A judge’s last-minute overturning of New York’s pioneering ban on large size sugary drinks has handed a defeat to health-minded mayor Michael Bloomberg and created confusion for restaurants that had already ordered smaller cups and changed their menus.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s daughter Caroline is likely to get her shoplifting case dismissed with a day of community service after a judge today accepted an offer to resolve it.

A small plane slammed into a 40-storey apartment building in New York, killing two people in a crash that rained flaming debris onto the pavements and briefly raised fears of another terrorist attack.