2026.10.17 What we know about teen gunman who police say opened fire at Bend, Oregon school
The teen was a former student at Silver Rail Elementary School, officials said.
The 16-year-old gunman who opened fire inside a special needs classroom at Silver Rail Elementary School, killing three boys and a teacher was a former student at the Bend, Oregon school, investigators revealed Friday.
Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz identified the shooter Friday as Griffin John II, a Bend resident. The teenager made his way into the school Thursday afternoon with a Maverick 88 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and opened fire in the classroom after he shot at a truck outside of the school, Krantz told reporters at a news conference on Friday.
2026.10.17 Community leaders say foiled Illinois mass shooting was result of surge in anti-Hindu hate online
A thwarted mass shooting targeting a large Hindu temple in suburban Chicago was fueled by years of hateful rhetoric on social media against Hindus and Indians, community leaders say.
Authorities on Wednesday arrested Alexandros Paporakis, 19, who they said drove to the Sri Venkateswara Swami (Balaji) Temple in Aurora, Illinois, on Sunday afternoon, armed with a rifle and body armor. Officials said he remained in the parking lot for several minutes, but left after his weapon jammed. Paporakis was arrested later that day near his home in Palatine, Illinois, after a co-worker at a Taco Bell alerted authorities to his plan to “kill Indian people.”
The temple, the largest in Aurora, was crowded Sunday with thousands observing the first day of Navaratri, a nine-night celebration of Shakti — the divine feminine energy believed to be foundational to all creation.
NEW YORK (AP) — Actor Selma Blair did not intend to harm anyone during a flight and its aftermath where she is alleged to have assaulted two flight attendants, a police officer and a nurse, according to a statement Friday from her representatives.
The long statement sought to push back against what it said were inaccurate and unsympathetic portrayals of Blair, 54, and the Delta flight from Los Angeles to New York on Sunday that led to her first arrest.
“Selma Blair experienced a medical emergency on the flight,” the statement said. “There was no attempt to open the door of the aircraft. Selma did not intend to harm anyone.”
A previous statement along with her lawyer’s remarks in court had said briefly that a medical emergency was behind all that happened, but the new statement gave a more detailed defense.
Blair has multiple sclerosis, and without specifying she had done so, the statement said it is “outrageous” that anyone would suggest she doesn’t.
“Her diagnosis has been public since 2018,” the statement said. “What Selma has been able to do physically in the years since is nothing short of a miracle. She still has bad days, and she lives with pain daily. Selma also has pseudobulbar affect, a neurological condition secondary to her MS, which bears directly on how a medical episode presents to people who do not know her.”
The statement added: “For the same reason, she travels with a service dog who doesn’t leave her side, and the authorities took her dog from her.”
The statement said she has been a relentless advocate for disability rights and the MS community.
Blair was accused of injuring two flight attendants on the plane bound for John F. Kennedy Airport, then kicking a police officer taking her to the hospital and kicking a nurse once she got there, according to a statement from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
She pleaded not guilty Monday to two counts of assault on state charges involving the officer and the nurse, and a judge issued a protective order for them. She is free on bail, and her next court date is in January.
The FBI also issued Blair a notice charging her with assault related to her actions aboard the aircraft, according to a federal law enforcement official who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Authorities have released few details of what happened aboard the plane.
In air traffic communications, the Delta pilot asked the tower to have medical personnel waiting at the gate to treat bite marks and a bloody nose, but said ambulances were not necessary.
The Michigan-born Blair began acting in New York in her early 20s. Her major film roles have included 1999’s “Cruel Intentions,” 2001’s “Legally Blonde” and 2004’s “Hellboy.”
In 2016, Blair apologized for making statements she later regretted during a flight from Cancun to Los Angeles. She said she had mixed alcohol with medication, causing her to black out.
Friday’s statement said the public version of the more recent events has “been built almost entirely on a police statement and a decade-old headline.”
“A handful of journalists have taken the time to report on Selma as a human being rather than a headline, and we are grateful to them,” the statement said. “But fair reporting has been the exception, and in the space left by our silence, speculation has hardened into something being treated as fact.”x1200
2026.10.16 Hero dad who took down Oregon school shooter identified along with teacher, student both killed in attack
Staff member also cited for their bravery by police after throwing cellphone at attacker and tackling him
The good Samaritan who police in Bend, Oregon, said “neutralized” the 16-year-old shooter who killed three children and a teacher Thursday at Silver Rail Elementary School has been identified as 36-year-old Kaylub Giamanco, a law enforcement source confirmed to Fox News Digital.
During a news conference Friday, police identified the teacher who was killed in the shooting as 25-year-old Meghan Lambert, and also announced that among the youngest of the victims was 5-year-old Rhoam Summer. Police also revealed a school staff member threw a cellphone and tackled the attacker during the harrowing incident.
“Meghan was compassionate and had a huge heart. She always fought for the underdog and those with special needs. She was an incredible sister, daughter, niece and granddaughter. Her friends became her family,” Lambert’s family said in a statement read at the news conference.
“Yesterday was a terrible day for our community,” Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz said during the news conference. “Five people succumbed to their injuries at the scene, including the suspect.
“The deceased at the school scene included three children — ages 5, 8 and 11 — and one 25-year-old teacher. One 7-year-old child and a 54-year-old teacher were transported by Bend Fire to Saint Charles Bend with critical injuries.”
The 7-year-old is in serious but stable condition, and the 54-year-old teacher suffered non-life-threatening injuries.
Krantz said that, at 12:58 p.m., a witness who was driving by the school saw the suspect throw his gun over a fence and then climb the fence onto school property. He said the witness confronted the suspect, who then fired at his truck, hitting it at least three times. The driver, who was not injured by the gunfire, went down the street and made the initial 911 call at 12:59 p.m., he said.
Giamanco, who Krantz only identified as a “36-year-old man” during the briefing, drove into the school parking lot after seeing the suspect shoot at the truck, Krantz said, and saw the suspect shoot the glass panes on two double doors to get inside.
Once he was inside, the shooter went straight into the classroom that was to the left and fired as many as 15 rounds.
Krantz said the shooter used three types of ammunition and that all the victims were shot in the classroom.
Giamanco grabbed a .40-caliber pistol he legally kept in his car and went into the school through the same doors. After hearing the sounds of a shooting, he went into the classroom, where he saw the suspect struggling with a teacher, who had thrown her cellphone at and tackled the shooter.
Giamanco shot him multiple times.
“In addition to the 36-year-old man who bravely stepped in to stop the suspect, I want to highlight another person whose heroic action we need to recognize,” Krantz said. “A teacher in the classroom threw her cellphone at the suspect and then tackled him and fought to take the firearm from him.
“She was not injured in that incident, but she almost certainly helped prevent more bloodshed.”
Police arrived at the school within minutes of the 911 call at 1:02 p.m. having been told that the “suspect had been shot by a community member who had seen the suspect enter the school and pursued him into the school and engaged him, shooting him several times,” Krantz said.
Earlier Friday, Kenda Freeman said in a statement that her son, Giamanco, intervened in the attack and shot the gunman who killed three students and a teacher, The Associated Press reported.
Giamanco, a local carpenter and dad, has two daughters who attend Silver Rail, his brother, Kyle Gianmaco, told NBC News.
Kyle shared that Kaylub is shaken by the event and doesn’t want to speak to the public.
“We want the bystander who intervened to know we know he is going through a rough time, but we are grateful, and we think he is a hero,” Lambert’s family added in the statement.
“You selflessly put yourself at risk for others. We would like the other families to know they are in our thoughts and prayers. Meghan loved those children, and so we will show you love for her.”
The shooter forced his way into the school by firing a shotgun at locked doors, Krantz said, citing the initial investigation.
He said the shooter fired as many as 15 times and had about 44 rounds remaining when he was killed.
On Thursday, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek praised school staff, parents and first responders, along with the community member “who heroically intervened to stop further loss of life.”
Silver Rail Elementary School is a public school in the Bend-La Pine Schools District with roughly 400 students, kindergarten through fifth grade, and approximately 40 staff members.
2026.10.16 Brazen dog-napping pair snatches ‘loving and flirty’ Yorkshire Terrier named Chanel from NYC yard: cops
A pair of brazen dog-nappers snatched a “loving and flirty” Yorkshire Terrier named Chanel from a Queens yard when the owner briefly stepped away, according to authorities and the pup’s owner.
Owner Claudia Jaramillo Lopez, 47, told The Post Friday she took her eye off pint-sized Chanel for only two minutes around 6 p.m. Sept. 17 when the opportunistic thieves snatched Chanel from the front lawn of her College Point home.
Chanel — who is 10 years old and “very playful but not with anyone” — initially wouldn’t go with the cold-heated duo when they double-parked outside the 130th Street and 14th Avenue residence and beckoned to her, Lopez said.
An emotionally disturbed Queens woman who confessed to killing her 5-year-old daughter took the little girl into a locked room and asphyxiated her, prosecutors said at the woman’s arraignment Friday.
Little Fabiano Cabello had been in good health, playing at home for several hours Wednesday afternoon before her mother, Francis Cabello, brought her to a second-floor bedroom, closed the door and locked it, Queens Assistant District Attorney Lindsey Ruzza said.
Forty-five minutes later, the mom emerged from the room and called 911, chillingly telling a dispatcher, “I killed my daughter,” police and prosecutors said.
NYPD detectives charged Cabello, 32, late Thursday, a day after officers who rushed to the family’s Richmond Hill home found the little girl unconscious, lying face-up on a mattress, covered in vomit and bleeding from her mouth and nose.
Officers performed CPR on the child, but “given the severity” of the situation, they “didn’t even wait for an ambulance” and drove the victim to the hospital themselves, Ruzza said.
Fabiana Cabello died at Jamaica Hospital.
Ruzza said Fabiana sustained injuries consistent with asphyxiation, including scrapes to her face, spots on her eyes, heart and lungs from broken capillaries, called petechiae, swelling of her brain, and bruising and intermuscular hemorrhages on her shoulder blades and lower back.
Asphyxiation is an umbrella term covering death from oxygen deprivation, including strangulation, suffocation and smothering.
Police sources said Cabello has a history of mental health problems recorded by the NYPD, who have responded to the home at least once.
Cabello appeared in a white jumpsuit and handcuffs at her arraignment Friday in Queens for murder, where a judge ordered her held without bail. Asked by the judge to enter a plea, Cabello did not respond.
Her father waved at her from the courtroom’s gallery, but Cabello appeared not to notice.
“She might be facing a long time,” her father, Franklin Cabello, said outside court. “My family is crushed.”
Earlier this year, police were called to the family’s home and Cabello was taken to a hospital for observation, a police source with knowledge of the case said. Cabello was not violent during that prior incident, which did not involve the daughter, the source said.
“With more medication my daughter will get better,” Cabello’s father said as he fought back tears. “I’m hoping the judge takes into consideration her mental health.”
He said his daughter took good care of his granddaughter, saying, “My daughter, she loved her 100%. I can’t believe this.”
Asked if he forgives his daughter, he said, “Yes, I forgive her. I think right now she regrets what she did. She is hurting.”
Family members said Cabello spent several months in Jamaica Hospital’s psychiatric unit earlier this year, prompting her father to keep an eye on her, he told Spectrum News NY1.
Cabello told her father that her doctor said she could stop taking her medications, but the dad didn’t believe her and felt she was acting strange, the outlet reported.
“We think that (she) had mental problems,” the father said. “She takes medication, and she left the medication.”
Of his granddaughter, Fabiana, he said, “She was very intelligent, very important to the family.”
It was not immediately clear if Cabello’s months-long hospitalization was connected to the NYPD’s visit to her home.
Police took Cabello into custody Wednesday night after she called 911 to report her daughter’s injuries, at which point she was taken to Jamaica Hospital for a psychiatric observation.
It wasn’t immediately disclosed how little Fabiana died. A representative from the city’s medical examiner’s office said her cause of death was still being investigated Friday.
“It’s painful,” Fabiana’s great uncle, Punraj Singh, said at the family’s multigenerational home on Friday.
He last saw Fabiana, who the family called “Fabi,” the day before she was killed. “She’s very loving. Very caring,” he said. “She loves to speak a lot. I always have some chocolate or something (for her).”
Fabiana was especially attached to her great-grandmother, Singh said. “She would hold onto my mother — who is her great-grandmother — hold her hands,” Singh said.
“Sometimes she would notice my mom doesn’t have her spectacles on,” he added. “She would get them for her. Such an observant person.”
”It’s heartbreaking,” he said.
Singh acknowledged his great-niece Cabello spent time over the past year hospitalized for psychiatric issues, though said he never saw her be violent with her daughter.
Outside the home on 110th St. Thursday, the mother’s ex-boyfriend and Fabiana’s father, Kuldeep Singh, told the Daily News his ex was a loving mom he never would have suspected to be involved in the girl’s death.
“I never see anything in her actions to cause concern,” Singh said. “She cared for her so much. When I took my daughter, she called me many times to check on her, like, ‘Everything OK? Any problems?’”
Singh, 36, an Uber driver, did not live with his daughter but spoke with her nightly on the phone. When he last saw her two weeks ago, she seemed happy and normal, he said.
“She was happy with me,” he said. “She kiss me 100 times.”
He shared a voice message Fabiana sent him, saying, “Hi Papa, how are you?”
Neighbor Luis Salomon Perez, 60, said his grandchildren often played with Fabiana. Speaking in Spanish, he described her as “a good girl, very decent, kind and cheerful.”
About six months ago, Perez said he noticed a change in her mother.
“She used to come around to take her daughter to school — and then, from one moment to another, she stopped coming out,” he said.
“She was a good mother, but she was suffering from depression. I even spoke to her sister about it, how she was acting depressed, hardly ever leaving the house, not even taking the child to school or out to play anymore.”
Because such matters are confidential under state law, it was unclear if the city’s Administration for Children’s Services had any prior contact with the family.
“Our top priority is the safety and well-being of New York City children,” an ACS spokesperson said. “We are investigating this tragedy with the NYPD.”x1200
2026.10.16 Pennsylvania house that was scene of mass shooting was ‘filthy,’ filled with bottles of urine
The killer, 45-year-old family patriarch Matthew Stone, killed eight people at the Erie home — including his pregnant daughter — before turning the gun on himself.
A family patriarch had become “increasingly controlling” inside his “filthy” northwest Pennsylvania home before opening fire and killing eight people last week, officials said Thursday.
Matthew Stone, 45, died of a self-inflicted gunshot on Friday evening, bringing a tragic end to years of descent inside his Perry Street house in Erie, authorities said. The weapon he used was linked to a previous domestic violence allegation, according to police.
Toilets and sinks did not appear to be working and 2-liter bottles filled with urine were all over the house, Erie Police Chief Rick Lorah said.
“Detectives described the home as extremely filthy,” Lorah told reporters.
2026.10.15 Death of NYC autistic man found in family’s home ruled homicide as police eye mom
The death of a 25-year-old autistic man found slashed to death inside his family’s Queens home has been ruled a homicide — as cops continue to investigate if his mom was the killer, sources said.
Bryan Wong, who was nonverbal, was found by his dad with slit wrists and a gash to his neck in the family’s Woodside home on Wednesday – shortly before his mom, Suk Kuen Wong, 61, leapt off the Van Wyck Expressway in an apparent suicide attempt, law enforcement sources said.
Police have not made an arrest or identified a suspect — but are investigating the victim’s mom.
2026.10.15 Heartless fiend who left pooch tied up at cemetery with slit throat barred from owning pets: DA
A heartless Yonkers woman who left her pup tied up at a local cemetery with a slit throat won’t be allowed to own any more pets after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges, prosecutors said Thursday.
Anita Martin, 60, admitted that she left her 1-year-old mastiff mix, Frankie, tied up at St. John’s Cemetery shortly before 1 a.m. on Nov. 21 without food and water and an ugly gash — three hours before a good Samaritan rescued the poor pooch, Westchester County prosecutors said.
2026.10.15 Christa Pike is back behind bars after botched execution, but her ultimate sentence faces a new test
A capital punishment expert says Pike may not be eligible for execution if she cannot understand why she is being punished
2026.10.15 Judge cuts off ex-Venezuela dictator Nicolás Maduro’s rambling NYC court speech rejecting new torture rap
Former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro got cut off by a Manhattan federal judge Thursday as he delivered a rambling in-court speech while denying new charges of torturing US citizens.
“I reject this document in its entirety,” said the deposed despot, 63, sporting a tan jail jumpsuit and looking slimmed down since his January arrest.
Speaking through a Spanish interpreter, the accused drug-smuggling strongman said the charges were “false allegations” and the “sum of concepts and allegations that were already presented.”
2026.10.15 NYC college student dies after being given fentanyl, raped while unconscious in dorm room: prosecutors
A pair of alleged drug dealers have been charged with fatally dosing two college students at Manhattan’s Fashion Institute of Technology with fentanyl — and for raping one of the young women after she fell unconscious, officials said Thursday.
Suspect Moises Freire, 19, told Brian Peralta Cabrera, 18, that he wanted to feed the two victims drugs that were strong enough to “last the entire night” in the hopes of getting both women addicted to narcotics, calling it a “win-win scenario,” federal prosecutors said in a superseding indictment against the two men.
“This case alleges not only the deadly distribution of fentanyl to two young women but also the sexual assault of a victim rendered defenseless by that poisoning,” U.S. Attorney Jamie McDonald said Thursday in announcing the new indictment.
The two victims were not identified in court documents.
2026.10.15 Custodian handed 2.5-year prison sentence for aiding role in infamous jailbreak
A New Orleans jail worker received a 2.5-year prison sentence Thursday for enabling 10 inmates to escape through a hole behind a toilet after he turned off its water.
Custodian Sterling Williams, 34, pleaded guilty to one count of malfeasance in office for clearing the way for one of the largest jailbreaks in recent U.S. history. In May 2025, after Williams shut off the water in a cell, 10 inmates removed a toilet, crawled through a gap in the wall and scaled a fence out of the jail. They left behind a scrawled graffiti note reading “To Easy LoL.”
Williams’ attorney, Michael Kennedy, said that Williams did not intentionally help the escapees but acknowledged making mistakes. Williams should have had a work order generated before shutting off the water for the clogged toilet, his attorney said.
2026.10.14 Grinning loon who allegedly threw girlfriend, baby from NYC balcony seen for first time in court
The lowlife monster who flashed a sinister smile after being charged with tossing his girlfriend and their 8-month-old daughter from a Bronx balcony was seen for the first time in court Wednesday — but he wasn’t smiling this time.
Angel Carrasco, 31, appeared virtually from a hospital bed as he was arraigned on second-degree murder for fatally throwing his girlfriend, 23-year-old Nathaly Ramirez, from a 15-story balcony on October 5 — while she clutched their 8-month-old daughter Angel Novalty Carrasco-Ramirez, who somehow survived the fall.
2026.10.14 Drunk husband opens fire in Indiana IHOP, chases cook with knife while accusing him of sleeping with his wife: court docs
A drunk Indiana husband opened fire in a IHOP restaurant and accused a cook of having sex with his wife – before chasing him in the parking lot armed with a knife and leading cops on a 110mph police chase, according to court documents.
Austen Wable, 28, charged into the pancake house chain’s eatery in Muncie on Thursday – fired his weapon before turning his attention to the cook, WXIN reported.
“You f–ked my bitch, bro,” the enraged gunman, who said to be “extremely drunk,” shouted as he pushed the kitchen worker.
Wable allegedly pointed his gun at the cook but it discharged, leaving him with a gunshot wound in the leg.
“I’m leaking,” he shouted, according to a witness, who later spoke with cops.
2026.10.14 ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ illegal immigrant couple accused of brazen jewelry theft spree across four states
An illegal immigrant couple dubbed “Bonnie and Clyde” by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) allegedly turned strangers’ kindness into a payday, stealing necklaces from elderly victims in a jewelry theft spree stretching across four states.
Rudi Lacatusu, 28, and Mirabela Lacatusu, 26, Romanian nationals accused of targeting victims on Long Island, are now in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody, DHS announced Tuesday.
The pair allegedly carried out at least 14 jewelry thefts across New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Maryland, according to DHS, which cited local reporting.
The stolen necklaces were valued between $2,000 and $3,000 each.
One alleged encounter began with a seemingly innocent request for directions.
2026.10.14 NY college student slashed by Mexican national as she drove him home from work: police
A New York man is accused of slashing the throat of a female coworker while she was giving him a ride home, according to police.
Saratoga Springs police said they responded Friday to a report of a car that crashed into Augie’s To-Go, an Italian restaurant, and found the driver had a “serious laceration” to her neck that appeared unrelated to the crash.
David Cruz Torres, 36, of Michoacán, Mexico was identified as the passenger in the car and tried to flee the area before he was detained by police officers.
After an investigation, detectives learned that the female victim and Cruz Torres work together in Saratoga Springs.
At the end of their shift, Cruz Torres asked the woman for a ride home.
According to police, Cruz Torres attacked the victim while she was driving him home, pulling out a knife and cutting her throat.
The victim jumped out of the car as it was still moving and was able to yell for help.
2026.10.14 NYPD releases clearer images of suspects wanted for anti-gay beatdown on Manhattan street
The NYPD released new clearer images Wednesday of two suspects wanted for a homophobic assault in Manhattan.
The pair are being sought for an attack on two men, ages 31 and 37, on Broadway near W. 29th St. in NoMad about 7:30 p.m. July 31.
The attackers uttered homophobic remarks before repeatedly punching and kicking the victims, police said.
2026.10.14 Wyoming grad student allegedly poisoned her colleague, tried to flee U.S.: “Student’s life is in jeopardy”
A Wyoming microbiology graduate student from China has been arrested on accusations she poisoned the tea of a colleague who had pending patents and with whom she didn’t get along, then tried to flee the country after police questioned her.
Aili Wang, 32, was arrested Oct. 6 at Los Angeles International Airport, where prosecutors allege she sought to return to China. With her were laptops, electronic storage devices and documents now in the possession of police, who allege Wang was seen on surveillance video rummaging through the desk of the victim who specialized in technology for disease treatment – research similar to work she’d done in China.
2026.10.13 Trial in college student’s murder zeroes in on rum bottle, vulgar note and missing evidence
DNA allegedly linked Miguel Enrique Salguero-Olivares to the 2012 killing of UNC student Faith Hedgepeth
2026.10.13 Willing terrorist or forced to marry ISIS fighter? Halima Salman goes on trial in Brooklyn
A federal jury will sort out whether a young Brooklyn woman on trial for charges she got automatic weapon training from ISIS is a terrorist or a victim of an oppressive Islamic state, in what’s believed to be the first U.S. court trial of an alleged female ISIS member.
Halima Salman was 17 when her father brought her and her family to Syria and married her off to an ISIS fighter — and federal prosecutors hope to convince the jury that the young ex-Brooklynite joined the terrorist group and got military training to use an AK-47.
But Salman’s lawyers say the government is only giving the jury a “cherry-picked” part of a much larger picture. They argue that her father forced her into going to Syria, where she was trapped in a life that offered women few options but to do what ISIS and her husband told her.
Salman, now 27, is on trial in Brooklyn Federal Court, charged with knowingly receiving military training from a terrorist organization, a charge which carries a maximum 10-year sentence. Law enforcement sources say she’s the first alleged female ISIS member to face a federal court trial in the U.S.
“After the defendant turned 18, she married an ISIS partner who was a few years older than her. You’ll see a photograph of the defendant’s wedding day in front of an ISIS flag between July 2017 and March 2018,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Amir said in his opening statement Tuesday. “After she arrived in Syria, got married, came of age, the defendant received military training by ISIS, and the defendant practiced that military training.”
The evidence against Salman will include video of “holding, aiming, and walking with a deadly assault rifle,” Amir said, and after “extremist content” she exchanged with her husband.
2026.10.11 Grandpa ID’d as crazed killer who shot 9 — including his own kids, grandkids — in shocking Pa. murder-suicide: relatives
The crazed killer in a mass murder-suicide in Pennsylvania was a grandfather who slaughtered nine people, including his young grandchildren and a daughter days away from giving birth, according to horrified relatives.
The 45-year-old suspect, who has yet to be fully identified, was found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot in the family home in Erie after the carnage late Friday, with the murder weapon beside him, officials told Erie News Now.
After launching a shooting spree inside the house, he had stepped outside to gun down two more women, ages 51 and 37, who rushed to the scene, before going back inside and killing himself, according to cops.
A California chemical engineer who pleaded no contest to poisoning a colleague was putting cadmium in her water bottle, new video shows.
David Xu, a metallurgist at Berkeley Engineering and Research, spiked his colleague Rong Yuan’s food and water with cadmium — a toxic heavy metal — for nearly 18 months between 2017 and 2019.
“My blood was frozen,” Yuan told The San Francisco Standard of the first time she watched the video. “I almost died. I experienced death so, so close so many times. I cannot let him go.”
2026.10.11 Murderer in 65-year-old cold case killing of girl, 8, revealed to be Chicago homicide detective
The cold-case murder of an 8-year-old Chicago girl that remained a mystery for over 65 years was finally cracked with the help of new DNA technology — and her killer turned out to be one of the very people who was supposed to protect her, a cop.
New DNA evidence gathered from a genetic ancestry website led Chicago Police Department investigators to suspect former Chicago homicide detective Thomas Francis McInerney was responsible for the death of little Gloria Kowalewicz on Nov. 12, 1960, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Gloria’s murder shocked the Windy City more than six decades ago after her body was found in a ravine miles from her family’s West Englewood home. She had been shot twice in the head.
The little girl was last seen starting off from home on a short walk to a nearby church in order to receive communion.
The shocking murder ignited a massive manhunt for the killer by local and state police, as well as volunteer help from local firefighters, Boy Scouts and veterans, the Tribune reported.
Investigators made some progress – deducing that Gloria hadn’t been killed until she was taken to nearby woods and collecting eyewitness reports of a little girl seen with a young man, but they hadn’t been able to identify a suspect.
The investigation was finally broken open earlier this year, the outlet reported, after the FBI was able to connect McInerney, who was 24 at the time, to the crime scene thanks to DNA submitted to a family tree website.
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Thousands of protesters took to the streets of the Big Apple calling for the abolishment of ICE and the firing of NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, a day after a criminal illegal alien was shot in the Bronx Thursday.
As many as 5,000 furious demonstrators gathered and marched throughout lower Manhattan Friday afternoon chanting “Abolish ICE,” “ICE out of New York” and “Stop the deportations” in response to the shooting of illegal migrant Oscar Belgal, 28, in the Bronx Thursday.
Among the sea of protesters were activist Chelsea Manning, city advocate Jumaane Williams and lefty congress-hopefuls Brad Lander and Micah Lasher.
One of the demonstrators, Ilyana, who declined to give her last name, told The Post she has “been protesting all my life” but “this is some next level s–t.”
“They are ripping people from their families, shooting people in front of their children, and no one is doing anything about it,” she fumed.
Belgal, a Dominican Republic native, was shot in his car in Marble Hill while Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents were trying to nab him over his alleged ties to a blood-thirsty gang that has wreaked havoc in the Big Apple for decades.x1200
The NYPD on Friday released both body-worn camera footage and surveillance footage that show Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents racing up to undocumented immigrant Oscar Belgal’s car before he was shot and wounded, and cops frantically rushing him to the hospital.
One ICE agent fired seven rounds into the silver Honda Civic at about 4 p.m. on Marble Hill Ave. near W. 225th St. in the Bronx, striking Belgal in the neck as his 5-year-old son sat in the vehicle’s backseat, officials said.
The surveillance footage shows Belgal in his car by a fire hydrant while two ICE agents approach with weapons drawn. Instead of surrendering, he speeds off.
A second video shows the shooting, which is off camera, and agents swarming the area as stunned residents try to run away with their hands raised.
The NYPD body-worn camera footage shows three uniformed NYPD officers responding to the chaotic scene following the shooting, where they find Belgal, 28, sitting on the street with his hands cuffed behind his back while ICE agents surround him. A crowd of angry bystanders is seen heckling the agents.
One agent wearing a dark-colored hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, blue jeans, and gloves with a skeleton graphic on them is seen standing beside Belgal, with one hand pressed against the wounded man’s neck.
“ICE is shooting people?” one man is heard yelling in the background. “Get the f— out of here!”
Another ICE agent is seen in the footage, dressed in a yellow construction vest, with a badge hanging around his neck, talking on the phone beside Belgal while holding an assault rifle at his shoulder.
One NYPD officer is heard in the video pointing out that there is an ambulance, “right there.”
The officer then walks over to the unmarked black car they arrived in and says, “Are we putting him in or what?”
The cop goes back to Belgal, urging the other officers to bring him to their car, saying, “Come on, come on, come on.”
At least two of the NYPD officers grab Belgal and carry him over to the car where they place him in the backseat.
“Yo, put pressure, put pressure,” one officer is heard saying to the others.
The footage shows the officer driving the car in reverse down the block with the car’s sirens on, and then continuing to New York Presbyterian Allen Hospital.
“Put pressure, put pressure,” the cop repeated during their short ride.
A woman’s voice is heard on a radio asking the officers, “‘Is the person likely [to die] or not likely?’” and one officer responds, “‘Likely… Unknown. I don’t know.’”
A second officer chimes in, “‘Unknown at this time. He’s still breathing and conscious at this time.’”
Upon arriving at the hospital, the officers are captured pulling Belgal from the car and carrying him inside.
Belgal, whose wound was superficial, according to the Department of Homeland Security, was treated and taken “out of the city” to be deported, ICE officials said Friday.
The Department of Homeland Security said on X that the wounded man was “a criminal illegal alien from the Dominican Republic” that ICE had been searching for.
Mayor Mamdani said the boy was in the backseat of the SUV when ICE agents, who were wearing “construction vests and masks that concealed their faces,” started firing.
“There was no reasonable way to identify them as ICE agents,” Mamdani said. “Thank God, that child is physically unharmed. For the past two hours, I have been on the phone with President Trump and (U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Markwayne) Mullin, negotiating the release of the man ICE agents shot. Those negotiations were unsuccessful.”
2026.10.9 Mayor Mamdani, DHS head Mullin trade barbs over ICE shooting as immigration arrests soar in NY
Department of Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin laced into Mayor Mamdani and New York City’s sanctuary city policies Friday, a day after federal ICE agents in the Bronx shot a man in his car.
Mullin’s comments followed sharp criticism from Mamdani over the shooting of 28-year-old Oscar Belgal, in which ICE agents fired seven rounds while his 5-year-old son sat in the backseat of his Honda Civic. He was injured in the neck and taken into custody.
Mamdani late Thursday called the shooting an “outrage” and ICE a “rotten” agency that works to “sow chaos and terror.”
At a Friday press conference, Mullin attacked the mayor.
“His words are dangerous and incite hostility,” Mullin said of Mamdani. He also lambasted New York City’s sanctuary policies, under which local authorities are limited in cooperating with federal immigration law enforcement.
But while Belgal’s shooting has put a spotlight on longstanding concerns over ICE’s heavy-handed tactics, the agency has continued to press its deportation agenda on the streets of New York. Immigration arrests jumped this summer in New York State, with arrests climbing 68% from 922 in May to 1,552 in July, according to the Deportation Data Project.
2026.10.9 Feds believe ICE shooting gangbanger Oscar Belgal belonged to blood-thirsty Trinitarios gang
The illegal migrant who was shot by federal immigration agents in the Bronx is a suspected member of the blood-thirsty Trinitarios gang that’s wreaked havoc in the Big Apple for decades — including the horrific murder of an innocent teen in July, officials revealed Friday.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had been trying to nab Oscar Belgal, a Dominican Republic native, over his alleged ties to the thugs when he allegedly “accelerated” and “weaponized” his car against the officers as they tried to arrest him in Marble Hill on Thursday — prompting an agent to open fire in self-defense, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin and Marcos Charles, the head of ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations division, said Friday.
Mullin said that Belgal, 28, “was known to be affiliated with” the Trinitarios, a violent street gang that started as a protective band of Dominican inmates at Rikers Island in the early 1990s and has since grown into a multinational crime empire with footholds in the Bronx and upper Manhattan.
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2026.10.7 Cyclist, 71, killed in Central Park dog mishap was well-liked UWS biking enthusiast
A 71-year-old Manhattan man who was thrown to his death when his bicycle slammed into a Golden Retriever was a well-liked Upper West Side biking enthusiast, a neighbor said.
“He was very active on his bike,” Charlie, resident manager at West 89 Street building where Douglas Adams lived before the fatal mishap, told The Post Wednesday. “It’s unfortunate. The headlines kept saying 71 years old but he wasn’t in bad shape. He wasn’t like an old man.
“He was a great resident of the building, liked by all,” he said. “We’re shocked and saddened to see him go. He will be missed.”
The avid cyclist landed on the pavement, gravely injured despite wearing a helmet.
2026.10.7 California couple charged with abusing 14 surrogate-born children inside $10M Los Angeles mansion
Prosecutors allege Guojun Xuan and Silvia Zhang directed nannies to beat children daily and coached kids to deny abuse
A California couple faces severe felony charges after allegedly abusing at least 14 surrogate-born children — some as young as 2 months old — inside their multimillion-dollar Arcadia mansion, according to authorities.
Guojun Xuan, 66, and Silvia Zhang, 39, were each charged with one count of conspiracy to commit child abuse. Xuan also faces one felony count of child abuse, one felony count of accessory after the fact and five felony counts of dissuading a witness. Zhang faces an additional count of accessory after the fact and four counts of dissuading a witness. Both have pleaded not guilty.
Former Charles Manson follower Patricia Krenwinkel, who is serving a life prison term for her role in the 1969 Tate-LaBianca murders, has again been recommended for parole, state officials confirmed today.
Krenwinkel, 78, was preliminarily granted parole Tuesday at her 18th subsequent suitability hearing, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“All grants of parole are proposed decisions and become final only after a thorough and comprehensive review by the Board of Parole Hearings and the Governor,’” CDCR officials said in a statement.
Krenwinkel was convicted of seven counts of first-degree murder in 1971 for participating with fellow Manson family members Charles “Tex’” Watson and Leslie Van Houten in the Aug. 9, 1969, killings of the seven-months-pregnant actress Sharon Tate, Thomas Jay Sebring, Abigail Ann Folger, Wojciech Frykowski and Steven Earl Parent and the slayings of grocers Leno and Rosemary LaBianca the following day.
She originally received a death sentence, but it was reduced to life in prison under a California Supreme Court ruling that invalidated all death sentences before 1972.
Krenwinkel was most recently granted parole May 30, 2025, but Gov. Gavin Newsom reversed the decision Oct. 13, 2025.
In his decision, Newsom commended Krenwinkel for her “efforts to improve herself in prison,” including earning multiple college degrees and maintaining “an excellent disciplinary history.”
But he concluded that those factors were outweighed by concerns about her potential danger to the public.
“When considered as a whole, I find the evidence shows that she currently poses an unreasonable danger to society if released from prison at this time. Therefore, I reverse the decision to parole Ms. Krenwinkel,” Newsom wrote.
A parole board panel also recommended parole for Krenwinkel in May 2022, but Newsom reversed that decision later that year.
Under California law, parole commissioners must determine whether an incarcerated person currently poses an unreasonable risk to public safety, according to CDCR. The review includes risk-assessment tools, evaluations by forensic psychologists, the inmate’s prison record, parole plans and impact statements.
The preliminary decision in Krenwinkel’s case is subject to a 120-day review by the Board of Parole Hearings. Because she was convicted of murder, the governor then has an additional 30 days to review the decision and may allow it to stand or reverse it.
If the governor reverses the parole decision, Krenwinkel would be scheduled for another hearing within 18 months of Tuesday’s hearing, according to CDCR.x1200
2026.10.7 Elderly Portland train passenger cleared of attempted murder for shooting crazed flasher
An elderly train passenger has been cleared of attempted murder for shooting a crazed homeless flasher who exposed himself and threatened to rape his partner in Oregon.
Michael Grover Phill, 71, argued that he acted in self-defense when he shot 40-year-old Lance Hicks after he threatened him and his legally blind partner on the MAX train in North Portland, the Oregonian reported.
Hicks, who has a history of mental illness, boarded the train and approached Phill and his partner while exposing himself and making threats.
“All of the crotch of his pants is cut out, and his penis is in his hand, and he’s snarling,” Phill told the judge at Multnomah County Circuit Court in Portland earlier this month.
Hicks also threatened to rob Phill and sexually assault his partner during the terrifying experience in the early hours of Jan. 30.
The couple got up to leave, but Hicks continued to advance toward them, at which point Phill pulled his handgun from his jacket, shot the crazed homeless man once in the thigh, and fled.
Phill said he shouted, “Do not run up on me!” at Hicks, who kept coming toward him, before he opened fire.
“I’m sorry to say that I had to [shoot him]. I didn’t want to,” Phill told his defense attorney, Henry Oostrom-Shah.
Phill was charged with attempted murder, assault, and unlawful use of a weapon, as well as with being a felon in possession of a firearm, and could have faced around 10 years in prison.
But the jury refused to find him guilty of the shooting, although he was convicted of the firearm possession charges.
Phill was sentenced to roughly two years in prison during a hearing last week, despite Oostrom-Shah asking that he receive only probation, with no jail or prison given his age, poor health, and the decade since his last felony conviction.
“I can’t and won’t punish him for the actual shooting. But I do believe that simply having the gun in his possession … may have emboldened him to do things that a reasonable person wouldn’t have done otherwise,” Judge Eric Dahlin said in sentencing Phill.
Phill, who wears an eyepatch because he has glaucoma and a cataract, told the judge during his trial that he shot Hicks to protect his partner, who is under 5 feet, weighs less than 100 pounds, and is legally blind due to losing her peripheral vision.
He told the judge he carries a gun after being attacked before, including three times in Portland during his 50 years in the city, and once in California, when a man hit him in the head with an empty 40-ounce beer bottle.
“On the transportation system, you know it seems you run into all types of crazy people,” Phill said.
After the shooting, Phill said he threw the gun in some bushes and took off his coat to avoid detection, but was spotted by a Portland police officer and later arrested.
Phill said that due to previous convictions, he didn’t want to either get himself in trouble or get Hicks in trouble.
“I ain’t no rat, you know. So I was just trying to get away from him,” he said, adding that he was frightened.
“Black men accused of shooting in Portland late at night? I’ve had my difficulties, you know my past with the law, so it wasn’t going to be good,” Phill told the judge.
Carrying a gun is forbidden onboard TriMet trains.
“This shooting on TriMet never would have happened had Mr. Phill not possessed a firearm,” Deputy District Attorney Branden Meadows said in a statement.
“Perhaps he would have made better choices that evening,” he added, noting that Phill could have alerted security officers who had been on board the train, or pressed the call button.
Hicks wasn’t charged with any crimes, including indecent exposure, by prosecutors over his actions that night.
His apparent mental health problems would have made it difficult to prove he intended to expose his genitals on the train that night, Meadows said.
In 2023, Hicks was convicted of public indecency on a MAX train in Hillsboro after the operator said he saw Hicks expose himself and masturbate.
Hicks was not able to give police an interview due to what cops called his confused mental state, and he did not testify at trial or attend last week’s sentencing hearing.
2026.10.7 Fatal Stabbing of a 7-Year-Old Girl Rattles Chicago: ‘That Was a Baby’
The attack has raised questions about whether the suspect was overlooked by authorities despite a history of mental health problems and violent offenses.
2026.10.6 Ole Miss students, bar workers warn of culture of underage drinking, fake ID schemes and frat allegations
Ole Miss students and Oxford bartenders and bouncers say fake IDs and 18+ loopholes are used to bypass rules
2026.10.3 After 7 years of agony, NY mom discovers C-section surgeons left a needle in her belly: lawsuit
2026.10.3 Former Knoxville police chief says investigators are still haunted by Colleen Slemmer’s murder 31 years later
Christa Pike, convicted of torturing and killing Colleen Slemmer in 1995, survived after two attempted lethal injections
More than three decades after the torture, mutilation and murder of Tennessee 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, former Knoxville Police Chief Phil Keith says he’s still haunted by the “satanic” crime scene.
“I’ll remember this case to the day I die,” he told Fox News Digital Thursday. Keith had been the city’s chief of police from 1988 until 2004 and spent decades in law enforcement.
Led by then-18-year-old Christa Pike, three classmates from a vocational school for troubled youths, the Knoxville Job Corps Center, lured Slemmer to her death by claiming they want to go to a music store and pick up marijuana they’d stashed in a park.
“She represents pure evil,” Keith said of Pike.
They tortured Slemmer for nearly an hour, Keith said, beating, cutting and gagging her before crushing her skull against the ground with a chunk of broken asphalt.
When she tried to escape, they held her down. When she begged for her life, they slashed her with blades. And when she cried, they gagged her with a hair tie. Pike, 18 at the time and now 50, kept a fragment of her skull as a trophy and showed it off to classmates before her arrest. Her boyfriend at the time, who was also convicted but did not face the death penalty because he was only 17, carved pentagrams into her chest and face.
At trial, an expert said the attack had “satanic elements” and also involved “the phenomenon of collective aggression, in which a group of people become emotionally aroused and ‘the end result is that they engage in some kind of violent, extremely violent activity,’” court records show.
The University of Tennessee groundskeeper who found her remains testified at trial that he initially thought he’d come across an animal carcass before he saw the victim’s clothes through the blood, according to court records.
2026.10.2 Outraged Cornell students, parents demand accountability in Jane Doe gang-rape case: ‘Fight like hell’
ITHACA — More than 100 Cornell University students, alumni, parents and professors vented their outrage at a meeting Thursday night over the bombshell Jane Doe gang rape case — with one student calling others to “fight like hell against the administration.”
Many members of the upstate New York campus community broke down in tears while addressing the hearing — eviscerating the Ivy League’s response to the harrowing allegations from a now-former student, identified as Jane Doe, in 2024.
“Survivors need to know they’re supported … through this event, we’ve seen exactly the opposite,” a student — who divulged she was sexually assaulted two years ago — told the crowd.
“We need to fight like hell against the administration … to my fellow students, speak loud about the wrongdoings that have been done here on campus because if we don’t, we may never be able to again.”
Thursday’s student government hearing at the prestigious school, which has little more than 16,000 undergraduate students, comes as Jane Doe’s gang-rape allegations catapulted into the spotlight this week, calling into question whether the case was mishandled by Cornell, local prosecutors and cops.
In a 101-page lawsuit, Jane Doe claims seven members of the Chi Phi fraternity took turns raping her for hours on Oct. 20 2024 after allegedly plying her with ketamine and booze.
She reported the alleged assault to campus police on Nov. 8 and the school suspended and expelled some of the students following a lengthy Title IX investigation.
However, no criminal charges were ever filed, with prosecutors saying there was insufficient evidence.
Students at Thursday night’s meeting were quick to blame Cornell administration.
“I think the administration should make a statement instead of hiding in Day Hall like the cowards they are,” one student blasted.
“All I can think about is Jane Doe…How many times did she have to pass her rapists in the hallway? It’s awful,” they said.
A male senior said he “refuse[s] to accept a degree from a university who allows … people to be treated this way” and demanded “the university has to be accountable within this year.”
“Otherwise there’s going to be an instruction from the top down to sexually assault and practice toxic masculinity,” he said.
The fraternity system, as a whole, “[has] a history of ritualizing sexual violence,” the senior noted, with a professor and mother of a student proposing “we crack down on fraternities on campus and get rid of the ones that consistently violate safety policies and foster other problems.”
A male freshman echoed the growing disgust about fraternity cultures, sharing that one of his first experiences on campus this year was running into another first-year outside a frat house who “wasn’t allowed in” and was abandoned by her friends because she “didn’t want to suck a d–k.”
“I can’t even tell you how let down I feel,” a mother of a student said, breaking down in tears immediately.
Although she is proud of the community and of Jane Doe, the mother said she is “disgusted that she had to file a civil lawsuit to make her voice heard.”
“We’ve been fighting rape culture my entire life,” the mother, who is turning 50 this year, said.
“You should be able to go to any college in the country and be safe,” she demanded, while another stressed, “No woman should feel unsafe walking at the place where they are receiving their education.”
“They should not feel like all of the evidence and information they give cops won’t make it to the DA’s office,” she added, seemingly referencing the police transcript Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten’s office claimed not to receive in which Jane Doe said, “I can say with 100% confidence that I was raped.”
Sophia, a student and ACLU member, warned that “the Cornell student body is in a mental health crisis right now” and demanded that “they should not be expected” to fulfill academic responsibilities “while they’re grieving.”
The mother and university professor shared that while she’d “heard many people here tonight say they’re embarrassed and ashamed to be a Cornelian,” she’s “so proud that my child is going here at a time when you all are trying to break the cycle.”
“I don’t want you to be embarrassed. I want you to see the change you can make and make it, because it’s systemic, cultural and it’s been around for a long time,” she said, choking up.
“You are less likely to get help from administrators,” she cautioned. “But I promise you there are faculty and staff on this campus who want to help you.”
“Use this anger…and get to work tomorrow,” she added.
2026.10.2 A Canal Street vendor violently knocked my phone away as I exposed the illegal activities flooding Chinatown
My assignment was simple: film a video about the street vendors who’ve, once again, descended on Canal Street like locusts to hawk duped designer duds.
I was not expecting a violent altercation over cheap sunglasses with phony logos but that’s what I got.
The sidewalk was carpeted with fake items from every high-end designer I could think of all being sold at a deep discount by aggressive sellers running amok at the new frontier of counterfeit luxury.
2026.10.2 Why botched lethal injections are becoming more common
2026.10.2 Christa Pike is in critical condition after failed execution in Tennessee, her lawyers say
At least seven needles were used to administer the lethal injection doses into Pike’s arm over the course of an hour, said one of her lawyers, who witnessed the failed execution attempt.
Christa Pike shouldn’t still be breathing. She survived two injections of lethal drugs in a harrowing failed execution by the state of Tennessee, raising questions about how the procedure was carried out and how it went wrong.
Nearly 24 hours after Pike was set to be put to death for a murder she committed when she was 18, she remains alive but in a critical condition and is receiving care, her lawyers said Thursday afternoon.
Her prognosis is unclear, said Randall Spivey, one of her lawyers. Neither he nor another lawyer, Stephen Ferrell, who spoke with reporters, said he had seen her in the hospital.
“I’m haunted by last night,” said Spivey, who was there during the execution attempt.
Spivey said he counted at least seven needles used in Pike’s left arm alone, “one of which appeared to be bent when it was pulled from her arm after an unsuccessful attempt.”
2026.10.2 Tennessee death row inmate survives two lethal injections
2026.10.1 ‘Scrubs’ writer Eric Weinberg’s rape trial starts in L.A.: 8 women to testify
Eric Weinberg, the screenwriter and producer responsible for television comedies “Scrubs,” “Californication” and “Anger Management” went on trial for rape on Thursday.
Eight women will testify against Weinberg, according to Variety.
They’re expected to tell jurors that the 66-year-old scribe presented himself as an amateur photographer to lure women to his home in Los Feliz, Los Angeles, where they were sexually assaulted.
Wienberg is charged with 23 counts of rape and sexual assault. His trial will reportedly last as long as eight weeks.
2026.10.1 Accused Central Park killer gave chilling confession in beating of homeless artist Elise Bainbridge Hill
The accused Central Park killer of Elise Bainbridge Hill gave a chilling confession to police, claiming the beloved homeless artist hit him with a stick first, which he then grabbed and beat her with more than 20 times “until she couldn’t hit me anymore,” court documents filed Thursday alleged.
The disturbing account emerged in charging papers as Jonathan Robles, 36, was arraigned for murder at a Manhattan Criminal Court proceeding he attended remotely from his hospital bedside.
A witness discovered Hill, who also went by the name Francis Lee Rogers, early Sunday by a gazebo close to The Ramble and Central Park Boathouse near East Drive and E. 74th St., according to the complaint. The 63-year-old was lying lifeless with a head injury and cuts all over her head and hands. The witness also saw pieces of a stick near Hill that appeared to be covered in blood.
Robles turned himself in later Sunday and confessed to the killing, identifying the victim in a photo and telling members of the Central Park Precinct Detective Squad, “She hit me on my body with a stick, so I took the stick from her. I hit her with it more than 20 times. I did it until she couldn’t hit me anymore,” the complaint alleges.
Robles, who police said was hospitalized for a hand injury after turning himself in, was held without bail on Thursday by Judge Sheridan Jack-Browne, who also ordered a psychiatric evaluation. Prosecutors said they had secured an indictment from a grand jury and that Robles would next appear in court Oct. 13.
Reached for comment, his attorney, Mitchell Schuman, said, “The court ordered a psychiatric evaluation to see whether Mr. Robles is mentally fit to proceed with this case. It is very clear that he suffers from a serious mental illness and once the evaluations are completed, that issue will be dealt with in court.”
Robles and Hill had previous hostile encounters with one another and at one point stayed in or near the same homeless encampment, police previously said.
Robles lives in a transitional housing facility in Hell’s Kitchen, according to police, and Hill was living in the park after her former landlord at an E. 76th St. apartment tried to evict her.
Hill, a talented painter fondly known to many in the bird-watching community who frequent The Ramble, was the subject of a 2007 documentary, “Begging Naked.” The poignant film examines how life’s vagaries can shape a person’s existence, documenting Hill’s experiences as a sex worker and struggles with addiction, poverty and mental illness after fleeing her home and an abusive father when she was a teen.
Hill ultimately went to rehab, the documentary details, where she learned how to paint and other forms of artistic expression.
While she continued to struggle, according to those who knew her, the devoted artist was unwavering in her dedication to her craft, painting vibrant and ethereal scenes of the wildlife in Central Park in works she often sold to tourists. A friend of hers, Joe Lopez, told The News on Monday that Hill was in charge of the bird feeders at The Ramble for a time.
The filmmaker behind the documentary, Karen Gehres, had been friends with Hill since the 1990s, but said they had grown apart as Hill’s mental health worsened. Speaking to The News in the wake of Hill’s killing, she described her old friend as highly intelligent and loyal.
“She’s probably one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met in my life. She’s hilarious, a great sense of humor, the most amazing artist,” Gehres said Monday.
“She resisted leaving the park when I was still talking to her. She was a very, very, very fiercely independent person. Anybody that’s ever dealt with anybody that has mental illness, they know that sometimes it just doesn’t matter what you say, how much you try.”
2026.9.29 California court docs reveal bitter custody battle preceded killing of New York Times executive
Parents-in-law held on suspicion of shooting Jonathan McKinsey in broad daylight
In subsequent court filings, an attorney for Jang wrote that McKinsey “is simply prone to domestic violence and child abuse,” and that Jang said the incident was “far from the first time” that he had “committed physical violence against me or our family members.”
“Due to his violent and negligent history, our children are simply not safe when left unsupervised and in his care,” Jang wrote in a court filing last month.
McKinsey disputed that portrayal and made allegations of his own. In December 2025, he sought a restraining order against Jang, alleging years of abuse by his wife dating back more than 15 years. His filing included an allegation that she beat him with a frying pan in 2013 and accusations that she verbally denigrated their children.
His petition also alleged that Jang’s mother — shooting suspect Shili Chen — had been verbally abusive to one of the couple’s young children, raising objections over the child’s clothing. McKinsey, who was transgender, alleged that Chen also directed anti-LGBTQ+ slurs at him and the child. According to the petition, Chen referred first to the child, then to McKinsey, as a “disgusting queer” and a “pervert.”
In his filing, McKinsey accused Jang of being abusive during medical procedures related to his transition. In one instance, he alleged Jang tried to pull medical tubes from his body shortly after a procedure.
McKinsey also alleged Jang’s father, who was not named in the filing, punched him in the chest while he was recovering from double mastectomy surgery.
A message left with Jang’s attorney was not immediately returned Monday afternoon.
A LinkedIn page bearing McKinsey’s name shows he worked at The New York Times for more than three years, most recently as director of engineering for games player experience. An email to The New York Times Co. was not immediately returned Monday afternoon.
On Monday, several neighbors in McKinsey’s apartment building said they seldom saw McKinsey or Jang, and many declined to comment further. One woman, who gave only her first name, Eva, said she arrived home around midnight Sunday to find several sheriff’s deputy vehicles parked outside McKinsey’s apartment — a sight she described as “extremely shocking” for the normally “quiet neighborhood.”
2026.9.29 NY Dem House hopeful Conley grilled on sanctuary laws by parents of teen killed by migrant in fiery debate with Rep. Mike Lawler
2026.9.28 Hulking 14-year-old boy busted in brutal NYC rape of delivery woman: cops, sources
A hulking 14-year-old boy was busted Monday for raping a woman at gunpoint as she delivered a package on Staten Island, cops and law-enforcement sources said.
The teen — described by law enforcement as a “total stranger” to the 37-year-old victim — was arrested around 10:30 a.m. and charged with rape and a slew of other raps in the heinous Sept. 9 sex attack in Dongan Hills, police said.
The boy, who is about 6 feet tall and 200 pounds, approached the woman as she made the delivery at Dongan Hills Avenue and Jefferson Street around 6 p.m., according to authorities and sources.
2026.9.27 Shocking video shows Amazon delivery driver peeing all over posh NYC apartment lobby
2026.9.27 Prostitution busts plunge 60% — but hookers multiply — in NYC’s infamous ‘Market of Sweethearts’
Scoring illegal sex along Queens’ Roosevelt Avenue has never been easier — as the number of hookers has multiplied and prostitution-related arrests have plunged by 60% along the seedy strip since soft-on-crime socialist Zohran Mamdani became mayor this year.
John, a 40-year-old Manhattan horndog, said he has no problem schlepping on the subway to the notorious open-air sex bazaar — nicknamed the “Market of Sweethearts” — because the women are “cheap” and cops have their hands tied by lax laws and policies.
There, scantily-clad streetwalkers brazenly solicit passersby around the clock, offering “happy ending” massages and more in front of rows of two-story commercial buildings. Often the activity occurs within sight of cops on patrol.
The hookers walk their wide-eyed customers inside dozens of illegally operating brothels throughout the avenue’s red-light district, which stretches roughly two miles through Jackson Heights and Corona.
“I can get it done for $60 to $80,” boasted John. “In Manhattan . . . it costs $200 to $300.”
Negotiating a tryst is “super easy,” he added. “They just show up and that’s it, and when I get bored with those women, I head to Flushing.
“The Chinese women charge $60 for sex and $40 for oral sex,” he said. “They’re open to sex without a condom for $100 or more.
“Latinas are more expensive. With the Chinese women, you get 30 minutes; the Latinas are obsessed with watching the clock.”
He said the woman lead customers to a “place upstairs, in very small rooms.”
A Post reporter last week visited Roosevelt Avenue near 90th Street and spotted nine Asian women turning tricks while two others acted as hostesses or managers. They all declined to comment.
However, when the reporter later approached a group of Ecuadorian sex workers, they began competing for his business.
One offered “massages” using “three positions” running $100 for 20 minutes — which included $50 to rent time in a room of a nearby building.
The second woman offered a discount: “I can [give] you the hour for $300. Normally it’s just 15 minutes, but a half hour we can do it for $150. I give you four positions. We can do whatever.”
2026.9.26 Hard luck: NYC man allegedly left with ‘deformed’ penis after botched enlargement procedure
A Bronx man claims he was left in agony — and dying of embarrassment — after a penis-enlargement-gone-wrong at a New York City men’s clinic.
He blames Best Man Manhattan and Dr. Amanuel Samad Himmed for botching the “penile enhancement” treatments, according to a lawsuit filed Sept. 17 in Manhattan Supreme Court.
The clinic, which boasts “New York’s leading penis enlargement specialists,” offers a nonsurgical procedure involving microinjections of phallic fillers into the genitals to “stimulate collagen production for permanent, lifetime enlargement,” according to its website.
Best Man pitches the unorthodox procedure — which costs up to $14,950 — as a way for men to boost their confidence and sex lives.
But the 31-year-old, whose name is being withheld for privacy, claims the treatments did the opposite – leaving his manhood aching, deformed and unable to function.
After the second treatment, he “developed progressive abnormalities and complications, including pain, deformity, skin changes and impairment of sexual and penile function,” according to the filing, which seeks unspecified damages.
2026.9.26 Emotionally disturbed woman killed by NYPD cops in Times Square was ‘tired of this world’: video
The emotionally disturbed woman who was fatally shot by police in Times Square after she stabbed two people, killing one of them, repeatedly challenged cops to “come get” her because she was “tired of this world,” as officers tried to calm her down, NYPD body camera footage of the harrowing incident released Saturday shows.
“You’re going to have to kill me,” Pamela Cisneros told cops near the corner of Seventh Ave. and W. 43rd St. as she held two Farberware knives in front of her on the afternoon of Aug. 31.
Arriving officers spent more than four minutes calmly talking to Cisneros, trying to get her to drop the knives, according to the body camera footage, but she wouldn’t comply.
“I’m tired of this world already,” Cisneros, 49, said, according to the videos. “I’m tired of this s—. I’ve been through so much s— already.”
Moments earlier, Cisneros, who had a history of mental health issues, had pulled the knives from a red Target bag and stabbed a 69-year-old man in the abdomen near W. 41st St. and Seventh Ave.
Within 20 seconds, the violence continued as Cisneros headed north to W. 42nd St. and stabbed Erin Piacenti, 32, of Chester, N.J., in the stomach, killing her. Piacenti was a vice president at nearby Bank of America. She had just returned to work that Monday after recently giving birth to a baby daughter.
Police Officer Ryan Brito, one of the first cops to arrive at the scene, kept asking her what was going on and encouraged her to calm down.
“Talk to us,” he implored Cisneros. “What’s going on? Breathe.”
“Come get me,” Cisneros reportedly told the officers.
“We’re not doing this now,” another cop at the scene said, according to the video footage.
“Yes, you are.”
“We’re not going to kill you,” Brito assured her. “We don’t want to fight you. Why would we want to do that? We’re trying to help you.”
“Yes, you are. Yes, you are,” Cisneros said calmly. “Either that or I’ll kill all of you.”
“Do you believe in God?” Brito asked her.
“No. Not anymore,” she said. “I’m tired of this fight. I’m tired of this world already.”
“The world is hard, especially in New York City,” Brito said. “I know New York City is hard. Trust me, we all suffer. But this is not the way.”
“It’s the only way out,” Cisneros countered.
“I’ve been through some s— myself,” Brito said, trying to connect with Cisneros. “I’ve been where you at right now. I promise you. I used to work at Wendy’s. I’ve been down there.”
At one point, Cisneros seemed confused, asking the officers, “You two part of the show?”
With a half dozen cops surrounding her, Cisneros began pinwheeling her arms and swinging the knives as she charged at the officers. Two cops fired their tazers, but they weren’t effective. As Cisneros got within a few feet of the officers, Police Officers Joseph O’Connor and Steven Darcy pulled their weapons and fired off three rounds.
Cisneros was rushed to Bellevue Hospital, where she died.
Neither O’Connor nor Darcy has a disciplinary history with the NYPD. O’Connor has been with the NYPD for four years. Darcy has three.
The NYPD Force Investigations Division was investigating Cisneros’ death.
“This was an extraordinarily dangerous situation unfolding in the heart of Times Square, the crossroads of the world,” Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch said following the shooting. “Our officers were confronted with a rapidly evolving threat with countless innocent people around them. In that moment, they did what we trained them to do.”
Tisch said Cisneros has a history of mental health issues, including incidents in 2018 and 2019. Cisneros has no criminal record in New York City.
New York City has struggled with the care and treatment of the mentally ill for years. The shutdown of large-scale psychiatric institutions left a void in the system, as the community-based care network that was supposed to fill the gap is widely seen as inadequate and underfunded.
Relatives told the Daily News that Cisneros had a decades-long history of mental illness, including postpartum depression, multiple hospitalizations — and a suicide attempt in which she threw herself on the subway tracks. Because she had trouble taking daily psychiatric medication, Cisneros was prescribed monthly injections instead, her brother Patrick Peralta said.
“For the last six years now, she was getting injections and nothing was wrong,” he told The News following her death. “As long as she got the medication, she was fine … She never showed any violence towards anybody.”
“She used to go in person (to get the injections) and then I just found out that now she was doing it herself,” he added. “So I don’t know if she stopped doing it, because my parents are old and are they trying to check to make sure that she was getting injections. That’s the only thing I can suggest, that maybe she didn’t get the last couple of months of injections.”
“Her brain was going all over,” he said.
2026.9.26 Notorious NYC cannibal ‘Butcher of Tompkins Square Park’ closer to freedom after decades in city loony bin: source
The notorious New York City cannibal known as “The Butcher of Tompkins Square Park” has been moved to a lower-security wing of the Wards Island loony bin — putting him one step closer to freedom, The Post has learned.
East Village weed dealer Daniel Rakowitz became infamous for slaughtering his roommate Monkia Beerle in 1989, chopping up and cooking her, and slurping up a revolting soup of brains and fingers. He then fed it to unsuspecting hobos in Tompkins Square Park.
With or without the help of “The View” co-host Sunny Hostin — who propelled the case back into the headlines this week after saying she was the lone holdout juror in the murder trial, a claim since debunked — Rakowitz, 65, was found not guilty of murder by reason of insanity in 1991.
Instead of state prison, he was sent to Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center on Ward’s Island in the East River.
Since 2020, more than 200 criminal patients were moved from the original maximum-security Kirby facility — a massive brick structure with barred windows — to one side of the nearby and more modern, state-run Manhattan Psychiatric Center.
Rakowitz, 65, was quietly moved to the civilian side about two years ago, and has less security around him as a result, the source said.
2026.9.26 Patrick Clancy reveals Lindsay was ‘fun-loving’ and ‘outgoing’ in years before strangling their kids
2026.9.26 Charlie Kirk assassination report highlights several security failures at Utah Valley University
Utah Valley University did not have a robust security plan in place and failed to properly follow its own guidelines for major events on the day Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the school’s campus, according to an independent report on the shooting released Friday.
The 158-page independent review of the events surrounding the Sep. 10, 2025, assassination of the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder determined that nobody at the university acted “in bad faith or in willful and wanton disregard for the safety of others.”
But the report identified several eyebrow-raising decisions by school officials that “warrant attention as UVU considers how to strengthen the safety and security of campus events in the future.”
“The September 10 TPUSA event presented several characteristics that warranted a more formal event security planning process,” the report stated, noting that Kirk was a high-profile speaker, there was anticipated protest activity, uncertainty about how many people were attending and the event was taking place outdoors near “elevated vantage points.”
A Nigerian national accused of killing a UMass Dartmouth football player entered the US on a tourist visa and overstayed it before receiving deferred action under both the Biden and Trump administrations, multiple federal law enforcement sources told Fox News.
Chukwunonso Uzoma David Uzoma Eze is charged with murder in connection with the stabbing death of UMass Dartmouth football player Marvins Antoine, 19, during an altercation in Providence, Rhode Island, over the weekend.
A second player, Kensley Macean, 19, suffered stab wounds to his head and neck and was taken to Rhode Island Hospital, according to the Providence Police Department.
Sources told Fox News that Eze first entered the US on a B-2 tourist visa in 2015.
Eze received two extensions on his visa under the Obama administration before remaining in the country after his authorized stay expired, according to the sources.
Sources said the Biden administration approved Eze’s request for deferred action in September 2022.
He applied for deferred action again in February 2025 and October 2025, with the latter request approved under the Trump administration on Oct. 8, 2025, according to the sources.
Deferred action is a discretionary decision by the federal government to temporarily delay an individual’s removal from the United States. It does not provide lawful immigration status.
DHS said Eze applied for employment authorization in August 2023, but the request was rejected the following month.
He applied again for employment authorization in February 2025 based on deferred action, and DHS said that application remains pending.
If convicted of murder, Eze will lose his deferred action, according to DHS.
According to Providence police, the stabbing took place at about 12:30 a.m. Saturday in the parking lot outside Mezzo Lounge.
Police said the incident stemmed from an altercation involving people who had been inside the lounge before the stabbing.
Antoine was killed after a stab to the chest, while Macean suffered stab wounds to his head and neck.
Eze was later located and taken into custody by the UMass Dartmouth Police Department, police said.x1200
2026.9.25 Columbia University student fatally stabbed in Central Park remembered as ‘brilliant mind’ – as killer learns his fate
The Columbia University doctoral student fatally knifed by a sadistic gang member during a 2021 stabbing spree in Central Park was remembered as a “brilliant mind” robbed of a bright future Friday — as his killer finally faced justice.
Family of Davide Giri — the 30-year-old Italian Ph.D student tragically stabbed to death on Dec. 2, 2021 — flew in from Italy to pack a Manhattan courtroom as their kin’s slayer, Vincent Pinkney, was sentenced to 25-years-to-life in prison.
2026.9.25 Woman bitten by possibly rabid coyote on Westchester hiking trail
A woman was bitten by a possibly rabid coyote on a hiking trail in Westchester County on Wednesday — and now officials are urging residents to be on the lookout and stay vigilant.
The attack unfolded along the Old Croton Aqueduct path near Warburton Avenue in Hastings — a heavily wooded strip inside the Old Croton Aqueduct State Historic Park.
“Anyone who sees the coyote should not approach the animal but should contact police immediately,” warned Health Commissioner Dr. Sherlita Amler.
2026.9.24 Glamour-loving mom, 34, stabbed to death by mentally ill ex-con during Chipotle lunch break
A glamour-loving young mom was stabbed to death in a horrific random attack while on a break from her job at Chipotle in Detroit, according to police and her family.
Jaquoya Wix, 34, was in an alley behind the restaurant at 2:30 p.m. Sunday when a mentally ill ex-con, Devon Jason Watson, 42, allegedly killed her in an unprovoked attack, according to FOX 10, which cited police.
“It was a senseless crime. I just keep asking myself why,” her heartbroken sister, Alicya Wix, told the station in tears.
2026.9.24 Susan Sarandon among celebs, lefty pols cuffed near UN while calling for Netanyahu’s arrest during protest
2026.9.24 High-risk sex offender chases Jewish student at knifepoint, snarls ‘Hail f–king Hitler’: cops
A high-risk sex offender chased a Jewish student at knifepoint in Brooklyn this week – before snarling “Hail f–king Hitler” as the victim escaped the terrifying encounter, according to cops and video.
The menace, later identified as Devin Best, 48, approached the 24-year-old victim at Park Place and Brooklyn Avenue in Crown Heights around 2:50 a.m. Wednesday and began cursing at and threatening him, according to authorities.
When the startled victim began running away, Best allegedly chased him down while continuing to threaten him and brandishing a knife, police said.
A startling video released by Crown Heights Shmira shows the moment the victim – identified by the volunteer patrol group as a “Bochur,” or young male yeshiva student – sprinted toward his home, with the unhinged man on his tail.
As the victim ran inside, the creep seethed, “Go in the house! Now I know where you live, p–y! That’s what I wanted. Hail f–king Hitler!”, the footage shows.
2026.9.23 Hayden Panettiere cause of death revealed
Actress Hayden Panettiere died from an accidental overdose of fentanyl and several other drugs, according to a coroner in South Carolina. Lilia Luciano reports.
2026.9.22 Texas investigators seek evidence of manslaughter, other crimes in 27 flood deaths at Camp Mystic
New York State has suspended the license of the Manhattan psychiatrist accused of illegally funneling thousands of oxycodone pills to award-winning television producer Maura Mandt before she died, the Daily News has learned.
A hearing before the State Board for Professional Medical Conduct will determine whether Dr. Marianne Gillow will ever practice again, according to the State Department of Health.
Michael Mandt, 54, Maura Mandt’s brother, said Gillow should never get her license back.
“My sister went to see a mental health professional because she was struggling with pain in her life,” the brother said. “We hoped therapy would help her work through some of that pain. Instead, the person she trusted to help her illegally prescribed her thousands of pills containing one of the most addictive and dangerous opioids in this country.”
“This wasn’t a single mistake,” he added. “This happened repeatedly over an extended period of time, despite the warning signs that prosecutors described in court.”
Mandt died from heart-disease-related complications at her Manhattan home on Feb. 28, 2020. She was 53 and had won Emmy and Peabody awards as the executive producer for the ESPY Awards on ESPN.
Gillow pleaded guilty in April, admitting she illegally filled prescriptions for one of Mandt’s production company staffers in June and July of 2019, with the understanding the pills were meant for Mandt, whose health conditions had disqualified her from taking the opioid drug.
As part of the plea deal, Gillow received no jail time, was fined $5,000, and restrictions were placed on the drugs she could prescribe.
At the time, her lawyer, Wayne Gosnell, told the court Gillow accepted responsibility for illegally prescribing the medicine to Mandt’s staffer, but would not take the blame for Mandt’s death, saying she had “faithfully” served her patients to the best of her ability over her 35-year career.
Neither Gillow nor Gosnell responded to requests for comment Tuesday.
Had Gillow, who was charged with reckless conduct that created a deadly risk, among other alleged crimes, had been convicted at trial, she could have been sentenced to up to seven years in prison.
On Aug. 18, state Department of Health Commissioner James McDonald said in an order posted on the agency’s website that Gillow “effective immediately…shall not practice medicine in the state of New York.”
Gillow’s hearing will take place within 90 days of that order.
“We are encouraged to see the Commissioner of Health took action,” said Special Narcotics Prosecutor Bridget Brennan, whose office charged Gillow in a 43-count indictment and referred her to state authorities after she pleaded.
Mandt’s death sent shockwaves through the sports and entertainment industries and led to a wave of tributes from some of America’s most famous athletes.
Hall of Fame NFL quarterback Peyton Manning was among the top donors to an NYU scholarship created in Mandt’s honor in May 2022, at the time describing her as a force “who left an indelible impact on so many.”x1200
A crazed woman went on the rampage with a metal pipe after breaking into a Texas house by crawling through a doggy door, according to cops.
Angel Samantha Reynosa, 23, was initially found uninvited inside the home in Del Rio early Saturday when the homeowner, who knew her, “heard the front door slam shut,” according to police.
Reynosa then “became involved in a verbal dispute” with the homeowner and a woman who was with him, according to police, who did not elaborate on the exact relationships between the trio.
2026.9.22 NYC woman fatally stabs boyfriend who ‘would not stop hitting her’: cops
A Brooklyn woman fatally stabbed her boyfriend as he allegedly beat her in her apartment over the weekend, according to police.
Jennifer Ayala, 36, knifed beau Pedersin Pelissier, 36, in the chest in her East Flatbush home around 6:50 a.m. Saturday because he “would not stop hitting her,” she told police, according to the criminal complaint.
Police found Pelissier bleeding from two stab wounds.
2026.9.22 Clavicular rape charge includes grim claims about luring teen to family’s $3M Cape Cod mansion before exploiting her months later
Controversial “manosphere” streamer Clavicular allegedly lured a 17-year-old to his family’s $3 million Cape Cod mansion and plied her with booze on camera before raping her — kicking off a months-long toxic entanglement that included allegations of exploitation, an unwanted, meth-laced injection and defamation, court documents reveal.
Clavicular — a self-described “looksmaxxer” whose real name is Braden Peters – was charged on Sept. 8 with rape, drugging a person for sex, and providing alcohol to a minor for the Massachusetts assault on May 23, 2025.
The date, location and charges of that incident appear to match accusations made by Aleksandra Vasilevna Mendoza in a separate civil lawsuit filed against Peters in Miami-Dade County in April.
Mendoza’s lawyer has since confirmed to The Post that she is the victim of the criminal case, shedding new light on details of the prolonged, toxic entanglement between the streamer and the young aspiring influencer.
2026.9.21 Haunting last words of LI dad stabbed to death by his own son heard in chilling 911 call: ‘I’m being murdered’
A Long Island father-of-three told cops he was being murdered by his son after calling 911 during the horrific attack, officials said.
Edward Brown, 69, was stabbed more than 40 times in the torso, chest and neck by his son Sage Arias-Brown, 33, who barged into his studio apartment in Mastic, Suffolk County, early in the morning of Sept. 7, authorities said.
A neighbor heard a loud bang, followed by Brown screaming, according to an indictment obtained by The Post.
Brown was able to call 911 during the attack at around 12:30 a.m., according to the police.
“I’m being murdered. What are you doing to me, Sage?” the terrified father is heard screaming during the 911 call, according to the indictment.
2026.9.20 Cops flush homecoming prank plans after seizing 650 toilet paper rolls in ‘Operation Clean Sweep’
The department seized 650 rolls of toilet paper with a jokingly estimated ‘street value’ of $1,708.66
2026.9.19 NYC refuses to remove massive hornets’ nest from Queens tree, tells terrified residents to foot the bill
2026.9.19 New video shows critical moments before NYC Citi Bike crash that killed 15-year-old Daria Serkov
Surveillance video obtained by the Daily News provides new details of the critical moments before the fatal East Village Citi Bike crash that claimed the life of 15-year-old Daria Serkov.
The video shows Daria riding on the Citi Bike as a 16-year-old girl pedaled and steered, inching alongside the 2021 Peterbilt truck as it stopped on E. 14th St. before making the turn onto First Ave. at about 9 p.m. Friday. The truck had its turn signal on before it turned and hit the electric Citi Bike.
Police said that both the truck and the girls were turning right onto First Ave., but the bike didn’t turn as sharply as the truck and ended up falling under its front wheels just outside the crosswalk, the video shows.
2026.9.19 An affair, a missing gun and 100,000 messages: What we learned on Day 1 of testimony in Caleb Flynn’s trial
2026.9.18 Brazen gunmen rob 6 people in Central Park cellphone mugging spree: cops
2026.9.18 Rapist sentenced to 25 years in 2001 Bronx cold case cracked with new DNA matching method
A serial rapist was handed down the maximum prison sentence Friday for a 2001 Bronx attack cracked through a new DNA matching method — marking the first time New York used family trees to solve cold-case rapes.
Judge Laurence Busching ordered Jancys Santiago, 50, to serve the 25 years consecutively with a 20-year sentence he is already serving for a separate 2000 Manhattan home invasion rape.
A Bronx jury found Santiago guilty of first-degree rape in June, after he bound and sexually assaulted Katy Vicchitto, then a 21-year-old college senior, inside her Bronx apartment in December 2001 before fleeing to Florida where he started a family.
2026.9.18 One thing that hasn’t changed in 250 years: Americans’ willingness to get suckered
The tragic duo killed by a subway train in Manhattan last weekend were hugging and kissing on the platform before ending up on the tracks, where they were struck, law enforcement sources said.
Navam Kaul and Malaika Chitre, both 24, were seen in an affectionate embrace shortly before the tragedy at the Spring Street subway station around 3:15 a.m. Sunday, the sources said.
Kaul appeared to lose his balance and fall onto the tracks, hitting his head – prompting Chitre to follow him down to help, according to the sources.
The two promising young professionals from New Jersey were caught on camera sitting on the tracks before they were hit by an incoming No. 4 train.
The haunting footage of their final moments shows the duo was seemingly calm before the horrifying collision.
The operator didn’t have enough time to hit the brakes before the train struck them, according to sources.
Police were investigating whether the two were so wasted that they didn’t understand the gravity of the situation until it was too late, sources previously told The Post.
Investigators do not believe it to be a double-suicide, sources said.
Chitre and Kaul were longtime friends and recent Rutgers University graduates who just started embarking on their professional careers, loved ones have said.
They grew up in matching bucolic corners of Central Jersey suburbia just 11 miles apart.
“There’s nothing in his life that would make him do anything stupid,” said Rajnikant Pipalia, whose son counted Kaul as a good pal growing up in Sayreville together.
Chitre’s family home is located in South Brunswick’s sprawling Summerfield development, similar to Kaul’s planned townhouse community in Sayreville’s Colony Club.
The communities also share a strong South Asian presence — a common heritage that appears to have helped connect the duo when they entered the elite Garden State university.
“They (Kaul and Chitre) grew up in the same world,” Pipalia said. “They’re all part of the same friends circle, the same South Asian group hanging out together, enjoying the same festivals.”
Friends of the tragic victims said it was deeply out of character for the duo in the prime of their lives to have ended up on the tracks.
“I was shocked. He was a financial analyst, doing everything right,” said Sagid Qureshi, Kaul’s next-door neighbor in Sayreville.
“From what I understand she was doing well, too – good people doing so well, with their whole lives ahead of them. It’s just so sad.”
After graduating together from Rutgers in 2024, Chitre landed a job as a quality operations specialist at Acadia Pharmaceuticals and started studying to become a doctor of pharmacy at Temple University, according to her LinkedIn.
Kaul’s LinkedIn indicated he worked as a financial data analyst at Bloomberg after graduating. A source with the company said he was a contract worker and ended the job in May.x1200
The career criminal accused of fatally shooting the 12-year-old son of a retired NYPD cop pleaded not guilty Thursday — as the boy’s heartbroken mother fought back tears just feet away in a Bronx courtroom.
William Ferrer, 45, clad in beige jail scrubs, entered the plea in Bronx Supreme Court in the July 25 stray-bullet killing of little Jacob Freytes, who was caught in the crossfire outside a Mount Eden bodega.
Jacob’s mom, Migdalia Martinez, dabbed her eyes with a tissue as she watched Ferrer in court for the first time, surrounded by about a dozen family members.
“I just wanted him to see how I felt, what he left me with. I feel like a shell. I carry a burden,” the devastated mom told The Post. “I don’t feel like I deserve this.”
Martinez wore a T-shirt emblazoned with photos of herself and her slain son.
Ferrer, who has at least a half-dozen prior arrests dating back to 1999, is accused of opening fire during a street dispute outside Wanda Deli Grocery on Elliott Place near the Grand Concourse.
2026.9.17 Cases of Black people found hanged in the US South are a reminder of nation’s lynching history
The death of a Black Mississippi woman found hanging from a tree has stirred distressing memories of the grim history of lynchings across the U.S. South.
The body of Tasia Fortune, 29, was found behind an abandoned home in Jackson, the state capital, on Aug. 3. Jarques Ratliff, 51, who is also Black, pleaded not guilty to murder on Monday. Police and prosecutors haven’t given a suspected motive and say more arrests are expected.
Regardless of the circumstances of the case, for many Black people, the imagery of a rope and noose evokes the legacy of lynching and vigilante violence against Black people in the U.S. and brings with it deep pain and trauma.
“Black folks down here in 2026, we are feeling and experiencing some of the same things we felt in 1956 and 1966 and that should not be happening,” Jackson activist Brad Franklin said of Fortune’s death.
“But because it’s Mississippi and the racist history of our state, our skin has been toughened a lot to deal with it.”
2026.9.17 Brother shot sister dead on front steps of NJ home before turning gun on himself
A crazed brother gunned down his sister in a murder suicide that started outside a New Jersey home, according to authorities.
Daniel Lopez, 60, shot his sister, Janet Camacho, and left her to die on the front steps of a Pennsauken home in southern New Jersey Wednesday morning before he turned the gun on himself, according to the Camden County Prosecutor’s Office.
Police were called to a report of shots fired and a man armed with a handgun at a home on Bethel Avenue around 9 a.m.
2026.9.16 Disturbing video captures bloody Westchester college campus stabbing with 2 students injured
Disturbing video footage captured the bloody campus brawl that left two students injured and two in custody at Westchester Community College on Wednesday.
Several students are seen scuffling on the ground outside the David Swoope Student Center at the suburban college – with one stumbling away and falling to the ground covered in blood as other students repeatedly yell, “Stop!”
2026.9.15 Hayden Panettiere and her alleged drug dealer exchanged ‘a slew of messages’ before suspected overdose death: report
Hayden Panettiere and her alleged drug dealer exchanged a “slew of messages” right up until the week of her suspected overdose death, it was reported Tuesday, amid claims peddlers dropped bags off at her Hollywood home for five years.
The actress, 36, and her “long term dealer,” whom she appeared to meet in Los Angeles before catching a flight to South Carolina the day before her Aug. 16 death, were said to be very specific in their communications about buying black market drugs, sources told TMZ.
“There are a slew of messages about drugs,” one source added, revealing the texts are at the forefront of the ongoing Drug Enforcement Administration investigation.
2026.9.15 Second Wisconsin elementary teacher convicted of sexually abusing young student at same small-town school
A Wisconsin teacher confessed to sexually assaulting a 15-year-old she babysat — after she was caught texting about her perverted behavior with another now-convicted pedophile educator.
The small town of Hudson has been rocked by the back-to-back scandals involving Abigail Faust, 25, whom cops zeroed in on while investigating fellow River Crest Elementary School teacher and convicted pervert Madison Bergmann.
Faust and Bergmann, 26 — who pleaded guilty last year to sexually assaulting one of her 11-year-old students and is currently serving a six-year prison sentence — were nabbed texting about their disgusting hookups.
“What I did was not a mistake or a lapse of judgment,” Faust said in court Monday, as she copped to sexually assaulting the 15-year-old and claimed she is seeing a therapist, Twin Cities Pioneer Press reported.
2026.9.15 Defendant smiles, flashes peace sign at sentencing for antisemitic attack
A man who pleaded guilty to attacking an Israeli tourist in Times Square smiled and flashed a peace symbol to photographers at his sentencing Tuesday.
When Judge Althea Drysdale asked Yehia Amin why he was smiling, the defendant replied through an interpreter that he wanted to look good for the cameras.
2026.9.15 Feds search Hayden Panettiere’s L.A. home for drug evidence amid new clues: report
Federal drug agents in Los Angeles searched the home of actor Hayden Panettiere amid reports she’d been texting a drug dealer before dying from what may have been an oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl.
TMZ said Drug Enforcement Administration officers were inside the “Heroes” star’s West Coast property shortly after she died in a Greenville, S.C., apartment last month.
Investigators were said to have been looking for evidence that could lead to a drug dealer peddling lethal narcotics. It’s believed Panettiere could have died from a single pill. A toxicology analysis is underway.
A text messages thread between the 36-year-old star and an alleged drug dealer spanning years is reportedly being examined.
Panettiere’s polarizing boyfriend Brian Hickerson is said to be cooperating with authorities investigating the actor’s death. He was in the South Carolina apartment where her body was found on Aug. 16. Hickson’s brother reportedly discovered the victim unresponsive while her boyfriend was sleeping in another room.
2026.9.15 Toxicology results for Utah ‘dance mom’ and daughter, 11, revealed after hotel murder-suicide where handwritten notes were left behind
A Utah dance mom gave her 11-year-old daughter a cocktail of prescription medications and penned a chilling confession note before shooting the girl and herself in a grisly murder-suicide, new autopsy reports reveal.
Tawnia McGeehan, 34, and her daughter, Addilyn Smith, were found dead from gunshot wounds after police were called by the tween’s father to perform a welfare check at the Rio Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, where the pair had been traveling for Smith’s cheer competition in February.
Immediately upon entering their hotel room, cops encountered the first of several deranged, handwritten suicide notes left behind by the killer mother.
“Call 911 before walking in. Two dead bodies and one is an 11-year-old,” McGeehan had written on a shred of paper taped to a chair that was partially blocking the entrance to the room, according to the Clark County Coroner’s investigative report obtained by The Post.
Toxicology results included in the newly released reports also show that the mother-daughter duo had ingested a myriad of drugs before the gunfire erupted.
Substances including quetiapine, an antipsychotic medication; gabapentin, an anticonvulsant drug used to treat seizure disorders; the anxiety drug lorazepam and the antihistamine diphenhydramine were all present in Smith’s system when she died.
McGeehan’s toxicology report listed the same drugs, as well as eszopiclone or zopiclone, a prescription sedative; the antidepressant drug known as citalopram or escitalopram; desmethyl loperamide, a chemical breakdown caused by the anti-diarrhea medication loperamide and cannabinoids.
Caffeine was also presumably detected in both toxicology reports.
However, the gunshot wounds – not the substances – were listed as the cause of death in both relatives.
First responders found the duo’s dead bodies laid side-by-side on one of the hotel room’s two beds, according to the investigative report, which said that a semi-automatic pistol was found on top of McGeehan’s chest.
Smith was wearing PJs, with her body tucked underneath a blanket, while a pillow with a bullet hole through it was laid on top of her head, the report disturbingly revealed.
2026.9.15 21-year-old Pennsylvania man arrested in alleged ISIS-inspired firearm plot: DOJ
FBI Director Kash Patel said the suspect was plotting “a violent attack.”
A 21-year-old man is accused of receiving a firearm and ammunition in support of ISIS, according to the Justice Department.
Jonathan Hunter Kramer, 21, of Valencia, Pennsylvania, had allegedly been going by the name “Hamza Al Rashid” and allegedly claimed affiliation with ISIS, offered to share explosive manuals with others and expressed his intent to prepare for his “mission” and that he was just missing a “weapon,” according to the DOJ’s federal criminal complaint.
Kramer had allegedly been on the FBI’s radar since 2023, when he was charged and adjudicated delinquent by Pennsylvania state authorities for an alleged role in a plot to commit a mass casualty incident and for allegedly possessing child sexual abuse material, according to the Justice Department.
A tipster recently contacted the FBI to share concerns about Kramer, according to the Justice Department, which outlined the alleged conduct in court papers unsealed Tuesday.
2026.9.14 Charles Manson cult follower Bruce Davis, convicted in two 1969 killings, dies behind bars at 83
Davis was serving a life sentence for his role in the killings of Donald Shea and Gary Hinman
2026.9.14 New homeless encampment turns NYC’s East Side into trash heap: ‘Whole lot of headaches’
The homeless encampment Whac-a-Mole continues.
The city cleaned out a filthy East Side homeless encampment under the FDR Drive Monday, leaving behind a stomach-turning mess — while locals said the vagrants will likely come back anyway.
“[The encampment] could start again as soon as, like, the end of the day,” Dina Elkan, senior director of events at Solar One, told The Post. “It’s not just about over here. They have to check all the way down to make sure that people haven’t just relocated.”
2026.9.14 Chilling new details about Trump shooter Thomas Crooks revealed in bombshell FBI docs: emotionless since birth
President Trump’s would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, was born without making a sound on Sept. 20, 2003, a trait that would follow him right up to the end of his short life when the 20-year-old died in a hail of Secret Service gunfire seconds after missing Trump’s head with a bullet by a hairsbreadth.
“When Thomas was born he did not scream and he was always quiet from that point on,” his father, Matthew, told feds in newly unearthed documents about the July 13, 2024, assassination attempt in Butler, Pa.
2026.9.14 Tragic NYC duo killed in subway crash ID’d as longtime friends, recent Rutgers grads just starting out in their careers
The tragic pair fatally struck by a subway train in Manhattan over the weekend — and whose final moments were captured in a haunting video — were longtime friends and recent Rutgers University graduates just embarking on their careers, The Post has learned.
The mystery of how and why the two promising 24-year-olds from suburban New Jersey, Malaika Chitre and Navam Kaul, ended up sitting on the tracks inside the Spring Street subway station lingered days later — as friends said it was deeply out of character for the duo in the prime of their lives. “I was shocked. He was a financial analyst, doing everything right,” said Sagid Qureshi, Kaul’s next-door neighbor in Sayreville.
“From what I understand she was doing well, too – good people doing so well, with their whole lives ahead of them. It’s just so sad.”
2026.9.14 Newlywed Dominick Bianchi who went missing in Upstate NY found dead in wooded area
Dominick Bianchi, the troubled newlywed from upstate New York who went missing last week, has been found dead in a wooded area.
Bianchi, 35, was last been seen Tuesday morning at his home in East Greenbush, located just south of Albany, where he left behind his cellphone, wallet and car.
A cause of death was not immediately announced.
Five people were shot – including two teens – in a burst of gun violence that turned deadly in the Big Apple late Sunday, cops said.
The youngest victim was a 17-year-old boy who took a bullet to the chest around 9:15 p.m. behind a NYCHA building on Beach 40th Street near Beach Channel Drive in Far Rockaway, police said.
He was taken to Jamaica Hospital Medical Center, where he was listed in stable condition.
The gunfire stemmed from a dispute, but the teen appeared to not have known the shooter, according to law enforcement sources.
Around the same time in the Bronx, another teen was hit when someone opened fire with a rifle, cops said.
The 18-year-old victim was shot in his back at East 175th Street and Bathgate Avenue in Tremont, authorities said.
He was taken to St. Barnabas Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.
Two suspects fled the scene in a vehicle, and a rifle was recovered at the scene, police said.
One man was killed during the outbreak of overnight violence – 29-year-old Luis Cano, who took a bullet to the chest around 7:50 p.m. on Lafayette Avenue near Hunts Point Avenue, authorities said.
Cano, who lived about a mile away, was taken to Lincoln Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, cops said.
The motive for the deadly violence was still under investigation Monday, and the male suspect remained at large.
Two senior citizens were hurt in an earlier drive-by shooting as they played dominoes just blocks from Yankee Stadium, authorities and sources said.
One of the victims, a 65-year-old man, was blasted in the right leg, and the other man, 72, was struck in the right hand just after 6 p.m. at East 157th Street and Gerard Avenue in Concourse Village, police said.
The unidentified shooter opened fire in the victims’ direction while driving past them, according to law enforcement sources.
It was not clear whether either man was the target of the gunfire.
Both victims were taken to Lincoln Medical Center, where they were listed in stable condition.
No arrests had been made.
In the 7-day period between Sept. 7 and Sunday, 22 shootings with 28 victims were reported citywide, according to NYPD stats.
Those numbers more than doubled from the comparable week in 2025, when 10 shootings were reported with 11 victims, the data shows.
The Bronx accounted for 14 of the week’s shooting incidents, or nearly 64 percent, according to the numbers.
Nineteen of the week’s shooting victims were also in the northernmost borough – 11 in Bronx South and eight in Bronx North, the figures show.
But year-to-date, shootings are down – with 471 incidents and 573 victims this year, versus 520 incidents with 652 victims in 2025, according to the statistics.x1200
2026.9.13 Maryland dad blamed ‘Satan’ after 2-month-old daughter died from horrific head trauma
Oscar Pineda and Katerin Monzon-Alvarado face child abuse, assault and reckless endangerment charges
2026.9.13 How fiend allegedly ‘brutally murdered’ NYC mom in front of daughter, 7, revealed — as victim’s dad demands he get ‘gas chamber’
The fiend who allegedly fatally beat a mom in front of her 7-year-old daughter and then left the frightened tot with the body whined in Manhattan court Sunday that he needed to be put in protective custody.
Tiliek Shamel Thompson, 41, beat to death 27-year-old Lovay Williams with her child in the home, then carted off evidence in blue shopping bags and cut his hair to try to dodge detection, prosecutors and the victim’s kin said.
“Give him the gas chamber!” the dead woman’s father, Nuquan Williams, screamed at Judge Linda Capitti during Thompson’s arraignment.
2026.9.13 Police say more arrests coming in death of Mississippi woman found hanging from tree
Mississippi police said Saturday they were still investigating the death of Tasia Fortune, a Black woman found hanging from a tree last month, a day after a man was arrested in connection with the killing.
Loved ones also painted a picture of Fortune as a mother, athlete and woman of faith who they hoped would not solely be remembered for her horrific death.
2026.9.12 CIA releases dozens of presidential daily briefs on bin Laden and al-Qaida before Sept. 11
Several dozen presidential briefing documents declassified Friday, the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, detail intelligence government officials had gathered about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida leading up to the hijackings that killed nearly 3,000 people and upended American national security.
The documents illustrate security analysts’ tracking of bin Laden’s movements and support system, as well as concerns about possible threats to U.S. targets. They also detail officials’ understanding of his network in the United States and other countries, including how his operations were financed.
Proclaiming it “an act of exceptional transparency,” CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the documents were the agency’s single largest release of declassified presidential daily briefs — the highly classified briefings prepared by the nation’s intelligence community for the government’s most senior leaders.
The documents range from a February 1998 file — prepared for then-President Bill Clinton — titled “Terrorists seeking WMD capability” and mentioning bin Laden and other Islamic extremists to a Sept. 12, 2001, report in which a source indicated the attacks had been planned for two years and had also targeted the U.S. Capitol.
2026.9.12 America marks 25 years since 9|11
Twenty-five years after Sept. 11, 2001, ABC’s David Muir looks back on the day that changed America, and the hope in a phone call decades later.
2026.9.12 Chinatown senior killed by truck on Canal St. leaves behind wife of more than 50 years
A 77-year-old man killed when he was struck by a flatbed truck on Canal St. in Chinatown leaves behind his wife of more than 50 years, heartbroken relatives said Saturday.
Three days after Thursday’s stunning crash, Ting Jun Ye’s children are trying to cope with his loss, care for their grieving mother, and keep a hospital vigil for Ye’s daughter Yong Wong, who was also struck by the flatbed truck and suffered a severe spinal injury.
The truck driver, Milton Williams, was coming off the Manhattan Bridge at Canal St. when his truck, which was overloaded with wooden pallets, jumped the curb and hit Ye and Wong at about 10 a.m.
The force of the impact sent father and daughter flying down the sidewalk, where they struck a 71-year-old woman as Williams veered back into the street and onto Bowery, where he struck a van and a box truck.
“It’s very difficult. There’s nothing we can do,” Ye’s daughter Yong Li Hu, 50, told the Daily News. “I can do nothing to change this. All we can do is take care of our mother.”
“It’s very hard for (her),” she said about her mom. “They were married for over 50 years.”
Ye, a retired cleaner at a bank, was on his way to a doctor’s appointment when the flatbed truck struck him. Wong was taking him to the doctor, Hu said.
The two were hit as they waited to cross Canal St., Wong’s husband told the Daily News Thursday.
“The truck came from the Manhattan Bridge very fast. My wife is very careful, but she didn’t see the truck coming,” Kin Fai Wong, 77, said.
Police said Williams’ truck accelerated as it exited the Manhattan Bridge into Chinatown, but it wasn’t immediately clear why.
2026.9.12 Ohio man convicted after trying to shoot ex-wife at point-blank range inside restaurant in chilling video
Matthew Exton pointed a handgun at Kada Malone’s head, but the safety was still on
2026.9.12 Las Vegas tourist gets hosed for $32K after wild hot tub night with two women
A tourist in Las Vegas told cops he woke up to find $1,200 in cash gone and more than $32,000 in unauthorized transactions after a wild night in a hot tub with two women at a luxury hotel.
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said the main told officers he met a woman at the Marquee Nightclub at The Cosmopolitan on Feb. 24, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.
He said the two went back to his room at Aria on the Strip, where surveillance footage showed another woman joining them.
2026.9.12 Chilling bodycam footage shows knife-wielding madman charge at police in Santa Monica
Dramatic body-camera footage shows the terrifying moment Santa Monica police shot a man who charged at them wielding a knife as cops were investigating an unrelated incident.
In the video, two officers can be seen speaking with witnesses regarding a separate matter near the bustling Santa Monica Pier on Aug. 22 before they spot a man holding a serrated knife overhead and moving toward them.
Both officers begin shouting, “Put that down!” as the suspect continues to approach and the officers back away.
2026.9.12 California housewife accused of murdering husband with flagpole in Palm Desert
A 65-year-old California wife is accused of killing her husband with a flagpole at a Palm Desert home — as her disturbing history of alleged domestic violence comes to light.
Authoritie said Vicky Kim “inflicted great bodily harm” on her husband during the alleged attack last week at a condo complex in the wealthy enclave near Palm Springs, according to court documents obtained by SFGATE.
The incident unfolded on Sept. 4 at The Enclave, a condominium community that bills itself as a luxury residence and boasts fitness centers, putting greens and resort-style pools and spas.
2026.9.12 Shameless NYC artist goes fully naked for 3-day sidewalk stunt — left New Yorkers irate: ‘I wouldn’t be flaunting that’
This block is in vogue with bums!
Anna Wintour’s posh Greenwich Village block has become a haven for the homeless who turned it into their own outdoor flophouse, frustrated residents and workers told The Post.
At least five other vagrants have moved onto Sullivan Street between East Houston and Bleecker streets since The Post revealed its dodgiest denizen: a pot-puffing, booze-swigging, twerking vagrant named “Tiger,” for the striped orange tail secured to his rump.
2026.9.11 NJ hairdresser charged by feds for allegedly hiring Tinder hitman to kill cop ex-boyfriend, his teen daughter
A California football mom has been arrested by the FBI for allegedly stealing more than $400,000 from a high school team to pay off her mortgage and credit card bills.
Federal agents collared Julie Hanway Molina, 56, at her house in Aliso Viejo, with gun-toting officers using a bullhorn to demand she “come out with your hands up.”
Molina emerged from the front door a few minutes later. She looked shocked as she was cuffed and put in a black sedan. She is charged with four federal counts of wire fraud.
Los Angeles’ top federal prosecutor Bill Essayli said her alleged actions represent a serious breach of trust and that prosecutors will seek a stiff prison sentence.
“This defendant was entrusted by the community with safeguarding money raised for young adults. She violated that trust and is now a charged felon,” Essayli told the California Post.
“Our prosecutors are committed to holding her fully accountable, including seeking a federal prison sentence.”
Molina was arraigned Thursday in Santa Ana and pleaded not guilty to the charges,
She was ordered released on $10,000 bond, with her trial scheduled for November 2.
Molina was treasurer of an Orange County nonprofit described in the federal indictment as a volunteer organization established to promote and enhance a high school football program.
The indictment does not name the victim nonprofit. Based on public sources identified in court documents, the victim appears to be the Wolverines Football Club at Aliso Niguel High School.
Aliso Niguel High School is a public high school within the Capistrano Unified School District serving students in grades 9 through 12 from the communities of Aliso Viejo and Laguna Niguel.
Located on Wolverine Way, it has been recognized as a California Distinguished School. Its football team is especially popular.
In 1996, the school’s varsity team went undefeated and won the CIF-SS Division VIII championship. Its record in the current season is 0-3.
The federal indictment, returned by a grand jury on Sept. 2, alleges Molina stole $411,761.54 belonging to the organization intended to fund the team.
Prosecutors say the alleged scheme began in or around 2023 and continued through around November 2025. Molina’s position as treasurer gave her significant access to the nonprofit’s finances.
According to the indictment, Molina’s responsibilities included co-signing checks, making necessary disbursements approved by the board and membership, receiving dues and other money, maintaining records of receipts and expenditures, and providing financial statements to the board.
Prosecutors allege that Molina used that access to divert money without the nonprofit’s knowledge or authorization.
The indictment specifically alleges that some of the money went toward the mortgage on her personal residence and credit card expenses.
In June 2023, Molina allegedly wired approximately $131,523 from the nonprofit’s bank account in Laguna Hills through Federal Reserve facilities in New Jersey and Texas to an account in Santa Ana to pay the delinquent balance on the mortgage on her personal residence.
Federal prosecutors also allege Molina attempted to conceal the alleged diversion by emailing board members false treasurer reports that failed to disclose the alleged misappropriation.
Molina’s role with the football organization was publicly known before the federal case.
In 2024, she was identified as the football club’s treasurer in connection with Senior Night, an event held before the football game at Aliso Niguel High School on Friday, Sept. 20.
At the time, Molina spoke about the emotional significance of the event for families.
“This is a special occasion for us to celebrate,” said Molina. “It can be very emotional, especially for the mothers seeing their kids all grown up.”
The federal indictment alleges the money was diverted as part of a scheme involving interstate wire communications.
Molina is expected to make her initial appearance and be arraigned in United States District Court in Santa Ana.
If convicted, Molina would face a statutory maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison for each count. Prosecutors are also seeking forfeiture if Molina is convicted.
The indictment identifies a $1.4 million home in Aliso Viejo among the property the government could seek to forfeit, along with property or proceeds traceable to the alleged offenses.
If the property cannot be forfeited, prosecutors seek a money judgment equal to its value. The indictment also contains provisions for substitute property under specified circumstances.
Molina has been charged, but the allegations in the indictment remain unproven unless and until established in court.x1200
2026.9.10 Skeletal remains found in North Carolina nearly 50 years ago identified as 15-year-old runaway girl
Police asking for the public’s help to determine Cindy Marcell Blizzard’s cause of death.
2026.9.10 In Florida’s 15th execution this year, man put to death for killing linked to ‘Hog Trail Murders’
Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, was sentenced to die for the 1996 kidnapping and strangling of Richard Allen Montgomery in Florida.
2026.9.9 Accused in Central Synagogue antisemitic spree while claiming he was God hit with new charges
A Bronx man accused of attacking two people inside Central Synagogue in midtown Manhattan while claiming he was God and spewing antisemitic and racist slurs at horrified congregants was hit with additional hate crime charges Wednesday.
Appearing in Manhattan Supreme Court in handcuffs and tan-colored jail clothing, Larry Montes pleaded not guilty to criminal mischief, third-degree assault and attempted assault, all charged as hate crimes — in addition to several misdemeanor offenses, including criminally interfering with religious worship, disrupting a religious service, and aggravated harassment.
2026.9.9 Teen busted in NYC shooting after judge let him go on bail back in court — but this time he gets a different result
A gun-toting Brooklyn thug charged in a brazen Labor Day shooting was slapped with hefty bail that should keep him locked up – just weeks after a lefty judge cut him a break that put him back on the streets.
Nayshawn Wilkinson, 19, was ordered held on $500,000 cash bail or a $1 million bond Wednesday for allegedly shooting a 24-year-old man at the West Indian Day Parade Monday – just one month after making easy bail for allegedly shooting a 15-year-old boy at a playground.
In that case, Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge Janice Robinson ignored prosecutors’ request to hold Wilkinson without bail in the July 22 shooting, with the judge instead going with $5,000 cash or a $10,000 bond, which he posted days later.
2026.9.9 2 women sentenced to life without parole for murder of transgender man Sam Nordquist
Precious Arzuaga and Jennifer Quijano were convicted of first-degree murder.
The two women at the center of the death of Sam Nordquist, the transgender man who was tortured and killed in Ontario County, New York, in 2025, were sentenced to life in prison without parole for first-degree murder on Tuesday.
Judge Kristina Karle sentenced Precious Arzuaga, identified by prosecutors as the ringleader in the case, to the maximum penalty on all 11 counts to which she pleaded guilty. Arzuaga, 40, pled guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse, concealment of a human corpse, conspiracy, coercion and endangering the welfare of a child.
The judge gave Jennifer Quijano, 32, life in prison without parole for first degree murder, 25 years to life for kidnapping, an initiated sentence of eight and 1/3 to 25 years for conspiracy in the second degree, 25 years for aggravated sexual abuse in the first degree, one to four years for concealment of a human corpse, and 364 days for endangering the welfare of a child. She had pleaded guilty to all counts.
“We all want to know why someone so good was taken so tragically,” Karle said before handing down her sentence to Arzuaga. “Was it because Sam was everything you were not, and will never be? Did you look at him and hate him because of that kindness, compassion, empathy, hope?”
The man accused of committing back-to-back stabbings on the Upper West Side — plunging a knife into an Asian man’s back and a screwdriver into a Jewish man’s chest — pleaded not guilty to felony hate crime charges Tuesday in court in Manhattan, where prosecutors alleged they had uncovered evidence of his antisemitic bias.
Wearing beige prison garb over a white T-shirt to his Manhattan Supreme Court arraignment, Raul Morales, 51, pleaded not guilty to four counts of attempted murder as a hate crime, two counts of assault as a hate crime, two counts of attempted assault as a hate crime, and related charges. The charges carry up to 40 years in prison.
Prosecutors at Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg’s office said that, through search warrants, they had uncovered antisemitic sentiments in text messages on Morales’ cell phone.
When asked by reporters for details, DA Bragg, who attended the hearing, declined to comment on what the text messages said, saying only that his office would vigorously litigate the “heinous antisemitic incident” in court.
“Since the initial arrest, my office has continued to thoroughly investigate this matter and uncovered additional evidence alleging the defendant specifically harbors antisemitic views,” Bragg said later in a statement.
“This case is a prime example of how hate crimes make all of us less safe. I want to make clear to all Manhattanites that we will stand with and support you no matter your background, ethnicity or religion.”
Sheldon Fine, an Upper West Side chaplain, attended Tuesday’s proceedings in solidarity with the victims.
“It was extremely important because of how horrendous this attack was,” Fine said, adding that he visited the Asian victim after he was rushed to Mount Sinai Morningside Hospital, where surgeons removed a knife from his back.
“I saw him in the hospital,” Fine said. “He had a terrible situation, stabbed in the back.”
Morales, who authorities previously said may be dealing with mental illness, has been held on Rikers Island without bail since his July 23 arrest following the attacks that occurred within a four-block radius on the Upper West Side. The Legal Aid Society, which is representing him, declined to comment.
Prosecutors allege Morales first targeted a 57-year-old Asian-American man wearing a baseball cap walking on W. 84th St. near Central Park West, stabbing him in the back and yelling, “Allahu Akbar!”
Less than 15 minutes later, according to charging documents, Morales thrust a screwdriver into the chest of Moshe Yezhak Grunhaus, a 50-year-old Jewish man wearing a kippah near W. 86th St. and Amsterdam Ave, as he was leaving Tisha B’Av services at The Jewish Center, a prominent Upper West Side synagogue.
A UPS delivery worker who followed Morales to his apartment building allegedly also heard him yell, “Allahu Akbar!” Morales was arrested at his apartment inside a NYCHA complex on Amsterdam Ave. near W. 89th St. after heavily armed NYPD Emergency Service Unit cops stood outside his door for around an hour.
2026.9.8 Naked ‘free-spirited’ e-bike rider sought by NJ cops after riding trails in the buff for years
2026.9.7 Multiple people stabbed in Crown Heights as notoriously violent West Indian Day parade kicks off
2026.9.7 One attack, many Americas: Why 9/11 and its many griefs land differently 25 years later
2026.9.5 Mistrial is declared in Lindsay Clancy child killings case after jury deadlocks
2026.9.5 NYC’s Naked Cowboy menaced by unhinged creep days after Times Square killing: ‘I’m shaking in my boots’
2026.9.5 For feminists, the deaths of Parton and Steinem days apart deliver a double dose of grief
New York City’s notoriously bloody West Indian American Day parade will wrap up at an earlier-than-usual time on Monday in an effort to curb violence.
The 59th annual celebration along Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn will begin at 11 a.m. and end promptly at 5:30 p.m. — a deliberate choice after six people were shot during last year’s festivities, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said at a press conference on Friday.
“That end time is deliberate, given the history of violence we have seen on and around the parade route at that hour and later,” Tisch told reporters.
“Last year, we saw three separate shooting incidents on or near the parade route at approximately 5:35, 6:15, and 6:30 p.m., resulting in six people being shot. The NYPD was forced to shut down last year’s celebration as a result of this violence.”
Thousands of cops will be on the beat during the West Indian Day Parade and the early-bird J’Ouvert Festival, which begins at 6 a.m. and runs until the parade kicks off.
The number of officers on the force during the annual twin events celebrating Caribbean culture and heritage has increased from last year — though the department did not elaborate on how many more cops would be hitting the streets.
“The J’ouvert Festival and the West Indian American Day Parade will bring hundreds of thousands of people to Brooklyn this weekend, and the NYPD will be out in full force,” the top cop said.
“Thousands of NYPD cops will be on the parade routes and in the surrounding neighborhoods from Sunday night through Monday. This is one of our department’s largest deployments of the year at this time.”
Like last year, the J’Ouvert Festival will have 13 entry points along the parade route where spectators will be screened by cops using magnetometers beginning at around 2 a.m.
Revelers will be barred from bringing in drones, weapons, alcohol, coolers, backpacks, large bags, umbrellas, blankets, chairs, or any other items that can obstruct or interfere with another spectator’s view.
Eight teams of NYC Crisis Management System staff members and community volunteers will also be deployed at hotspot locations along the parade route and in nearby neighborhoods, Mayor Zohran Mamdani told reporters.
“Throughout the day on Monday, these teams will be active on the ground, conducting outreach, mediating conflicts, responding to crises, and interrupting disputes before they escalate,” Mamdani said.
“They will also deploy mobile trauma units in zones where large crowds gather, move, and disperse to support New Yorkers and connect them to emergency services if needed. “
The carnival atmosphere on Labor Day has often been overshadowed by violence, such as when then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo aide Carey Gabay was fatally shot in the head during 2015’s J’Ouvert after getting caught in gang crossfire.
Last year, six people were struck by bullets, including two with gang affiliations, in three separate shootings as the parade was winding down.
There are currently no specific or credible threats against the parade, Mamdani added.
“But for too long, a select few have been mistaking the West Indian Day Parade as an opportunity to commit acts of violence. Over the past few years, we have seen shootings on and around the parade route, endangering innocent people and overshadowing this incredible tradition,” Tisch said.
“I want to be very clear. This year, there will be zero tolerance for violence of any kind. We want everyone to come out and enjoy the celebration safely.”x1200
2026.9.4 Savage brawl between two Brooklynites that left one with eye gouged out was latest in long feud
A savage brawl on the streets of Brooklyn in which one man was stabbed and another lost an eye was only the latest episode in a long-standing feud between the two neighbors, police and law enforcement sources said.
Jowan Latham, 46, and Eric Payne are both facing assault charges for Thursday’s bloody clash over a parking spot at Shepherd and New Lots Aves. in East New York, cops said. Payne, 38, was also hit with a weapons possession charge.
But the two had just clashed about a month earlier over the younger man’s motorcycle, officials said.
Cops arrested Latham back on Aug. 16 and charged him with criminal mischief after he wrecked Payne’s motorcycle a week earlier on Atkins Ave. near Pitkin Ave. in East New York about 3:00 p.m., according to the criminal complaint.
Payne stayed inside a nearby apartment as Latham yelled, “Come outside, I’m going to f— you up!” according to court documents. When Latham finally walked off, Payne stepped outside to find his motorcycle totaled.
A Brooklyn criminal court judge released Latham without bail at his Aug. 17 arraignment, court records show.
The pair’s feud escalated on Thursday morning in a nasty brawl over a parking spot that ended with Latham digging Payne’s eyeball out of its socket, cops said.
The two neighbors were arguing at Shepherd and New Lots Aves. at about 11:00 a.m., Payne stabbed Latham in the stomach. A woman accompanying Payne then doused the older man with pepper spray, cops said.
Payne and the woman hopped into a black Nissan Altima and sped off, but Latham chased after the pair in a beige Lexus — bleeding on his seat — for about three blocks to Elton St, where the chase ended as Latham rammed Payne’s sedan.
“I heard the sound of the wheels and the bang, the crash. The car went up on the sidewalk and hit a tree,” a 22-year-old witness told the Daily News. “The two guys get out and start screaming at one another.”
A moment later, the witness saw the two men sprinting down the street.
“One of them was stabbed, and he was running down the street bleeding, holding his side,” the witness said. “He was chasing the other guy. He was giving the sprint his all, chasing the other guy.”
Nearby resident, George Ylitalo, 35, told The News he’d gone outside to smoke a cigarette when he heard screeching tires in the distance before the two men came running up the street— one of them gushing blood.
During the foot chase, Payne ducked behind a parked car, only for Latham to leap atop the vehicle, Ylitalo said.
“This guy was determined to get the guy who stabbed him. I have to give it to him. The amount of blood that it looked like he had lost, it was just insane,” Ylitalo continued.
Payne tried to ward off Latham with a traffic cone, but he managed to evade the blow before tackling Payne below.
“The guy dodged it and got on top of him. He really was wailing on him,” said Ylitalo.
It was amid the beating that followed that Ylitalo heard a blood-curdling scream, which he realized only later was the wailing of a man whose eye had just been ripped from its socket.
“It wasn’t like a regular type of, ‘Ow ow, my face.’ I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s very rare you hear a man scream like that,” the witness said.
After gouging Payne’s eye, Latham got up and took a few steps before collapsing in the street.
Ylitalo applied pressure to the stab victim’s wound as his friend called 911 and onlookers recorded the carnage on their phones.
It was only after medics arrived that a police officer pointed out Payne’s eyeball, Ylitalo said.
“It was literally just lying on the sidewalk,” Ylitalo said. “It got to the point where the cop had to cover it with a hat, because people were going crazy trying to get photos of it.”
Medics took both men to Brookdale University Hospital, where they were in stable condition. Payne remained in the hospital Friday afternoon, cops said.
Their arraignments in Brooklyn Criminal Court were pending Friday.
2026.9.4 Gloria Steinem, defining symbol of women’s movement and eloquent advocate for equality, dies at 92
Here are examples of Steinem, who died Wednesday at age 92, in her own words.
On being judged by her looks, even as a feminist
“Nobody ever called me beautiful until I was publicly a feminist, and that was in my mid-30s. It was clear that label was being assigned to me. The most hurtful part is that you work very hard, and people say it’s because of your looks.” (August 2011)
On concrete changes she saw in her fight for feminism
“We know sexism is not inevitable. It’s only about controlling reproduction and therefore controlling women. If we have reproductive freedom, that is the ability to decide for ourselves when and whether to have children and what happens to our bodies, it can be reversed.” (May 2016)
On America’s lack of a female president
“We live in a democracy that’s one of the few in the world that’s never had a female elected leader. That’s kind of ridiculous. I mean, we’re choosing from half the country’s talent” (March 2026)
On supporting abortion rights
“It’s obviously ridiculous to say somebody is ‘pro-abortion.’ Nobody wakes up in the morning and says, ‘I think I’ll have an abortion. It’s a pleasurable experience.’ The question is not pro-abortion or anti-abortion, the question is who makes the decision: a woman and her physician, or the government.” (May 2017)
On the US Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade
“Obviously, without the right of women and men to make decisions about our own bodies, there is no democracy.” (June 2022)
“Women have always taken power over our own bodies, and we will keep right on. An unjust court can’t stop abortion, but it guarantees civil disobedience and disrespect for the court.” (June 2022)
On being called the B-word
“It took me years to learn what to do when someone calls you a bitch. Just smile in a calm triumphant way, and say, ‘Thank you!’” (July 2020)
On deciding to marry at age 66
“I hadn’t changed — marriage had changed.” (August 2011)
On whether she regretted not having children
“No, not for a millisecond.” (August 2011)
On the early years of the women’s rights movement
“When people were saying, ‘You’re all bra-burners and all that,’ we had to work very hard to be taken seriously. We were still having to prove that women were being discriminated against.” (August 1987)
On the success of Ms. Magazine, which Steinem co-founded in 1972
“It’s the result of letting women tell the truth to each other and not pretending that we’re all white, skinny, beautiful, that we’re only interested in 101 different ways to cook hamburger, being superwoman or whatever.” (August 1987)
On taking advocacy on the road to campuses, marches and rallies
“You can’t do it on the phone or on the web. You have to be there with all five senses. It should be obvious that people can’t empathize with each other unless we’re in the same room.” (October 2015)
On going undercover as a Playboy bunny for a 1963 magazine exposé
“I could not have made a bigger mistake. It was personally and professionally a disaster. In the short term it was much harder to get serious assignments, and in the long term it’s been used to ridicule me.”
On inspiring others to embrace activism
“I want people to realize that if a very imperfect person did this, maybe they can, too!” (August 2011)
On wanting to debunk her rich girl image in 1970
“Say that I have always worked for a living, my own living, that I buy my dresses off the rack. I have never been to Acapulco and I don’t go away for ski weekends.” (April 1970)
On how her education didn’t include normal schooling until 6th grade
“In the wintertime, my father always put the whole family in a house trailer and we were working our way, buying and selling antiques and so on, to Florida or California. I think my family thought because I was always reading books in the back seat, that was enough.” (March 2026)
On her work as a writer
“I know I’m doing the right thing by writing, because it’s the only thing I do that doesn’t make me feel guilty.” (April 1970)
“If you’re a writer and you really care about writing, you put it off. You wax the floor.” (October 2015)
2026.9.3 Man has eye gouged out during wild clash over parking spot on Brooklyn street
2026.9.3 Incredible moment pregnant SoCal hardware store worker chases down air-conditioning thief and takes back unit
A pregnant California hardware store employee went full mama bear when she chased down a suspected thief and wrestled back a massive air-conditioning unit.
Surveillance footage from an Ace Hardware store in Palmdale on Friday, Aug. 28, shows the expectant worker pursuing the would-be thief after the person walked out of the store carrying a giant box over their shoulder.
The box reportedly contained an air-conditioning unit the person was allegedly trying to make off with without paying.
But the suspected theft was far from a done deal.
2026.9.3 Addiction center intern allegedly had sex with patient during therapy sessions
An intern at a Florida mental health and addiction center allegedly had sex with a patient during therapy sessions – and cooked up excuses allowing him to leave the facility to romp at her mom’s home and even a local hospital, according to court documents.
Michelle Luchau-Rebora appeared in court Wednesday wearing a green anti-suicide smock to face a charge of sexual misconduct by a psychotherapist – a third-degree felony that could lead to five years in prison, according to WPLG.
She turned herself in after the patient – an otherwise unidentified 42-year-old man – reported her when she called off their alleged three-month romance, according to court documents obtained by the outlet.
Luchau-Robera, 32, allegedly struck up the romance last June while working as an intern at the New Hope C.O.R.P.S. addiction treatment center in Homestead, the report said.
It’s unclear how long she was into her internship when the alleged romance got underway.
The pair allegedly had sex during therapy sessions and Luchau-Robera also “facilitated alibis on his behalf, which allowed him authorization to leave the restricted facility and engage in sexual intercourse on multiple occasions,” the documents claimed.
2026.9.2 Justice Department sues Kansas school system over policies on transgender students
2026.9.2 What happens next if the jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial can’t reach a verdict?
2026.9.2 Lindsay Clancy verdict still within reach – retired Massachusetts judge pushes back on hung-jury predictions
Jurors deliberating first-degree murder charges in the deaths of three children were directed to resume discussions Wednesday
2026.9.2 Tucson, Arizona, police investigate gay bar shooting as a possible hate crime
Police in Arizona say a shooting at a Tucson gay bar that left three people dead, including the shooter, is being investigated as a possible hate crime.
Vincent Anthony Siqueiros, 42, and Cameron Davis Capara, 33, were shot in the parking lot of Venture-N shortly after midnight Monday, and both died at the scene, the Tucson Police Department said. The suspect, Ousman Ceesay, 44, also suffered a gunshot wound and was pronounced dead at a local hospital, according to the department.
Ceesay was carrying a note that listed several LGBTQIA+-associated businesses, according to a police news release, and initial evidence suggests he confronted the two victims in the parking lot before shooting them.
The investigation is ongoing, but there is no known active threat to the community, police said. Still, the department has increased its police presence around other gay-friendly businesses in the region.
“Bias-based crimes are especially heinous and have no place in our community,” Chief of Police Monica Prieto said. “Our investigators are thoroughly examining the evidence and pursuing all available leads as they work to establish the full circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.”
The police department released few details about the shooting and did not say whether Ceesay knew the victims. The department also declined to immediately release details about Ceesay’s manner of death beyond saying he had a gunshot wound. The department’s public information officer, James Horton, said investigators were awaiting details from the medical examiner to confirm Ceesay’s injuries.
Flowers, candles and photos marked a growing memorial to Siqueiros and Capara outside the bar Tuesday, and several community groups, including Tucson Queerstory, Southern Arizona Senior Pride and the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation, were planning a candlelight vigil for Wednesday night at a local park.
“Venture-N has been a safe haven, a sanctuary, and a place of comfort for Tucson’s queer community for decades,” PFLAG Phoenix wrote in a social media post. “This tragedy is a heavy and painful reminder of the homophobia and hate that still exists.”
The shooting left members of the LGBTQIA+ community shocked and heartbroken, said Mary O’Donoghue, the executive director of Southern Arizona Senior Pride. It also stirred up traumatic memories for many older adults, damaging the sense of safety they had in an otherwise often-welcoming city, said O’Donoghue, whose organization provides supportive services and healthy aging programming for LGBTQ seniors.
“We’re talking about folks that are in their 70s and 80s, having lived through Stonewall and other experiences where there has been discrimination, aggression and violence,” O’Donoghue said. “It really has a rippling effect — they’re reliving a lifetime of violence and discrimination on their community.”
O’Donoghue said one person she talked to had moved to Tucson from Colorado Springs, Colorado, where a shooting at a gay nightclub in 2022 left five people dead. Other group members retired to Tucson after living in Florida, where 49 people were killed and 53 others were wounded in the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida.
Tucson Mayor Regina Romero said the shooting at Venture-N was a “direct and devastating attack on our LGBTQ+ community, another senseless act of gun violence.”
The shooting “serves as another painful reminder that homophobia is still rampant in our country,” Romero said in a video posted to Facebook.
2026.9.2 Man put to death for girl’s killing as Florida carries out its 14th execution of the year
2026.9.2 Salvadoran illegal immigrant allegedly killed Virginia co-worker when she exposed affair to girlfriend: witness
2026.9.2 Bully throws baby crib filled with trash at woman, 90, on NYC sidewalk: video
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2026.9.2 Mom of crazed Times Square killer questions why cops couldn’t grab her as she lunged at them with knives
The mother of the crazed Queens woman who killed a new mom and seriously wounded an elderly dad in a terrifying Times Square stabbing spree is questioning why cops didn’t just “grab” her daughter rather than fatally shoot her when she charged at them with knives.
Pamela Cisneros, 49, stabbed Erin Piacenti, 32, and Tak Kam, 68, Monday afternoon before cell phone video showed her being surrounded by police and threatening to kill them with a large knife in each hand.
NYPD officers attempted to deploy tasers, but they were ineffective. She then rushed at them while waving the knives, prompting two officers to open fire, the dramatic footage shows.
“There were so many police… why didn’t they grab her by the arm?” Cisneros’ mother, who did not give her name, asked Fox 5 News in Spanish.
Cisneros, a mother of three, was later pronounced dead at Bellevue Hospital.
Cisneros suffers from what her brother described to The Post Tuesday as bipolar disorder, but said she’d been receiving treatment in recent years and “never showed any aggressiveness.”
“I don’t know what happened,” Patrick Peralta, 59, said, adding his sister had found some stability through medication in recent years and reported feeling “fine” as recently as Saturday.
Cisneros, of Queens, had a documented mental health history with police, including a suicide attempt.
Cisneros drew the attention from NYPD cops in December 2018 when she was belligerent, intoxicated and screaming along Lexington Avenue, sources said. She then tried to kill herself in March 2019 by jumping in front of an E train in Queens, sources said.
Court records show that Cisneros’ marriage fell apart around this time, with her husband filing for divorce in Hillsborough County, Florida, during 2020. The divorce was finalized last year.
The unprovoked stabbings and subsequent shooting all happened within a roughly 20-minute window beginning around 4:30 p.m. Monday and sent panicked tourists and commuters running for safety.
Cisneros had whipped out two knives from a red Target bag and stabbed the first victim, Tak Kam, a 68-year-old dad from Rhode Island, in the abdomen as he exited the subway on West 41st Street and was waiting to cross the street, police said.
She then continued up to 42nd Street and seconds later fatally stabbed Piacenti — a vice president at Bank of America who had just returned from maternity leave.
The slain new mom from Chester, NJ, had posted a touching photo just four days before her murder of herself smiling broadly while holding her infant and standing with her husband. She wrote in the caption how happy she was.
The baby had recently been baptized and Piacenti and her husband, whom she just celebrated her second wedding anniversary with, had been taking her time off to travel.
2026.9.2 Knife-wielding woman kills 1, wounds another in Times Square before being shot dead by police, mayor says
New York — A woman carrying two knives stabbed two people “in the heart” of busy Times Square in about 20 seconds on Monday afternoon, killing one, before police shot and killed her after a tense four-minute standoff, officials said.
The first victim, a 32-year-old woman, identified as Bank of America Vice President Erin Piacenti from Chester, New Jersey, was stabbed in the abdomen and pronounced dead at a hospital, a law enforcement official told CNN. Piacenti was on her way home when she was attacked, the official said.
The second victim, a 68-year-old man was also stabbed in the abdomen in what appeared to be a “random and unprovoked attack,” NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said, though he is currently in stable condition.
The victims and perpetrator were taken to Bellevue Hospital, Mayor Zohran Mamdani said.
The stabbing took place on Seventh Avenue in one of the busiest pedestrian areas in the world, where Tisch said thousands of commuters, families and tourists were nearby.
The maniac who stabbed two people, killing one, in Times Square was likely able to battle through police tasers because of her body fat, erratic movements — and her purse, an expert told The Post.
Artur Sadowski, a retired NYPD detective and Taser expert, said Pamela Cisneros, 49, was able to fight off multiple Taser deployments because the officers were unable to make solid contact with the waddling killer.
“The thicker the padding in front of the muscles, the more difficult it is for the taser to get to the muscles and be effective,” Sadowski said Tuesday of the body-fat factor.
Sadowski, who wrote the Taser playbook that the NYPD used for training, noted that the devices can only work when both of its probes make solid contact — and that there was enough distance between the officers and jostling stabber to make that all but impossible.
One of the cops’ probes also struck the deranged woman’s purse, which was wrapped around her body — preventing the circuit in that case from connecting and causing neuromuscular incapacitation, a temporary stop of muscle control.
The shocking caught-on-camera mayhem shows the NYPD cops confronting Cisneros, who has long struggled with mental health, holding two knives up in the air just after she attacked two people near West 41st Street and Seventh Avenue on Monday.
The woman, who ignored cops’ pleas to drop the knives, was tased as she started to wildly swing the knives in the air before eventually being fatally shot when she charged at them, the footage shows.
When the cops tried tasing her to bring her down, they appeared to hit her at least once in the middle of her stomach, Sadowski said.
But “even when probes hit, a narrow spread, thick clothing, or body fat can limit the electrical effect,” the former Axon master instructor said, adding that areas like the back and back of the legs have less fat and make tasers more effective.
“She may have felt pain or muscle cramping in her abdomen but not enough to stop her from advancing.”
Sadowski said at least three tasers were fired off in about a second — with a possible fourth discharged right as Cisneros was gunned down by cops.
She died from her gunshot wounds at Bellevue Hospital, officials said.
Her victims include Erin Piacenti, a 32-year-old University of Pennsylvania and Fordham Law graduate, who died due to her injuries, sources told The Post.
Piacenti, who was an executive at Bank of America, had just celebrated her second wedding anniversary in August, social media posts show.
The other victim, a 68-year-old man, was stabbed in the abdomen.x1200
The stunned family of Times Square stabber Pamela Cisneros says she had a decades-long history of mental illness including postpartum depression, multiple hospitalizations — and a suicide attempt in which she threw herself on the subway tracks.
Cisneros, 49, randomly stabbed two strangers, killing one of them, before NYPD officers shot her dead — but her brother Patrick Peralta told the Daily News he never knew her to harm anyone other than herself before Monday’s rampage.
“I don’t know what was in her head,“ Peralta, 59, said Tuesday. “I can’t tell you what she was thinking or if she just completely went blank. I don’t know where that rage came from.”
Cisneros had written about randomly stabbing people in a long-winded screed about “the end times” she posted to Facebook last year.
“There is news of war, pestilence, earthquakes, the disminished [sic] love of people to the point of stabbing others for no reason, sex slavery in this country and around the globe, widespread drug use, persecution of the Christian believer on a global scale, worldwide hunger, homelessness, etc.,” Cisneros wrote as evidence of the end times “being present” on Nov. 30, 2025.
Peralta, a certified surgical technician, has a different father than Cisneros, but the two grew up together with their mother in an apartment in Jackson Heights.
“She was a happy-go-lucky kid,” Peralta recalled. “In summertime, she was my tail because she would follow me around. She was like 5. I went out and played with my friends and she was always with me all the time.”
Her mental health problems developed about two decades ago, after she gave birth to the second of her three daughters.
“She went off track after that,” Peralta said.
Postpartum depression has come into the national spotlight with the Massachusetts trial of Lindsey Clancy, who’s accused of murdering her three children in January 2023. Clancy’s defense lawyer has argued she shouldn’t be held criminally responsible because she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
On Tuesday, the jury announced it had deadlocked on a verdict, though the judge overseeing the case sent them back for more deliberations.
Cisneros’ middle child is autistic and nonverbal and lives in a group home in Brooklyn, Peralta said. Cisneros would often visit her.
Her other two daughters live in Florida with their father, Pamela’s ex-husband. Peralta had to break the news to those two daughters over the phone Tuesday night.
Cisneros, who has no arrest history in New York, has been hospitalized several times and seven years ago threw herself on the subway tracks in Queens only to be rescued by an onlooker, Peralta said.
“Then she was in Jamaica Hospital,” he said. “Then she went to Bellevue (Hospital) a couple of times. She was seeing doctors.”
Police sources confirm Cisneros jumped onto the tracks on the E train line at the Union Turnpike station on March 6, 2019.
That was one of two mental health crises involving the NYPD, the sources said. In the other incident, cops were called because she was drunk, screaming and acting belligerent at a hotel on Lexington Ave. near E. 49th St. in Midtown East on Dec. 20, 2018.
Because she had trouble taking daily psychiatric medication Cisneros was prescribed monthly injections instead, her brother said.
“For the last six years now, she was getting injections and nothing was wrong,” he said. “As long as she got the medication, she was fine … She never showed any violence towards anybody.”
“She used to go in person (to get the injections) and then I just found out that now she was doing it herself,” he added.
“So I don’t know if she stopped doing it, because my parents are old and are they trying to check to make sure that she was getting injections. That’s the only thing I can suggest, that maybe she didn’t get the last couple of months of injections. Her brain was going all over.”
On Monday, Cisneros pulled two kitchen knives out of a Target bag and stabbed a 68-year-old Rhode Island man in the abdomen near W. 41st St. and Seventh Ave. at 4:24 p.m., cops said. He survived.
Within 20 seconds, she made her way to W. 42nd St. and fatally stabbed 32-year-old Erin Piacenti, a vice president at Bank of America. Police surrounded her near an NYPD substation by W. 43rd St., and Tased then fatally shot her as she advanced on them, swinging a knife in each hand.
“She used to come and eat dinner with my parents mostly every night,” Peralta said. “But last week she didn’t show, so we started calling her to see what was going on.”
Peralta recognized his sister from the viral cell phone videos that made the news showing her final moments.
“I was shocked,” he said. “I’m still numb. I saw it on the news last night. Something told me that she looks like my sister. So I called Midtown South. I give them my info and then by 7:30 (p.m.), they called me back.”
He last saw her for her father’s birthday on Aug, 8. “She was fine. Normal,” he said.
Her mother last talked to her on the phone Saturday.
“(Cisneros) said she was fine,” Peralta recounted. “My mother is devastated.”
Cisneros was living alone in Woodside and had been out of work for a while. But three months ago she landed a job as an administrative assistant for a lawyer, her brother said.
“My entire family feels so sorry for the two people, the one that passed away and the one who was hurt,” Peralta said. “We are so sorry. We never thought this would happen.”
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2026.9.2 Judge rules alleged Charlie Kirk killer can stand trial for capital murder
Judge Tony Graf’s decision follows final oral arguments from both sides Tuesday.
2026.9.2 Pennsylvania police officer charged with voluntary manslaughter in killing of college student
NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania police officer was charged Tuesday with voluntary manslaughter for last week’s fatal shooting of a college student who was looking for his friends late at night and went to the wrong house.
Police body camera video reviewed by investigators shows the officer yelled “Drop to the ground,” then “Stop or I’ll… .” Before he finished the sentence, he fired two shots at the man who was unarmed and had his hands in the air. He hit 22-year-old Glenwood Earl Pysher IV twice in the chest, killing him.
The officer, Upper Pottsgrove Police Cpl. Sean Farrell, had less-than-lethal options and did not need to resort to shooting Pysher, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele said at a news conference.
“The investigation found that Cpl. Farrell had less-than-lethal options on his utility belt that he did not employ, including a taser. At the time of the shooting, the officer was a safe distance from Pysher behind a car, and the victim had his hands in the air and did not possess any type of weapon. Mr. Pysher was not a threat. This is not a legal use of deadly force, leading to the charge of Voluntary Manslaughter,” Steele said in a news release.
2026.9.1 Beverly Hills teen accused of killing homeless man in alley — as chilling videos emerge
ICE nabbed nearly 2,200 illegal migrants, including convicted murderers, rapists and drug traffickers, in New York in the past month alone — and more agents and sweeps are on the way, the feds said Tuesday.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency caught up to 2,197 criminals in the Empire State between July 27 and Aug. 29 as part of “Operation Rotten Apple” — which Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin noted was conducted “with no help” from either New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani or Gov. Kathy Hochul.
“These arrests included gang members, rapists, murderers and child predators — which I believe there is a special place in hell for those individuals,” Mullin told reporters at a press conference.
“Operation Rotten Apple did what sanctuary politicians in New York City and the state of New York refuse to do: made the Empire State safer,” he added in a statement.
Asked by a reporter if he was prepared to send more federal agents to New York for round-ups, Mullin replied, “Absolutely.
“Because they refused to work with us … we will send as many people as we have possible to make sure we are restoring law and order,” he said.
While celebrating the operation, Mullin told reporters that the need for the mass round-up stemmed from the fact that the mayor and governor passed legislation this year severely limiting local government cooperation with ICE.
Mamdani “is extremely out of touch with what the American people want and what public safety actually looks like,” Mullin railed.
“These are individuals that we took off the streets of New York to protect the people here because you have a mayor here that refuses to work.”
Those arrested included Bogdan Detrovich Gren, a Ukrainian national in the US illegally with convictions for murder, kidnapping, abduction resulting in death, and criminal possession of a weapon, according to DHS.
Andreas Bernal Chiquito, an illegal migrant from Colombia who was also caught, has past arrests for sexual conduct against a child and injuring a child under age 17.
Also taken into custody were Palvinder Singh, an illegal migrant from India who was convicted of rape in Germany, and Carlos Mendez-Acosta, a Venezuelan migrant convicted of rape, according to the feds.
Mamdani signed an executive order shortly after he assumed office in January, reinforcing sanctuary protections against what he called “abusive immigration enforcement” by the Trump administration.
The move severely limits local agencies and law enforcement from working with ICE to put and keep many illegal migrants in custody.
Hizzoner has since passed additional legislation making it harder for local law enforcement to cooperate with President Trump’s illegal-immigration crackdown.
Hochul also successfully pushed through legislation preventing state cops from partnering with federal immigration authorities to catch people and barring ICE agents from most public places such as hospitals and parks.
According to DHS, such “radical sanctuary policies” have resulted in more than 13,000 criminal aliens back onto New York streets.
“Democratic politicians in New York and elsewhere say that they care about public safety, but won’t let immigration law enforcement officers into their jails to take criminals into custody; instead they release them to their streets,” said Trump administration border czar Tom Homan in a statement.
Mullin said the federal government should not send a single cent to New York until it complies with immigration authorities. President Trump is looking into options, he said.
“I don’t think we should be sending one federal penny to sanctuary states and sanctuary cities. And I know President Trump is looking at options there. In my opinion, I don’t think taxpayer dollars from the great people of Oklahoma or any other red state should be funding a state that embraces these criminals like New York,” Mullin said.x1200
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