Northeast
Knife-wielding illegal migrant accused of threatening US Attorney on Albany, NY streets
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A previously deported illegal migrant with a long rap sheet has been arrested on attempted murder charges in Albany after he pulled out a knife and lunged at the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York, according to prosecutors.
Saul Morales-Garcia, 40, who is originally from El Salvador, charged at U.S. attorney John Sarcone on Tuesday night while he was outside a hotel, according to prosecutors.
Sarcone, who was appointed by Attorney General Pam Bondi in March, said he feared for his life.
U.S. attorney for the Northern District of New York John Sarcone, left, was allegedly chased by knife-wielding illegal immigrant Saul Morales-Garcia, right, who threatened to slit his throat on the streets of Albany Tuesday night, prosecutors said. (Will Waldron/Albany Times Union via Getty Images)
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The migrant didn’t injure Sarcone, who fled into the hotel on Lodge Street and called Sheriff Craig Apple just before 10 p.m.
Sarcone said he then went back to the street and called Garcia-Morales in order to stop the migrant from fleeing the scene, believing an innocent person would be killed if he wasn’t apprehended.
But before law enforcement arrived, Morales-Garcia charged at Sarcone again, screaming and yelling at him in a foreign language while wielding the knife to make a slitting-the-throat gesture, prosecutors said.
Sarcone again ran to the lobby of the Hilton where Morales-Garcia stopped, turned and began to walk away but was arrested when sheriff’s deputies arrived. Morales-Garcia was taken into custody and the knife was recovered.
“I felt an obligation to the public as the chief Federal law enforcement officer in the district that includes the city of Albany,” Sarcone said in a statement. “I feared for my life but I couldn’t let this individual harm and potentially kill others.”
The Albany County Sheriff’s Office posted a photo of the knife used in the alleged attack on U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of New York, John Sarcone III. (Albany County Sheriff’s Office)
Morales-Garcia, who unlawfully reentered the United States in 2021, has been charged with attempted murder, felony weapons possession and menacing, according to court documents. Police said it was a random attack.
He was arraigned in Albany City Court and pleaded not guilty. He is currently being held without bail.
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“Public safety is our highest priority,” Sarcone said. “I am relieved that no one was harmed. I appreciated the swift response by the Albany County Sheriff’s office, which was within minutes, although it seemed like an eternity.”
Sarcone said that despite his familiarity with streets, he thinks they are dangerous.
“I’m a resident of the city of Albany, and I can’t … I don’t feel safe to go out for a walk and have a cigar right near the state Capitol,” he told Times Union.
The sheriff praised Sarcone and said his “selfless actions likely saved lives.”
Sarcone is responsible for all federal criminal prosecutions and civil litigation in 32 counties in the Northern District of New York.
He requested that his office be recused from prosecuting Morales-Garcia for illegally re-entering the United States, which is a felony. The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York will now be prosecuting the case. The FBI and Homeland Security Investigations are also involved in the investigation.
The Hilton Hotel in Albany where United States Attorney John Sarcone was allegedly lunged at by a knife-wielding illegal immigrant. (Google Maps)
Morales-Garcia has a criminal record in at least three other states besides New York, according to the Times Union.
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Morales-Garcia was convicted in Georgia in 2022 for driving under the influence and driving without a license, and he currently has an active warrant in Forsyth County for failure to appear in court that year.
He was arrested in Virginia 2023 by U.S. Park Police on federal property for disorderly conduct while he was charged with retail theft in Philadelphia last year.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Albany County Sheriff’s Office, the U.S. attorney’s office and Immigration and Enforcement (ICE) for comment.
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New York
Man Sentenced to 115 Years for Killing N.Y.P.D. Officer in Queens
A man was sentenced to 115 years in prison on Monday for the fatal shooting of a New York City police officer who had ordered him to step out of a car in Queens in 2024.
More than 200 people, mostly police officers, packed a courtroom in State Supreme Court in Queens to hear Justice Michael Aloise sentence Guy Rivera in the killing of Jonathan Diller, 31, who was promoted to the rank of detective after his death.
“It took me five minutes to calculate these numbers,” Justice Aloise said. “It’s going to take you a lifetime to calculate the damage you did and the grief that you caused.”
He said that Mr. Rivera had determined his own fate “the second you pulled that trigger.”
Detective Diller’s wife, Stephanie, who sat among the officers in the courtroom, read a statement in court just before the sentencing, speaking of the pain and loss that she and her son, Ryan, now 3, have suffered. Ms. Diller, who testified during the trial, spoke directly to Mr. Rivera as he sat at the defense table.
“This is the last moment I will allow you to take from me,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks. “You took my husband, Jonathan. You took the future we planned together. The life we were building, the years we were supposed to share together.”
“What you did to Jonathan” she said, “gave me and our son a life sentence without him.”
A jury found Mr. Rivera, 36, guilty earlier this month on four charges, including aggravated manslaughter, in Detective Diller’s death, but acquitted him of the most serious charge, first-degree murder. The decision, after a three-week trial in Queens, stunned the dozens of police officers present when it was announced in the courtroom on April 1.
To find him guilty of murder, the jury had to decide whether they believed Mr. Rivera had intended to kill Detective Diller when he pointed his gun at him in the Far Rockaway section of Queens on March 25, 2024. They ultimately determined that Mr. Rivera had intentionally pulled the trigger, but did not intend to kill him.
Mr. Rivera did not speak at his sentencing at the advice of one of his lawyers, Jamal Johnson, who told Justice Aloise they would appeal the conviction.
Mr. Johnson, a lawyer with the Legal Aid Society, said after the hearing that Justice Aloise’s statement at sentencing showed the court “had already made up its mind about sentencing well before the trial was conducted.”
During the trial, prosecutors said that before the fatal shooting, Detective Diller’s partner, Sgt. Sasha Rosen, saw Mr. Rivera and another man, Lindy Jones, come out of a store and get into a car. Mr. Rivera had an L-shaped object in the pocket of his sweatshirt that resembled a firearm, prosecutors said.
Detective Diller approached the vehicle and asked Mr. Rivera repeatedly to comply with orders. When he did not, Sergeant Rosen reached in to pull him out of the car.
Then Mr. Rivera fired, the jury found. The defense argued that Mr. Rivera’s gun went off accidentally when Sergeant Rosen pulled him out, striking Detective Diller. Prosecutors said Mr. Rivera then turned his gun on Sergeant Rosen, but the weapon jammed.
Justice Aloise did not allow the jury to see video that, the defense contended, showed Mr. Rivera’s arm was broken during his confrontation with the police.
That evidence would have directly undermined the prosecution’s contention that Mr. Rivera was physically able to pull the trigger when he tried to shoot Sergeant Rosen, they said.
In all, Mr. Rivera was sentenced to 25 years to life for the aggravated manslaughter conviction; 40 years to life for the attempted murder of Sergeant Rosen; and 25 years to life for each of the gun possession counts. He was ordered to serve those sentences consecutively.
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On Monday, after the sentencing, dozens of police officers smiled and embraced one another as they left the courtroom. The prosecutors who tried the case and Melinda Katz, the Queens district attorney, hugged several of Detective Diller’s family members.
Jessica Tisch, the police commissioner, called the sentence “obviously the right result, for him and for anyone who kills a New York City police officer.”
Outside the courthouse, members of the Police Benevolent Association, the police officers’ union, said they were pleased with the sentence.
“The verdict in this case did not send the right message to the Diller family and every police officer who wears the uniform,” said Patrick Hendry, the union president, who spoke at the foot of the courthouse stairwell, backed by nearly 100 police officers.
“But this sentence,” he said, “it sent the right message.”
Boston, MA
Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” musical returns to Boston for first time in 25 years
Say bonjour to the return of “Beauty and the Beast.” The national tour has been in Boston before, but this is the first time in 25 years that Disney is behind the production.
Kyra Belle Johnson stars as Belle, the bookworm who doesn’t quite fit into her quiet village.
“I think part of treating her like a real person is finding the humor and finding the faults and breathing and being present on stage every night,” Johnson said.
As Mrs. Potts, Kathy Voytko embodies the beloved teapot.
“When I was talking to my daughters about, ‘How do you feel about mom being gone for the better part of a year?’ They said, ‘Well, geez, mom, we’re gonna miss you, but it’s Mrs. Potts,’” Voytko explained.
The actors told WBZ-TV that Disney’s involvement in this tour makes a noticeable impact, with Voytko saying, “There is nothing like a Disney-produced Disney production because the magic in the show, the attention to detail, the loving recreation of the movie that we all know and love, plus some elements of surprise.”
Johnson added, “They care about this piece of art so much… And they’re really precious with it, but at the same time, they’re open with it.”
Book writer Linda Woolverton worked with the cast in the rehearsal room to make sure the piece felt modern.
“She literally changed some scenes and lines specifically for us and our versions of these characters to make it seem grounded and real,” Johnson explained.
And Johnson gained extra insight into Belle’s life by visiting the Alsace region of France, which inspired the original Disney animators.
“Walking in the town and having like a storefront and then the leaning building that was this like blue and the wooden windows and somebody leaning out of it talking to somebody on the street. These are real places, it’s not just like a made-up place in your head.”
The wonder she felt is echoed in the audience’s response.
“This is a gate for a lot of new theater lovers. We get a lot of people who this is their first show,” said Johnson.
“It’s for everybody,” added Voytko. “It’s for adults, it’s for married couples, it is for a date night, it for a pack of pals who just want to see something nostalgic from their youth and it makes it a thrill for us every single day.”
You can see Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” at the Citizens Opera House in Boston through Sunday.
Pittsburg, PA
NFL Draft in Pittsburgh sets onsite attendance record, third-best viewership mark
A historic number of people flooded into Pittsburgh for the NFL Draft on Thursday.
Around 320,000 fans attended the opening round of the draft on Thursday night just outside of Acrisure Stadium in Pittsburgh, which marked an attendance record for round one of the draft, ESPN announced on Monday afternoon. In total, about 805,000 people attended the three-day event.
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ESPN also said that about 13,2 million people tuned in to watch the first round of the NFL Draft on Thursday night, which made it the third-most watched opening round under the current format, which started back in 2010. Only the 2025 and 2020 editions of the draft drew a bigger audience on the first night.
The league said that a record amount of merchandise was sold throughout the NFL Draft weekend, too, though it did not provide a figure or metric there. The previous record on that front was set last season in Green Bay.
The Las Vegas Raiders used the No. 1 overall pick on Indiana quarterback and reigning Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza on Thursday night. Mendoza, who led the Hoosiers to the national championship earlier this year, was not in attendance in Pittsburgh. Instead, he celebrated with his family from home in Miami.
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The NFL Draft will be held next spring in Washington D.C. for the first time in modern history. It’s expected to be held on the National Mall. Washington D.C. held the draft one other time back in December 1940.
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