t been to the modern art museum in New York since before my children were born and this feels like the week for it. Everyone is jittery about the inauguration on Wednesday, about news of the Covid death count hitting 400,000 in the US and about American democracy under strain. Perhaps art will lift us.

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Trump heads for new life in Florida, marking end of an era in New York

The born-and-raised New Yorker seems ready to leave the city in which he made his name – and few will mourn his departure

When Donald Trump leaves the White House on 20 January, reports indicate that he will not return to his home town of New York City but rather, reside at his Mar-a-Lago home in south Florida. Indeed, Trump formally changed his residency to the so-called Sunshine State in fall 2019.

Related: Washington and state capitols brace for violence from armed Trump supporters

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‘Hell to pay’: Church of Satan mourns arson at New York ‘Halloween House’

  • Addams Family-style home in Poughkeepsie burns
  • Member Isis Vermouth promises hex on culprit

Members of the Church of Satan are grieving the destruction of a historic “Halloween House” north of New York City that authorities say was set ablaze by an unidentified arsonist.

Related: Hell freezes over: how the Church of Satan got cool

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Vive l’indifférence! Netflix’s Room 2806 exposes France’s #MeToo apathy

Centred on a sex-assault case involving former French presidential hopeful Dominique Strauss-Kahn, this docuseries reveals worryingly outdated attitudes

Most people will have only the haziest recollection of the fallout that occurred after the French presidential hopeful and then head of the International Monetary Fund Dominique Strauss-Kahn was accused of sexually assaulting a room attendant in a New York hotel in 2011. That allows the Netflix documentary Room 2806: The Accusation to possess all the qualities of a slick political thriller. Who will be believed? The immigrant, hotel cleaner, a single parent living in a flat in the Bronx or the globally powerful, immensely rich politician?

This tense, four-part documentary has astonishing material to work with. There is plenty of CCTV footage, filmed from the ceiling, of chambermaid Nafissatou Diallo making her way to the presidential suite, and later, visibly distressed, being shepherded by her supervisor to a subterranean network of shabby staff offices in the bowels of the building, away from the gilded foyer, where she wipes away tears and recounts how she has been assaulted by Strauss-Kahn as she cleaned his rooms.

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US officials warn ‘full resurgence’ of Covid in major population centers

White House coronavirus taskforce reports advocate for ‘aggressive action’ amid 23m confirmed cases in US

As coronavirus continues to tear across the US without any sign of slowing down, officials have warned there is a “full resurgence” in most major population centers – and that the country could see an additional 92,000 deaths in less than a month.

There have been more than 23m confirmed Covid-19 cases in the US and 385,503 deaths, Johns Hopkins University’s most recent data revealed.

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Want to understand the Capitol rioters? Look at the inflamed hate-drunk mobs painted by Goya

The horrific visions of the Spanish painter are about to go on display at New York’s Met. Americans should flock to this timely show – because no artist better captured collective delusion and mass fanaticism

The macabre art of Francisco Goya, the first truly modern artist, is due to be exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum in New York next month and there could hardly be a more urgent moment for Americans to look at his images. For, over 200 years ago, this Spanish artist perfectly captured the kind of collective delusion and mass fanaticism that swarmed the US Capitol last week. The mob of Trump supporters who assaulted the home of American democracy were as inflamed as the crowd who march with crazed eyes behind a manic musician in The Pilgrimage to San Isidoro, as dangerous as the hate-drunk crowd in The Second of May 1808, spellbound by their goat-headed charismatic idol.

And then there’s The Burial of the Sardine, in which a delirious crowd cavort around a huge banner of a madly grinning face. At first glance, it seems to be a joyous carnival scene, but look closer and the intensity of their rite becomes unsettling as you notice that face on the banner, their vacant lord of the dance. It has a definitive Trumpian air.

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