New York

WEST POINT, N.Y. (AP) — For 75 minutes, Maj. Joe Amoroso quizzed his students in SS202, American Politics, about civilian leadership of the military, the trust between the armed forces and the public, and how the military must not become a partisan tool.

There was one answer, he said, that would always be acceptable in his class filled with second-year students at the U.S. Military Academy. Hesitantly, one cadet offered a response: “The Constitution.”

“Yes,” Amoroso said emphatically.

BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) — Federal prosecutors said Friday that they will seek the death penalty against a white supremacist who killed 10 Black people at a Buffalo supermarket.

Payton Gendron, 20, is already serving a sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole after he pleaded guilty to state charges of murder and hate-motivated domestic terrorism in the 2022 attack.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump was ordered Friday to pay nearly $400,000 in legal fees to The New York Times and three investigative reporters after he sued them unsuccessfully over a Pulitzer Prize-winning 2018 story about his family’s wealth and tax practices.

The newspaper and reporters Susanne Craig, David Barstow and Russell Buettner were dismissed from the lawsuit in May. Trump’s claim against his estranged niece, Mary Trump, that she breached a prior settlement agreement by giving tax records to the reporters is still pending.

NEW YORK (AP) — When New York City officials erected a sprawling tent complex on a remote former airport in Brooklyn to house asylum-seeking migrants this fall, many of the recent arrivals and their advocates questioned the wisdom of placing thousands of people in a flood zone, miles from schools and other services, just as winter set in.

Those worries became reality this week when forecasts of a storm packing drenching rains and punishing winds forced a hasty evacuation Tuesday of the complex built on Floyd Bennett Field’s Runway 19.

NEW YORK (AP) — Barred from giving a formal closing argument, Donald Trump wrested an opportunity to speak in court at the conclusion of his New York civil fraud trial Thursday, unleashing a barrage of attacks in a six-minute diatribe before being cut off by the judge.

In an extraordinary move for any defendant, Trump not only sought to make his own summation but then brushed past a question from the judge about whether he would follow rules requiring him to keep his remarks focused on matters related to the trial.

NEW YORK (AP) — The illegal tunnel discovered under a historic Brooklyn synagogue compromised the stability of several structures surrounding the religious complex, prompting an order to vacate as well as citations against its owners, city officials said.

Inspectors with New York City’s building safety agency uncovered a tunnel that was 60 feet (18.3 meters) long and 8 feet (2.4 meters) wide beneath the Chabad-Lubavitch global headquarters in Crown Heights. It extended under several buildings in the vicinity, connecting between openings cut into basement walls.

NEW YORK (AP) — Barred from giving his own closing argument, Donald Trump took in his lawyer’s summation as a glowering, arms-folded spectator at the end of his New York civil fraud trial Thursday, hours after authorities responded to a bomb threat at the judge’s house.

Police checked out the threat at Judge Arthur Engoron’s Long Island home, which came a day after he denied the former president’s extraordinary request to deliver his own courtroom close, officials said. The proceedings were not delayed.

NEW YORK (AP) — A historic Brooklyn synagogue that serves as the center of an influential Hasidic Jewish movement was trashed this week during an unusual community dispute that began with the discovery of a secret underground tunnel and ended in brawl between worshippers and police.

NEW YORK (AP) — Former President Donald Trump aims to deliver his own closing argument Thursday in his New York civil business fraud trial in addition to his legal team’s summations, according to two people familiar with the highly unusual plan.

Trump is a defendant in the case brought by New York Attorney General Letitia James. She claims his net worth was inflated by billions of dollars on financial statements that helped him secure business loans and insurance.

NEW YORK (AP) — Sotheby’s defended itself at a trial Monday against accusations that it helped defraud a Russian oligarch out of tens of millions of dollars, saying it knew nothing of wrongdoing by an art buyer who advised the billionaire on buying works by famed artists like Amedeo Modigliani and Leonardo da Vinci.

Sotheby’s attorney Sara Shudofsky told a jury in an opening statement in Manhattan federal court that billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev was “trying to make an innocent party pay for what somebody else did to him.”