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    Man in Custody in Fatal Shooting of N.Y.P.D. Officer

    Guy Rivera, 34, fired on Officer Jonathan Diller, 31, after being ordered out of an illegally parked car in Queens, the authorities said.A 34-year-old man was in police custody on Tuesday in the fatal shooting of Police Officer Jonathan Diller during a traffic stop in Queens.The man, Guy Rivera, 34, was sitting in the front seat of an S.U.V. parked in Far Rockaway shortly before 6 p.m. on Monday when Officer Diller and his partner approached, the police said. Mr. Rivera refused to step out of the illegally parked car and then fired his weapon through the passenger window, the authorities said.His shot hit Officer Diller, 31, in the torso, just beneath his protective vest, the police said.Officer Diller’s partner, Officer Veckash Khedna, returned fire, shooting Mr. Rivera in the back, according to the police and an internal Police Department report.A memorial for Officer Diller at his precinct’s satellite location in Queens.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesA second man, Lindy Jones, 41, was sitting in the driver’s seat, the police said, and was taken into custody after the shooting. He has not been arrested or charged.Mr. Rivera had surgery at Jamaica Hospital and is expected to survive. He has not yet been arrested or charged in the killing because of his medical condition, according to a law enforcement official with knowledge of the case.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Police Officer Is Killed During a Traffic Stop in Queens

    The authorities arrived in the Far Rockaway neighborhood at about 6 p.m. and found the police officer and a man wounded by gunfire.A police officer died on Monday after being shot during a traffic stop in Queens, the police and city officials said.The suspected gunman, who was also wounded, was the first to fire his gun during the evening encounter in Far Rockaway, striking the officer, Jonathan Diller, in the torso below his protective vest, Police Commissioner Edward A. Caban said at a news conference at Jamaica Hospital, where Officer Diller was taken.The officer’s partner returned fire, striking the man, who was also taken to Jamaica Hospital, where he is being treated for his injuries, officials said at the news conference. “This is a devastating moment,” said Mayor Eric Adams, who also spoke at the news conference. “We have to bury another cop,” he added. Officer Diller joined the Police Department in February 2021, according to city records. He has been recognized three times for “excellent police duty.”In a social media post, Commissioner Caban said Officer Diller and his wife had a young child.“We struggle to find the words to express the tragedy of losing one of our own,” the commissioner wrote.Police officials said the officer approached the car in Far Rockaway because it had been illegally parked. Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesOfficials did not identify the suspect or the second person who was in the vehicle. It was unclear on Monday whether the driver or the passenger had shot Officer Diller, but the driver was arrested on a gun charge last year, police officials said. The police said the episode had begun shortly before 6 p.m. on Monday, when Officer Diller and his partner from the Police Department’s community response team approached the car because it was illegally parked at a bus stop on Mott Avenue. Officer Diller asked the suspect several times to get out of the car, said Joseph Kenny, the Police Department’s chief of detectives, but the suspect refused, pointed a gun at the officer and fired.Officers in the area heard the shots and sprinted toward the scene, according to security footage from a Mott Avenue deli about two blocks away. Jummai Ezedebego, 57, who was nearby at the Far Rockaway-Mott Avenue subway station, also heard the gunfire and watched as other passengers scattered and helicopters whirred overhead. “Everybody was running and the police started coming,” Ms. Ezedebego said. Later that night, officers put yellow police tape around a gray S.U.V. parked on Mott Avenue. Shards of glass littered the sidewalk, and the front passenger door window appeared to have been pierced by a bullet. Before Monday, the two most recent New York police officers killed in the line of duty were Wilbert Mora and his partner, Jason Rivera. The officers were gunned down in January 2022 as they answered a domestic disturbance call in Harlem.“We should never be here,” Commissioner Caban said at the news conference. “And we’re here far too many times,” he added. Dakota Santiago More

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    Chinese Magnate Admits to Making Straw Donations to N.Y. Politicians

    Mayor Eric Adams was among those who received illegal donations from Hui Qin, a Chinese businessman, a person familiar with the federal case said.A Chinese business titan pleaded guilty on Monday to federal charges that he made more than $10,000 in straw donor contributions to political candidates — including, a person familiar with the case said, to a New York congressman and Mayor Eric Adams.Hui Qin, 56, of Old Westbury, N.Y., who was once listed on Forbes magazine’s list of billionaires, ran a now-defunct entertainment business called SMI Culture. But he has been in federal custody since the fall, when he was arrested at an apartment he kept at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on charges of using fake identification.Hui QinImaginechinaMr. Qin asked others to contribute to political campaigns of his choosing, and he agreed to reimburse them, in 2021 and 2022, according to prosecutors. The other figures who received donations were Representative Andrew Garbarino of Long Island and Allan Fung, a former mayor of Cranston, R.I., who ran for Congress, the person familiar with the case said. Both are Republicans, while Mr. Adams is a Democrat.Mr. Qin concealed his activities from the officials he was raising money for, according to a criminal complaint filed in the case. As a result, they unwittingly filed false reports.Breon S. Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement that Mr. Qin had admitted to “engaging in a brazen web of deception” that spread lies to the authorities overseeing elections.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    N.Y.P.D. Drones Carrying Rafts Could Join Lifeguards in Beach Rescues

    Mayor Eric Adams, an avowed technophile, said the drones would be used to assist lifeguards at Coney Island as part of a pilot program starting this summer.This summer, struggling swimmers off Coney Island might be met not just by a young lifeguard in an orange suit but also by assistance from above, in the form of a buglike device delivering an inflatable float.The raft-bearing drone is the latest in a series of gadgets promoted by Mayor Eric Adams as a way to improve life in New York City. Discussing the drone during his weekly question-and-answer session at City Hall on Tuesday, the mayor said it would begin flying as part of a pilot project to address a chronic summer problem.“They’re going to start out with Coney Island, and they’re going to grow from there,” Mr. Adams said, referring to the entertainment mecca on Brooklyn’s south shore. “I think it can be a great addition to saving the lives of those that we lose over the summer.”New York City may be known for its concrete-and-steel canyons, but it boasts 14 miles of city beaches, from Coney Island in Brooklyn and Rockaway Beach in Queens to Orchard Beach in the Bronx and South Beach in Staten Island.City officials have long struggled to improve water safety at public beaches, with their strong riptides, legions of unskilled swimmers and perennial lifeguard staffing shortages. Four people drowned last year off city beaches, all of them when lifeguards were off duty, and three drowned the year before that, city officials said. But there have been years with more drownings: In 2019, there were at least seven at Rockaway beaches alone.Mr. Adams, a self-described “tech geek,” has already assigned a robot to patrol the Times Square subway station and promoted a lasso-like device to restrain emotionally disturbed people.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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    Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s Collars, Captured by Camera

    An exhibit at the Jewish Museum features photos of collars worn by the late Supreme Court justice.Good morning. It’s Friday. We’ll look at an exhibition of photographs of the collars that Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wore. We’ll also look at a Manhattan Democrat whose City Hall hopes were dashed in 2021 but who is now looking into challenging Mayor Eric Adams in 2025.Kris GravesIn the soft stillness of a museum gallery, you could forget that the photographs on the walls around you were shot under time pressure.Six minutes each, the photographer Elinor Carucci told me.The photographs, on view at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan, are haunting, almost three-dimensional images of collars and necklaces that belonged to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the Supreme Court.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    Scott Stringer Explores Run Against Eric Adams for N.Y.C. Mayor

    Mr. Stringer, whose 2021 mayoralty bid was derailed by a sexual misconduct allegation, is gearing up to try again to beat Eric Adams.Scott M. Stringer, the former New York City comptroller and 2021 mayoral candidate, said on Thursday that he would form an exploratory committee and begin raising funds for a possible primary challenge against Mayor Eric Adams next year.The move caught much of the city’s Democratic establishment by surprise and signaled the start of a combative new phase of Mr. Adams’s mayoralty, as Mr. Stringer became the first Democrat to move toward directly contesting the mayor’s re-election.Any primary challenge promises to be exceedingly difficult. No challenger has defeated an incumbent New York City mayor in a primary since David Dinkins beat Edward I. Koch in 1989.But few of his predecessors have been held in such low regard in polls as Mr. Adams, who is confronting the city’s budget woes, an escalating migrant crisis and an F.B.I. investigation into his campaign. Other challengers may soon follow.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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    Bloomberg and Other Billionaires Donated to Adams’s Legal-Defense Fund

    Mayor Eric Adams of New York set up the fund amid a broad federal corruption investigation into his campaign’s fund-raising practices.Mayor Eric Adams raised $732,000 in less than two months to pay for legal expenses related to a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising, according to a filing submitted Tuesday.The contributors to Mr. Adams’s defense fund include an array of wealthy players in business and politics, among them at least four who have been described as billionaires: the former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, the Ukrainian-British oligarch Leonard Blavatnik, the real estate and fertilizer tycoon Alexander Rovt and the cryptocurrency investor Brock Pierce.The fund has so far spent $440,000, most of it on WilmerHale, the law firm Mr. Adams hired to represent him in the investigation, the filing shows.City law permits elected officials to set up defense funds to pay for expenses related to criminal or civil investigations that are unrelated to their government duties and cannot be paid for with public money. The funds can collect up to $5,000 per donor but are not permitted to solicit or receive contributions from anyone with city contracts or business before the city.The Eric Adams Legal Defense Trust was set up late last year after the F.B.I. searched the home of Brianna Suggs, who was then Mr. Adams’s chief campaign fund-raiser. It made its first filing with the city’s Conflicts of Interest Board on Tuesday.Mr. Adams, who unveiled his preliminary city budget on Tuesday, said the support had come from donors who appreciated his “life of service,” from his time as a transit police officer to his tenure as mayor.“They said, ‘We want to help,’” he said. “People have known my character, and they said, ‘We want to help.’”The four billionaires and their relatives contributed a total of $40,000 to the fund. Mr. Pierce, a former child actor who is now a cryptocurrency investor, has previously supported the mayor. Mr. Adams has praised cryptocurrency, and he flew on Mr. Pierce’s private jet to Puerto Rico shortly after he was elected mayor. Since his campaign, Mr. Adams has also nurtured a relationship with Mr. Bloomberg, who left City Hall at the end of 2013.Frank Carone, Mr. Adams’s first chief of staff and a longtime adviser, and his relatives pitched in $20,000, while Lori Fensterman, the wife of Mr. Carone’s former law partner, gave $5,000. The mayor himself gave two donations totaling $120.Among the other donors were Jenifer Rajkumar, a state assemblywoman from Queens and a close ally of Mr. Adams, who gave $2,500; Angelo Acquista, a pulmonologist and diet book author, and his wife, Svetlana Acquista, who gave Mr. Adams a total of $10,000; and Michael Cayre, an owner of Casa Cipriani who, with two family members, donated $15,000. Mr. Cayre recently organized a gala at the club that reportedly raised about $10 million for victims of the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, with Mr. Adams in attendance. The bulk of the fund’s expenses so far, about $397,000, was paid to WilmerHale, where Mr. Adams’s defense team includes Brendan McGuire and Boyd Johnson, two former top prosecutors at the Southern District of New York, which is conducting the investigation along with the F.B.I. Mr. McGuire also formerly worked as Mr. Adams’s chief counsel in City Hall.The fund also paid $7,500 to Pitta L.L.P., a law firm whose co-managing partner, Vito Pitta, is overseeing the fund. It paid about $25,000 to two companies for “vetting and investigative services” and “forensic data collection.”The City Council authorized legal defense funds in 2019 after the Conflicts of Interest Board ruled that city gift restrictions prohibited Mr. Adams’s predecessor, Bill de Blasio, from soliciting more than $50 per donor to pay for legal bills he had accumulated during state and federal investigations into his fund-raising.The investigation into Mayor Adams’s fund-raising came into view in early November. On the same day as the search of Ms. Suggs’ home, F.B.I. agents also searched the New Jersey houses of Rana Abbasova, an aide in Mr. Adams’s international affairs office, and Cenk Ocal, a former Turkish Airlines executive who served on his transition team. A few days later, agents stopped Mr. Adams after a public event and seized several electronic devices from the mayor.Federal officials in Manhattan are examining whether the Turkish government conspired with Mr. Adams’s campaign to funnel donations into campaign coffers and whether Mr. Adams pressured Fire Department officials to sign off on a new high-rise Turkish consulate despite safety concerns.Neither Mr. Adams nor anyone else connected to the investigation has been accused of wrongdoing. The mayor and his representatives have said that he has followed the law scrupulously.On Tuesday, new campaign fund-raising disclosures for the 2025 mayor’s race also became public — the first such filings since the federal investigation into the Adams campaign came to light. They showed that Mr. Adams’s campaign raised $524,800 since July — a significantly lower figure than in the first half of 2023, when he raised $1.3 million.The mayor’s campaign received nearly 600 donations from lawyers and real estate leaders, but only about two dozen of the donations came after the Nov. 2 raid on the fund-raiser’s home. More

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    Mayor Adams’s Swagger Is Diminished. His Foes Are Ready to Pounce

    Eric Adams is facing stronger pushback from the City Council and progressives, and prominent Democrats in New York are considering running for mayor.If Mayor Eric Adams were in search of evidence that his recent spate of troubles had cost him some standing in New York, he would not need to look far.The city comptroller, Brad Lander, recently restricted the mayor’s spending powers on the migrant crisis, and has playfully alluded to the F.B.I.’s investigation of Mr. Adams’s fund-raising in his own pitch to donors.The City Council is preparing to fight the mayor over his painful budget cuts to city services and could soon override his objection to banning solitary confinement in city jails. Even his friend, former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, is eyeing his job.The reasons for the discontent surrounding Mr. Adams are plenty. He faces a federal investigation into his campaign fund-raising, and widespread criticism over his handling of the migrant crisis. He was named in a legal claim accusing him of sexual assault in 1993 and he made unpopular budget cuts to the police, schools and libraries.The extent of his unpopularity was quantified this week in a stunning Quinnipiac University poll: Only 28 percent of New Yorkers approve of the job Mr. Adams is doing, the lowest for any New York City mayor in a Quinnipiac poll since it began surveying the city in 1996.Mr. Adams has not been accused of wrongdoing in the F.B.I. investigation, and he is hardly the first mayor who has faced an investigation: His predecessor, Bill de Blasio, also faced an inquiry into his campaign’s finances. But the political world remains abuzz about his future, especially after the F.B.I. seized his cellphones on the street.One political consulting firm was so curious to know how far the mayor’s star had fallen that it commissioned its own poll to ask New Yorkers who they would support in a special election if Mr. Adams resigned.“We’re in a period of enormous political uncertainty,” said Evan Roth Smith, a founding partner at Slingshot Strategies. He added, “A special election is far from a certainty, but it’s clearly a possibility.”The poll found that Mr. Cuomo would be the most popular candidate at 22 percent, followed by the city’s public advocate, Jumaane Williams, at 15 percent. Kathryn Garcia, a former sanitation commissioner who finished second in the 2021 Democratic mayoral primary, came in third at 12 percent.Mr. Adams, famously known for his swagger, has appeared chastened in recent weeks, and has seemed on the defensive.His aides immediately responded to the Quinnipiac poll by calling it “misleading” and sending out a torrent of book blurb-like hosannas of the mayor — some with nearly identical wording — from loyalists like Representative Adriano Espaillat, a key Dominican American power broker, and Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar.Rob Speyer, the chief executive of the real estate investment firm Tishman Speyer, praised Mr. Adams’s “hustle and successes.” Steven Rubenstein, chairman of the Association for a Better New York, called the mayor a “champion for all New Yorkers.” The mayor’s stalwarts included other business and union leaders, a signal to potential challengers that the mayor still enjoys broad support from some of the city’s most influential constituencies.At a recent town hall meeting in East Harlem, Mr. Adams addressed his weaknesses head on. He started the event by addressing “two tough issues that you have been reading about,” and told the crowd that he did not break the law by helping the Turkish Consulate and that he did not sexually assault a woman who filed a legal claim against him for an incident she said happened in 1993.Mr. Adams’s ties to Turkish interests, including the Turkish Consulate, are being examined by federal investigators.Sara Hylton for The New York Times“You know my character,” he said. “You know what I stand for.”In most mayoral election cycles in New York, Democratic incumbents are virtually untouchable. But amid Mr. Adams’s problems, more Democrats are weighing potential candidacies — either when Mr. Adams faces re-election in 2025, or in the case of a special election if he were to resign or be forced from office.One past Adams donor, Jean Shafiroff, the wife of a prominent banker, said that she was waiting to see what happens with the F.B.I. investigation and the sexual assault allegation before participating in any more fund-raisers. She said that she works on women’s rights issues and felt conflicted.“It’s difficult for me right now, as much as I believe the mayor is innocent,” she said in a phone interview on Friday from Miami where she was attending the Art Basel art event.Mr. Cuomo has spoken to people about potentially running for mayor under the right circumstances, according to three people who have spoken to him and who were granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter.Mr. Cuomo’s allies have insisted that the former governor, who resigned in 2021 after facing a series of sexual harassment allegations, would consider running for mayor only if Mr. Adams was no longer in the race.“He is not going to run against the mayor,” Charlie King, a Democratic strategist who is close to Mr. Cuomo, said in an interview.Matt Wing, a former adviser to Ms. Garcia, signaled that she might be open to running, saying in a statement: “In the chaos of a special election, New York City will need stability over political spectacle. And there’s only one leader in the potential field ready to meet the moment with competence, character and deep-rooted city management experience, which is perhaps why Kathryn stands out.”Scott Stringer, a former city comptroller whose bid for mayor in 2021 was derailed by sexual misconduct allegations, has had conversations with former staffers about moving quickly to run in a special election, according to a person who was familiar with the matter.When Mr. Adams took office two years ago, he was heralded as a national Democratic star and a moderate who made a compelling case for improving public safety. He called himself the “Biden of Brooklyn.”President Biden, who once counted the mayor as a trusted ally, has not spoken to Mr. Adams in months, and his aides and allies now view the mayor as a grandstanding opportunist because he publicly criticized the White House for not providing enough help to the city to deal with the migrant crisis.Now, as the mayor faces questions about his management ability, even his agenda seems more uncertain.On Monday, City Council leaders will hold an oversight hearing to scrutinize the mayor’s cuts to the Police Department, schools and libraries. They are hoping to reverse some of the cuts and to find ways to raise additional revenue.Progressive leaders say that the mayor’s low approval rating shows that his budget cuts are unpopular, and they are hoping to capitalize on his weakened political position by pushing to raise taxes on the wealthy.“What we hear from this poll is that New Yorkers are asking elected officials to invest in a progressive agenda — affordable housing, schools, sanitation, libraries,” said Ana María Archila, a state director of the Working Families Party, which has had conversations with left-leaning candidates about running against Mr. Adams.Later this month, the mayor may face a battle with the City Council over solitary confinement in city jails. Mr. Adams has threatened to veto a ban, arguing that it would put correction officers in harm’s way. But Mr. Williams and City Council leaders have pushed forward with a bill, saying that the practice is torture.The City Council may vote on the ban at its Dec. 20 meeting, and likely has enough votes to override a veto, should the mayor choose to do so. Mr. Adams’s first major veto in June — aimed to stop a housing bill that expanded a rental voucher program — was overridden by the Council.That rental voucher expansion is nearing a Jan. 9 deadline for implementation, and leaders in the City Council are contemplating suing the Adams administration because they believe it is intentionally not moving forward with the plan, according to Council officials.Diana Ayala, the deputy speaker of the City Council who is considering running for mayor, said that Mr. Adams had undermined the Council and refused to work with leadership to address the city’s many crises.“He’s arrogant, and that arrogance is not helpful,” she said.Shahana Hanif, a chair of the Council’s progressive caucus, said that Council members were becoming more comfortable challenging the mayor given his issues.“These incidents are emboldening our colleagues to feel like this is a mayor who doesn’t have his campaign, personal life, nor the city’s best interests at heart,” Ms. Hanif said. “He is a mess.”Perhaps the most telling sign of Mr. Adams’s diminished stature can be seen in the recent responses of Mr. Lander, the city comptroller and another possible mayoral candidate. He recently curtailed Mr. Adams’s ability to quickly spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the migrant crisis.Earlier this year, Mr. Adams openly mocked Mr. Lander’s voice and his left-leaning politics at news conferences. Now Mr. Lander has returned the favor in a recent fund-raising email, chiding the mayor for his campaign’s ties to the Turkish government.“Turkey should have a special place on your Thanksgiving table,” Mr. Lander’s fund-raising email said. “And that’s the only kind of special treatment that Turkey should have in New York City.”Nicholas Fandos More