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    Bird Flu Suspected in Deaths of Ducks and Wild Birds at N.Y.C. Zoos

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    Three ducks died of the disease at the Queens Zoo, while three more ducks and nine wild birds that died at the Bronx Zoo were being tested for the virus, according to the parks’ operator.Three ducks at the Queens Zoo died because of bird flu, and as many as 12 more birds at the Bronx Zoo that died after possible exposure were being tested for the virus, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, the nonprofit that operates the parks.The deaths and possible exposures at the Queens Zoo and the Bronx Zoo, one of the largest and most well-known zoos in the United States, come as an outbreak of bird flu has spread across the country, sickening chickens and dairy cattle and driving up the price of eggs.On Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul ordered all live bird markets in New York City and a few surrounding counties to close temporarily in an effort to stem the spread of the virus. “Safeguarding public health is all about being proactive,” she said in a statement.The order, from the state’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, requires live bird markets that have not detected any bird flu cases to sell their inventories and disinfect their operations. Markets with detected cases must follow guidelines for quarantine and depopulation, the order said.The virus, called H5N1, has infected roughly 156 million commercial, backyard and wild birds across the country since January 2022. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said that the illness poses minimal risks to the general public’s health, and that it does not yet have the ability to spread readily among people.The Wildlife Conservation Society, which also operates the Central Park Zoo, the Prospect Park Zoo and the New York Aquarium on Coney Island, said that, as a precaution, the organization had recently moved vulnerable bird species to separate, protected areas inside its parks. It has also limited the exposure of other animals in its care to wild birds and especially to waterfowl, which are known to be carriers of the virus.“We have assessed and reviewed our protocols regarding risk to our birds from avian influenza,” the nonprofit said in a statement. “Our veterinarians and curators continue to closely monitor the situation in the region and are collaborating with city, state and federal agencies.”The Bronx and Queens Zoos remained open on Saturday, the organization said, noting the low risk of visitors coming into contact with zoo birds or contracting the virus.On Saturday afternoon at the Queens Zoo, Marck Vasquez and Jennifer Espinoza said they were sad to find that the swans, one of their favorite attractions, were not in their usual pond surrounded by wild birds, but instead alone in a separate enclosure.“It feels empty,” said Mr. Vasquez, 21.Nearby, another visitor, Chawsu, 36, who is originally from Myanmar, strolled by a pond where scores of wild mallards swam. Ms. Chawsu said she was sad the flu was sickening birds but that she was otherwise unconcerned.“I’m coming from a country where every year we have bird flu,” Ms. Chawsu said. “It’s not a worry to me.”Ellen Yan More

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      Irv Gotti: Key Milestones in the Life of the Rap Mogul

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      The producer, who died on Wednesday, built Murder Inc. into one of the most influential record labels of the early 2000s. His career was marred by a federal investigation and trial.Irv Gotti, who founded the record label Murder Inc. and helped shape the sound of hip-hop and R&B in the late 1990s and early 2000s when he shepherded the careers of Ja Rule and Ashanti, died on Wednesday at 54.Here is a brief look at how the rap entrepreneur and record executive worked his way from humble beginnings in Queens, N.Y., to the top of the charts before his momentum was marred by a federal investigation into the label in which he was charged with money laundering and acquitted.A Childhood in Queens, N.Y.Gotti was born Irving Domingo Lorenzo Jr. in Queens, N.Y., in 1970. He was the youngest of eight children, according to “The Murder Inc Story,” a documentary about his life that aired on BET in 2022. His family, which he described as one that didn’t have much money but had plenty of love, recalled him as a “clown” who loved performing, dancing and entertaining, sometimes even for small change.His foray into music began as a preteen, when he played for hours with a turntable and a mixer that his siblings had purchased for him. By the age of 15, he had begun to make a name for himself as a D.J. at local parties.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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      A Cryptic Letter With a Clear Warning

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      A domestic terrorist group sent a note to The New York Times admitting to detonating a bomb in Queens.Nearly 50 years ago, on Jan. 29, 1975, a bomb exploded inside the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., damaging the building but causing no injuries. A bomb was discovered that same day at a federal office building in Oakland, Calif., and was safely detonated.The acts were part of a spree of violence by a far-left militant group, Weather Underground, a splinter group of the Students for a Democratic Society, which opposed the Vietnam War. (The group took its name from lyrics written by Bob Dylan — “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows” — in the song “Subterranean Homesick Blues.”) In a manifesto, the Weather Underground called for “the destruction of U.S. imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.”In late 1970, about a year after the group’s formation, The New York Times received a cryptic letter dated Oct. 9. Painted across the note was a red, five-pointed star, a symbol for Communism. The letter was signed in large cursive letters: Weatherman.That letter is currently stored in the “morgue,” The Times’s vast clippings archive.The letter makes reference to “slave ships of the twentieth century” and says that “with rallies and riots, with marches and Molotovs, kids in New York City and around the country will continue the battle.”Most startling is that the group claimed credit for an attack in Queens: “Last night as part of an international conspiracy we blew up the Long Island City Criminal Courthouse,” the letter reads. The explosion, which occurred on the third floor, heavily damaged the interior of the gray stone building.The group would ultimately claim responsibility for more than 25 bombings, according to the F.B.I., including at the Capitol building in March 1971. The group eventually splintered as the Vietnam War came to an end, disbanding in the late ’70s.In a 2020 guest essay for Times Opinion, Mark Rudd, a community organizer who once belonged to the Weather Underground, described his time with the group. “We didn’t realize that the violence we claimed we hated had infected our souls,” he wrote. “At the time, I’m not sure we’d have cared.” More

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      U.S. Open: What You Need to Know

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      The tournament runs Aug. 26 to Sept. 8 at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in New York City.For much of the year, the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, New York, is mostly quiet. But for two weeks late in the summer, the place becomes the center of the tennis world as thousands of fans flock to Flushing Meadows for the U.S. Open.Qualifying matches are already underway, and the main draw of the U.S. Open begins on Aug. 26. The Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon Championships and the Olympics are in the books, so this is the last chance for the world’s top tennis players to win a major title this year.A few are favored to win this year, but the U.S. Open has been known for upsets, thrilling matches that can run late into the night.Here’s what to know about this year’s tournament.Riders on the No. 7 train pass the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center.Gabriela Bhaskar for The New York TimesAll aboard the No. 7 train.From Manhattan, one of the simplest — and fastest — ways to travel to the U.S. Open is by taking an eastbound No. 7 subway train to the Mets-Willets Point station. Once you’re there, just follow the crowds to the tennis grounds.Those in Long Island or Manhattan can also take Long Island Rail Road to Mets-Willet Point. The Port Washington Branch departs Manhattan from Penn Station, with a stop at Grand Central Terminal.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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      Lauren Scruggs Makes History as Americans Win Olympic Fencing Gold

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      After Scruggs, 21, became the first Black American woman to win an individual Olympic fencing medal, she clinched gold for the U.S. team.After Lauren Scruggs clinched the gold medal for the United States in the women’s fencing team foil competition on Thursday, she threw off her mask and spun around, her eyes and mouth wide open.It was the team’s first-ever gold in the event. But it wasn’t the first big moment for Scruggs at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.On Sunday, Scruggs, in her Olympics debut, became the first Black American woman to win an individual Olympic fencing medal for the U.S.“Fencing has largely, historically, been a non-Black sport,” Scruggs told NCAA.com in a July interview. “So I hope to inspire young Black girls to get into fencing and to think that they can have a place in the sport. I just hope that more people who look like me, little girls like me, feel they have a place in the sport.”A Queens native and a rising senior at Harvard, Scruggs was around 7 when she started fencing. She was inspired by her older brother, Nolen, who was eager to try fencing after seeing “Star Wars,” “Good Morning America” reported.“As the younger sibling, I always wanted to do whatever he did, so I started fencing, and I stuck with it,” Scruggs told BET in an interview last month.Scruggs clung to the sport’s competitive nature, telling “Good Morning America” that it channeled her creativity. But as a Black fencer, she felt added pressure whenever she stepped onto the piste.“Growing up in fencing, no one really looked like me,” she said in the “Good Morning America” interview. “I think in order to prove myself, I really had to be the best at the tournaments.”She kept winning those tournaments. Scruggs was accepted into the Peter Westbrook Foundation, an organization founded by Peter Westbrook, the first Black American man to win an Olympic fencing medal.The organization supports young fencers from underrepresented racial and economic backgrounds. Scruggs, who now volunteers as a mentor for the group, eventually wants to own her own fencing club, she said in the BET interview.Scruggs is a six-time world champion and the youngest U.S. foil fencer to win the Junior World Championship, according to her Harvard bio. She has been named a first-team All American three times at Harvard and was the 2023 N.C.A.A. national champion.She was No. 11 in the International Fencing Federation’s world rankings when she arrived in Paris.“I think my success in fencing has also helped break stereotypes about what Black people can do and who can be a fencer,” she told “Good Morning America.” More

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      Body Cameras Show NYPD Fatally Shooting Win Rozario, Man Who Was Holding Scissors

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      The man, Win Rozario, 19, had called 911 and seemed to be in mental distress, officials and his family said. The police appeared to shoot him at least four times.Body camera footage of the police fatally shooting a 19-year-old Queens man in his kitchen in March shows what the police had described as a “chaotic” situation. But the video, released Friday, also renewed criticism of the decision to open fire on the man, who was holding scissors and seemed to be in mental distress.The man, Win Rozario, was declared dead at a hospital after the shooting on March 27, the police said. The New York attorney general’s office released the footage from body-worn cameras as part of its investigation into the shooting.The police arrived at Mr. Rozario’s home in Ozone Park that day in response to a 911 call for someone in mental distress, which officials said they believed Mr. Rozario had placed himself while in “mental crisis.” John Chell, the Police Department’s chief of patrol, said at the time that the officers had arrived within two minutes. The shooting occurred about three minutes after the officers, Matthew Cianfrocco and Salvatore Alongi, arrived at the scene, according to their videos.Chief Chell had said the shooting occurred after the situation had become “quite hectic, chaotic and dangerous right away.” He said the officers had “no choice” but to shoot Mr. Rozario after he moved toward the officers with the scissors.But Mr. Rozario’s younger brother, who witnessed the shooting, had disputed the police’s account and insisted that the officers had not needed to fire their guns.The videos show the officers at first using their stun guns on Mr. Rozario as he stands in the kitchen with the scissors, sometimes moving toward them quickly. Mr. Rozario’s mother repeatedly restrains him and stands between her son and the officers even after he has been hit with the stun gun more than once.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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      Mary Ann Zielonko, Partner of Kitty Genovese, Dies at 85

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      The murder of Ms. Genovese, and her neighbors’ reaction to it, generated headlines. The nature of her relationship with Ms. Zielonko was a different story.For 60 years, Kitty Genovese has endured as a symbol of big-city apathy, the victim not only of a knife-wielding killer but also of her neighbors’ reluctance to get involved. Two weeks after a man named Winston Moseley stalked, raped and murdered her in Queens late at night in March 1964, a New York Times article reported that 38 of her neighbors had heard her cries for help, yet did nothing.That account turned out to be significantly flawed. Most of those 38 people were unaware of what was actually happening; they thought they were merely hearing a fight, perhaps a lovers’ quarrel. Investigations later determined that few of them had caught even a glimpse of the attacks. Nonetheless, the death of 28-year-old Catherine Susan Genovese has long remained a paradigm of urban anonymity and indifference.Kitty Genovese at work as a bar manager in an undated photo.New York Daily News, via Associated PressSomething else was out of kilter in the reporting back then. Ms. Genovese had been living for a year with Mary Ann Zielonko. In those days they were typically referred to as roommates. In fact, they were lovers. When the police investigators became aware of that, they questioned Ms. Zielonko as a possible suspect. After a night of bowling with friends, she had been asleep in their Kew Gardens apartment while the attack took place below.“I was very numb, I would say, from the whole thing,” she told Retro Report, a series of video documentaries exploring old news stories and their lasting effects, in 2016. “I felt, wow, she was so close, and I was sleeping, and I didn’t know what happened, and that I could have saved her. You know? That’s what I really think still.”Ms. Zielonko died on Wednesday at her home in Rutland, Vt., where she had lived since 2000. She was 85. Rebecca Jones, her domestic partner and sole survivor, said the cause was aspiration pneumonia.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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      Ex-N.Y.P.D. Officer Sentenced to 22 Months for Her Role in Jan. 6 Riot

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      Sara Carpenter slapped a police officer while wielding a tambourine when former President Donald J. Trump’s supporters stormed the Capitol, prosecutors said.A former New York City police officer was sentenced on Tuesday to 22 months in prison for her role in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021, during which, federal prosecutors said, she pushed against and slapped police officers while yelling and wielding a tambourine.The sentencing of the former officer, Sara Carpenter, followed her conviction in March on several felony and misdemeanor counts, including civil disorder, obstruction of an official proceeding and entering or remaining in a restricted building or ground, court records show.Ms. Carpenter, 54, of Richmond Hill, Queens, is among more than 1,200 people — and one of at least 15 with law enforcement ties — to be criminally charged in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, according to court records and a Justice Department news release.She and other supporters of former President Donald J. Trump stormed the Capitol that day in a bid to disrupt the certification of President Biden as the winner of the 2020 election. Mr. Trump has been charged with conspiracy and the corrupt obstruction of an official proceeding as a result of the riot, and a federal investigation into the day’s events is continuing.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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      Finding George Santos’s Replacement Is Proving Difficult for Republicans

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      Party leaders have vowed not to repeat the vetting mistakes they made with the expelled congressman. But getting to yes is proving messy.If New York Republicans had hoped to quickly and cleanly turn the page on the embarrassing saga of George Santos, the week since his expulsion from Congress has not exactly gone as planned.While party leaders hunkered down in the Long Island suburbs to game out the critical special election to replace him, it emerged that one of their top candidates for the nomination, Mazi Melesa Pilip, was not technically a Republican at all, but a registered Democrat.Another Republican who had entered the race earlier this year was convicted of taking part in the Capitol riot on Jan. 6, 2021.Word leaked that party officials were interviewing a more serious contender: a former state assemblyman known to have potentially damaging ties to Mr. Santos through a bizarre business proposition that one person involved said resembled the classic email scheme with a Nigerian prince.And records were unearthed in news reports showing that another front-runner, Mike Sapraicone, had not only been sued for suppressing evidence in a murder case as a New York City police officer but later made political contributions totaling $40,000 to an unexpected recipient: the race’s Democratic nominee, Tom Suozzi.The torrent of revelations washed away the message of order and unity that top Republicans sought to project in the wake of Mr. Santos’s hurricane. And suspicions that many of the unsavory disclosures about the candidates had been seeded in the press by rival Republican camps left some fretting that the party was playing straight into Democrats’ hands.“It definitely looks messy,” said Chapin Fay, a Republican political consultant advising some of the candidates. “Just let the Republicans kill themselves even before a candidate is chosen.”In many ways, the Republicans’ predicament is the result of their determination to avoid a repeat of Mr. Santos. The federally indicted serial fabulist slipped past Republican and Democratic vetters in 2020 and 2022, winning the seat connecting Queens and Nassau County last fall before his entire life story began to unravel as a series of fictions and outright frauds.Joseph G. Cairo Jr., the Nassau County Republican chairman leading the selection process, views Mr. Santos as a stain on his personal record. He said he would likely only select a candidate already well known to the party and has also retained outside help from research firms to identify major vulnerabilities before making the nomination.“There’s a personal thing to some people that, Hey, a mistake was made, this guy has blemished our party, this is our chance to correct it,” Mr. Cairo said in a recent interview, expressing confidence that the party would unite behind the best candidate.But that takes time, and as Mr. Cairo’s deliberations stretch into another week, candidates and their allies appear to have taken matters into their own hands, as they hunt for damaging information to boost their cause or hurt a rival’s. Property records have been checked. Old podcasts dug up. Voting records scrutinized.Even Mr. Santos took a break from recording lucrative videos on Cameo to stir the pot, urging his followers to call Mr. Cairo to insist that he not select “a Democrat in Republican skin” like Ms. Pilip or Mr. Sapraicone.Democrats have had their own awkwardness. On Monday, Gov. Kathy Hochul made Mr. Suozzi drive to Albany to all but grovel for her support. But there was never really any doubt that the well-known former congressman would be his party’s pick, and Democrats quickly united around his nomination.Mr. Fay, who began his career as an opposition researcher, argued that “mudslinging” now could actually help inoculate the eventual Republican nominee against key weaknesses by the time the Feb. 13 special election heated up.For Ms. Pilip in particular, who has become a top contender on the strength of a remarkable political biography, being outed as a registered Democrat may not be such a bad thing in a district that leans slightly left. In fact, crossover appeal has helped before: Ms. Pilip, a Black former member of the Israel Defense Forces, flipped a local legislative district in 2021 while running on the Republican Party ballot line.In a statement, Mr. Cairo indicated that Ms. Pilip’s registration, which was first reported by Politico, was known to party leaders. He said they had long supported her because she was “philosophically in sync with the Republican team.”In another reflection of her status as a formidable candidate, an unsigned, untraceable email was sent to multiple reporters Friday morning seeking to tarnish her name by including a link to a photograph on social media of Ms. Pilip embracing Mr. Santos.The hits on other Republican hopefuls may be more problematic.Take Mr. Sapraicone. On Monday, Politico reported on a 2021 lawsuit accusing him and other former New York Police Department detectives of having coerced a false confession and suppressed exonerating evidence that kept a man behind bars for two decades. (He denied knowing about the suit.)On Wednesday, an old news report resurfaced about his donations to Mr. Suozzi. And on Thursday, Politico ran another item reporting how on a podcast earlier this year, the Republican described once being afraid of a police officer because he was Black. The Sapraicone campaign said he had shared the story to show how he had grown to embrace “diverse communities” as a police officer.In an interview, Mr. Sapraicone said he was determined not to get rattled.“This is all new water to me,” he said. “I see these sharp elbows coming left and right here. I don’t think any of this stuff is productive no matter where it’s coming from.”Philip Sean Grillo, who declared his candidacy in May, certainly did not help the party’s cause when he was convicted in the Jan. 6 case. A wave of headlines tied him to Mr. Santos and the special election, though his candidacy has never been taken seriously.Party leaders also had to contend with sticky potential issues in private involving more serious candidates, like Michael LiPetri, the former Republican state assemblyman. Mr. LiPetri is well liked within Long Island Republican circles, but his nomination would almost certainly open the party to more Santos-tinged attacks.The New York Times reported last summer that Mr. LiPetri worked with Mr. Santos to approach a campaign donor with an unusual proposition. They asked the donor to create a limited liability company to help a wealthy unnamed Polish citizen buy cryptocurrency while his fortune was evidently frozen in a bank account. The deal never went through.Mr. LiPetri, who sought to play down his role when The Times initially disclosed his involvement, did not respond to requests for comment.Gleeful Democratic operatives said they could package any of the disclosures into general election ammunition if given the opportunity.“We wish the Grand Old Party the best in their flailing endeavors,” said Ellie Dougherty, a spokeswoman for House Democrats’ campaign arm, calling the other side “dysfunctional.”But not every Republican was worrying. One veteran of hard-fought campaigns on Long Island said his fellow Republicans should quit the hand-wringing.“All the sniping between the people who support X and Y and Z?” said the Republican, former Senator Alfonse D’Amato. “Doesn’t mean anything in the finals.” More