Man arrested after Cuomo staffer randomly struck in head with cinder block

The man suspected of randomly striking a woman in the back of the head with a cinder block is under arrest. The victim is a member of Gov. Cuomo's staff.

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  • Trump appears to back plan to overturn election result in Congress amid more false claims of fraud

    President seems to be banking on Republican politicians disrupting the vote-counting session on 6 January

  • Archaeologists uncover ancient street food shop in Pompeii

    Archaeologists in Pompeii, the city buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 AD, have made the extraordinary find of a frescoed hot food and drinks shop that served up the ancient equivalent of street food to Roman passersby. Known as a termopolium, Latin for hot drinks counter, the shop was discovered in the archaeological park's Regio V site, which is not yet open the public, and unveiled on Saturday. Traces of nearly 2,000-year-old food were found in some of the deep terra cotta jars containing hot food which the shop keeper lowered into a counter with circular holes.

  • 4 arrested in Mexico crash that killed current, ex-governor

    Four people have been arrested in connection with the 2018 crash of a helicopter that killed a central Mexican governor and her husband — who had preceded her as governor — authorities said Friday. The Agusta 109 helicopter crashed in flames 10 minutes after takeoff on Dec. 24 that year while carrying newly installed Puebla Gov. Martha Erika Alonso and her husband, former Gov. Rafael Moreno Valle, as well as three other people. The Puebla state prosecutor's office said the four suspects worked for a Rotor Flight Services, a company “related to the functioning of the aircraft,” It said the suspects were accused of culpable homicide, damage to another's property and false testimony.

  • Royal Caribbean tries to block families suing over fatal tour to island of live volcano

    Royal Caribbean, the world's largest cruise company, is trying to prevent victims of the 2019 New Zealand volcanic eruption from suing in the US. Passengers from the Royal Caribbean ship Ovation of the Seas took a trip to White Island, a popular tourist site, last December, when a volcano suddenly erupted, killing 27 visitors and injuring 25 more. Ivy and Paul Reed, from the US state of Maryland, who suffered burns as a result of the eruption, and Australians Marie and Stephanie Browitt, who lost family members because of the eruption, filed separate lawsuits against Royal Caribbean claiming that the cruise line did not properly explain the dangers of visiting White Island. Peter Gordon, a lawyer for the Browitt family, told the Australian Broadcasting Company that Royal Caribbean should have known that the volcano could erupt before allowing its passengers to visit White Island.

  • Donald Trump announces he made Christmas speech to deployed troops but ‘fake news’ wasn’t invited

    Speech came hours after Mr Trump golfed in Florida with Lindsey Graham

  • Two sentenced for selling alcohol to woman who caused fatal crash

    Colorado State Patrol estimated Lindsey Ward's blood alcohol level was more than three times the legal limit at the time of the crash.

  • UPS employee confessed to fatally attacking co-worker found stabbed in truck, warrant says

    “What took you guys so long to find me?” the suspect asked Connecticut authorities who found him after he ran into the woods following the alleged attack.

  • Boston doctor has severe allergic reaction to Moderna COVID vaccine -NYT

    A doctor in Boston with a shellfish allergy developed a severe allergic reaction after receiving Moderna's coronavirus vaccine on Thursday, the New York Times reported on Friday, citing the doctor. Dr. Hossein Sadrzadeh, a geriatric oncology fellow at Boston Medical Center, said he had a severe reaction almost immediately after being vaccinated, feeling dizzy and with a racing heart, the NYT reported. It is the first severe reaction publicly linked to Moderna's vaccine, which is in its first week of a nationwide rollout.

  • Russian cat rescued from rubbish plant receives honorary ministerial role

    A Russian cat rescued from a rubbish separator at a waste processing plant has been adopted by the Ulyanovsk region’s environment ministry and given an honorary title. The black and white cat has achieved local celebrity status in Ulyanovsk, a city 435 miles east of Moscow, after surveillance camera footage showed a worker at the sorting facility grabbing a bag from a conveyor belt and opening it to discover the feline inside. “I felt something soft inside the bag,” plant worker Mikhail Tukash told the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets, Reuters reported. “I cut the bag open slightly and I saw eyes looking back at me.” The footage shows the conveyor belt come to a stop as Mr Tukash shows his colleagues the cat, which remains calm as he strokes it with gloved hands. “I needed to cut the bag to screen it for metals. I was just doing my job,” Mr Tukash told local television in the city, which is known as the birthplace of Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin. The local channel reported that workers at the plant had previously rescued an African hedgehog nicknamed Vezunka, which means lucky in Russian, and two red-eared slider turtles. The region’s environment ministry lauded Mr Tukash for the rescue, writing that the male cat was “on the brink of death” and would have “ended up in the trash separator” had Mr Tukash not grabbed him. The well-fed and friendly cat was likely an abandoned household pet, the ministry said. “If you can’t keep an animal at home, you can always give it away to a shelter,” minister Gulnara Rakhmatulina said in a statement. After adopting the cat and bestowing upon him the honorary title of honorary deputy in charge of wildlife protection, the ministry released photos of him catnapping in the minister’s chair. The ministry has announced a contest to name the rescued cat.

  • 16 years on, Indian Ocean Tsunami remembered

    People in India's southern Tamil Nadu state on Saturday (December 26) paid tribute to the victims of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami on the 16th anniversary of the tragedy that killed around 200,000 people in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and nine other countries. On the morning after Christmas Day in 2004, a 9.1 magnitude quake off northern Sumatra island triggered a tsunami with waves as high as 57 feet that swept over vulnerable coastal areas. Survivors and family members of the victims in southern Chennai and Puducherry cities lit candles, and prayed for the victims who perished in the disaster.

  • Christmas in Florida: Chilly forecast, falling iguanas

    With unexpectedly cold weather in the forecast and pandemic-related curfews in some places, Florida is about to have a Christmas unlike any other in recent memory, and it may involve falling iguanas. The National Weather Service earlier this week warned that South Florida could experience the coldest Christmas Day in 21 years. Morning lows on Saturday could drop into the low 30s and 40s degrees Fahrenheit, the weather service said.

  • Two of Trump's pardons may set a precedent for letting the Trump campaign off the hook

    You know Dasher and Dancer and Roger and Kushner — but do you recall, the most consequential pardon of all?President Trump has issued a flurry of late-term pardons in the lead-up to his departure from office, the most recent of which includes Paul Manafort, Roger Stone, and Charles Kushner, father of Jared Kushner. But two of the president's pardons this week have flown relatively under the radar, despite offering a potential glimpse into Trump's own future.John Tate and Jesse Benton were two of 26 people granted clemency on Wednesday, receiving pardons for their 2016 convictions on campaign bribery charges. The two men, who were aides to former U.S. Rep. Ron Paul, were found guilty of funneling $73,000 to a state senator in exchange for an endorsement of Paul during his 2012 presidential bid, The Des Moines Register reports. The payments were executed through a third-party vendor.What Tate and Benton did, however, looks an awful lot like an LLC used by the Trump campaign to funnel non-FEC registered payments. The company was reportedly created in part by Jared Kushner, per Business Insider.In the White House's official statement on the pardons, it said Tate and Benton were convicted based on an "unclear" and "not well established" campaign reporting law.As the Center for Responsive Politics' Anna Massoglia points out, their conviction was one of few campaign finance cases "resulting in substantial consequences," and the pardoning of the two could send "a very specific message that it is okay to violate FEC ultimate vendor disclosure rules."> THREAD: Trump's John Tate & Jesse Benton pardons are an even bigger deal than they initially seem, sending a very specific message that it is ok to violate FEC ultimate vendor disclosure rules—which Trump's 2020 campaign allegedly violated by routing money through shell companies https://t.co/AK4AC6MHq2> > — Anna Massoglia (@annalecta) December 24, 2020More stories from theweek.com The Christmas of 1918 7 scathing cartoons about Russia's massive cyberattack Joe Biden's anti-revolution takes shape

  • Cuomo grants Christmas clemency to 21 people including women locked up for killing abusive partners

    Christmas clemency for women convicted of murder and manslaughter

  • Boris Johnson 'totally capitulated' on fishing in trade deal, say EU diplomats

    Boris Johnson has "totally capitulated" on fishing in the EU trade deal negotiations, but both sides have compromised, EU diplomatic sources have claimed. On Thursday Mr Johnson finally accepted the bloc’s final offer of returning 25 percent of the value of fish caught in UK waters to British fishermen. It was a “big move”, sources said, because he had been demanding 35 percent of the value of the catch. French officials claimed that the British had made major last minute concessions. The UK and EU settled on a five and a half year transition period before annual negotiations over fishing opportunities would begin. There was satisfaction in Brussels at having forced the prime minister into the climbdown but anxiety he will not be able to sell the deal to hardline Brexiteers in his party. “It won’t be a total victory. It never is,” an EU diplomat said. “I am a little concerned that London has not got the landing rights for the deal with its constituents.” “Whatever happens will be presented as a great victory. The Europeans will yawn,” another source said before confidently predicting that Mr Johnson has the European Research Group of MPs “in his pocket”.

  • Turkey to require negative COVID-19 test result for travel

    Turkey is enacting precautions for international travel, requiring a negative COVID-19 test for passengers to enter the country starting Monday until March. Health Minister Fahrettin Koca tweeted a statement Friday saying travelers would need to present a negative result from a PCR test taken in a 72-hour window to board international flights en route to Turkey. Previously, tests weren't required for travel to Turkey.

  • Iran says U.S. approved its funds transfer to buy COVID vaccines

    DUBAI (Reuters) -Iran has won U.S. approval to transfer funds for coronavirus vaccines from overseas, the central bank chief said on Thursday, as its daily death toll fell to a three-month low. Central Bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati said an Iranian bank had received backing from the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control to transfer the money to a Swiss bank to pay for the vaccines. There was no immediate U.S. reaction to Hemmati's remarks.

  • Manafort and Stone may be hauled back to court despite Trump pardon, says top Mueller prosecutor

    ‘You cannot be pardoned for future crimes,’ says Andrew Weissman

  • Beaver found in Plymouth among first to be reintroduced to wild in Britain for 400 years

    A beaver rescued by police this week was among the first of its kind to be reintroduced to the wild in Britain for nearly 400 years The 20kg creature had escaped from a specially designed re-wilding enclosure near Poole Farm in Plymouth. Local officers say they were confronted with the “unusual sight” of the beaver at large on Monday and posted a photograph on social media of the runaway creature in the city. They tweeted yesterday: “An unusual sight for one of our crews on Monday night shift: Plymouth's resident beaver spotted out and about! “He has apparently been caught since and is back home for Christmas.” The male had been released into the wild at Forder Valley in November – the first in the city for 400 years. The Eurasian Beaver was originally caught in late September in the wild from the Tay Catchment in Scotland and was released as part of a nationwide trend to reintroduce beavers in the wild. The beaver’s behaviour and actions will now be monitored in the hope that its actions will reduce flooding further downstream and create habitats for wildlife in the Bircham Valley. This comes after a 25kg young male beaver was spotted in Italy for the first time in nearly 500 years, after it walked over the border from Austria or Slovenia into the Dolomites. The first clues that the rodent might be back on Italian soil were noticed by a hunting guide who spends his days roaming the mountains and forests. Forester Reinhard Pipperger had noticed at the time young trees had been felled along a stretch of the Sesto river in Northern Italy. The beaver was later photographed by a camera set up along the river by wildlife rangers.

  • Sheriff's deputy shoots man after exchanging fire in Houston

    A sheriff's deputy fatally shot a 31-year-old man at a Houston apartment complex early Friday, after the man opened fire on the deputy who was responding to a domestic violence call, authorities said. Harris County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Robert Minchew said the events that led up to the shooting around 4:30 a.m. on Christmas morning began the night before. Around 10:20 p.m. Thursday, a woman called police to report that her ex-boyfriend was at her north Houston apartment and threating to “shoot up the place,” Minchew said.

  • Erdogan says Turkey would like better ties with Israel, criticizes Palestine policy

    President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey would like to have better ties with Israel, but criticized Israeli policy toward Palestinians as "unacceptable" and a "red line" for Ankara, adding that intelligence talks resumed between the two sides. The two countries have had a bitter falling out in recent years, despite strong commercial ties, expelling ambassadors in 2018. Ankara has repeatedly condemned Israel's occupation in the West Bank and its treatment of Palestinians.