New York

NEW YORK (AP) — The New York attorney general’s office said Tuesday that it is conducting a criminal investigation into former President Donald Trump’s business empire, expanding what had previously been a civil probe.

“We have informed the Trump Organization that our investigation into the company is no longer purely civil in nature,” Fabien Levy, a spokesperson for Attorney General Letitia James, said in a statement.

“We are now actively investigating the Trump Organization in a criminal capacity, along with the Manhattan DA,” Levy said.

NEW YORK (AP) — More than a year after coronavirus shutdowns sent “the city that never sleeps” into a fitful slumber, New York could be wide awake again this summer.

Starting Wednesday, vaccinated New Yorkers can shed their masks in most situations, and restaurants, stores, gyms and many other businesses can go back to full capacity if they check vaccination cards or apps for proof that all patrons have been inoculated.

NEW YORK, May 18 (APP): Pakistan called on the Nonaligned Movement (NAM) to demand an immediate end to Israel’s deadly offensive in Palestine when the 120-member body’s Coordinating Bureau met here Monday to discuss the “horrendous” situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.

At the same time, Ambassador Munir Akram cautioned NAM members against succumbing to the rhetoric of the aggressor by drawing a moral or a military equivalence between a beleaguered and unarmed Palestinian people and one of the strongest militaries in the region.

UNITED NATIONS, May 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — A 193-member United Nations General Assembly vote on Tuesday (May 18) on a draft resolution calling “for an immediate suspension of the direct and indirect supply, sale or transfer of all weapons and munitions” to Myanmar has been postponed, diplomats said.

A spokesman for the UN General Assembly president said earlier on Monday that the body was due to vote on Tuesday. It was not immediately known when a vote would be rescheduled. Some diplomats said it had been delayed in a bid to win more support.

UNITED NATIONS, May 18 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The United States blocked – for the third time in a week – the adoption of a joint UN Security Council statement calling for a halt to Israeli-Palestinian violence, triggering a new emergency closed-door session set for Tuesday.

The text drafted by China, Tunisia and Norway was submitted late Sunday for approval Monday by the council’s 15 members, as Israeli jets continued to pound the Gaza Strip and the death toll from a week of violence passed 200.

18 May 2021; MEMO: The United Nations said that at least 52,000 people have been displaced due to Israeli air strikes that have destroyed or badly damaged nearly 450 buildings in the Gaza Strip.

About 47,000 of the displaced people have sought shelter in 58 UN-run schools in Gaza, Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Geneva, told reporters.

UNITED NATIONS, May 17 (Xinhua) -- UN humanitarians said Monday that 208 people were killed and at least 1,500 injured in a week of Israeli-Palestinian hostilities.

The Gaza Ministry of Health reported that 198 people died - including 58 children - and 1,300 injured in seven days of bombardments by Israel, ending at noon local time. Israel reported 10 people killed and hundreds more injured by Palestinian rocket attacks launched from Gaza, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said.

NEW YORK (AP) — Attorneys for Rudy Giuliani say a covert warrant that prosecutors obtained for his Apple iCloud account in November 2019 and a raid last month by agents who seized his electronic devices show they are treating him more like a drug kingpin or terrorist than a personal lawyer to former President Donald Trump.

In a letter to a federal judge in Manhattan, the lawyers said that by secretly seizing Giuliani’s cloud data files in 2019, investigators had improperly intruded on private communications with the president.

UNITED NATIONS, May 17 (Xinhua) -- UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) Executive Director Henrietta Fore on Sunday asked the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized countries to donate excess COVID-19 vaccines to the COVAX Facility, a global tool to procure and deliver vaccines for low- and middle-income countries.

She made the plea as G7 leaders will meet next month in Britain.

UNITED NATIONS, May 16 (NNN-AGENCIES) — The UN chief has said foreign fighters and mercenaries remain in Libya in violation of last October’s cease-fire agreement and called for their withdrawal.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a report to the UN Security Council that the smooth transfer of power to a new interim government, which took power in March, “brings renewed hope for the reunification of the country and its institutions and for a lasting peace.”