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Man Is Fatally Stabbed After Fight on Subway Train in Manhattan

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Man Is Fatally Stabbed After Fight on Subway Train in Manhattan

A 38-year-old Brooklyn man was fatally stabbed early Friday after he and another man began fighting on a downtown No. 5 train in Manhattan during the morning rush hour, officials said.

The men began to argue after one stepped on the other’s shoe, according to a law enforcement official.

As the train headed toward the Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station, the assailant stabbed the man, the law enforcement official said. When the train stopped at the station, the men got off and the attacker stabbed the victim a second time, the official said.

Officers responding to a 911 call about a stabbing at the station arrived at around 8:30 a.m. to find the victim, John Sheldon, unconscious on the platform with several chest wounds, the police said. Emergency medical workers took Mr. Sheldon to Bellevue Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. (The Police Department initially identified the victim as Sheldon John.)

The assailant, believed to be in his 30s, fled from the station, the police said. The investigation was continuing, and no arrests had been made as of Friday afternoon, the police said.

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The police said they did not believe the two men knew each other.

At 10:15 a.m., a splatter of what appeared to be blood was visible inches from the edge of the station’s downtown platform. Officers milled about the blocked-off platform, as downtown trains, diverted from the station amid the investigation, rumbled past. Riders on the uptown side looked on, stunned and confused.

The killing, the first on the subway this year, came at a fraught time for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, the state agency that operates the subway and is in a standoff with the Trump administration over funding for the transit system.

Sean Duffy, the transportation secretary, has waged a public campaign since February deriding the subway system as lawless and dangerous, and threatening to withhold federal money unless the M.T.A. addressed crime in the system.

But crime on the subway has declined, a trend that Jessica Tisch, the city’s police commissioner, has attributed to the deployment of additional officers on platforms and trains.

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Major crime on the subway fell 18 percent in the first three months of the year, according to Police Department data. For the first time in seven years, there were no murders in the transit system in the year’s first quarter.

As of last Sunday, overall crime in the system was down almost 11 percent compared with the same period last year, although it has begun to rise slightly in recent weeks.

Still, after a series of random and jarring attacks in the system over the past two years, transit officials have struggled to dispel a persistent belief among some riders that the subway is unsafe. The killing on Friday was likely to add to that perception.

Some people have criticized the number of officers now patrolling the system, but Elizabeth Daley, who was waiting for a train on the uptown platform Friday morning, said she would like to see more.

“A lot of the time I would rather take a 30- or 40-minute walk just because once you’re in there and it’s moving, you can’t really get out,” Ms. Daley, 20, said.

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Others shrugged off the episode, describing it as unsettling but not unusual.

“Obviously it freaks me out, but it’s New York. It’s a normal thing,” said Jonathan Ricket, a 19-year-old Pace University student who lives in Newburgh, N.Y., and commutes into the city daily for classes.

He paused for a moment.

“I’m just glad I didn’t see it,” he added.

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New York

Driver Who Killed Mother and Daughters Sentenced to 3 to 9 Years

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Driver Who Killed Mother and Daughters Sentenced to 3 to 9 Years

A driver who crashed into a woman and her two young daughters while they were crossing a street in Brooklyn in March, killing all three, was sentenced to as many as nine years in prison on Wednesday.

The driver, Miriam Yarimi, has admitted striking the woman, Natasha Saada, 34, and her daughters, Diana, 8, and Deborah, 5, after speeding through a red light. She had slammed into another vehicle on the border of the Gravesend and Midwood neighborhoods and careened into a crosswalk where the family was walking.

Ms. Yarimi, 33, accepted a judge’s offer last month to admit to three counts of second-degree manslaughter in Brooklyn Supreme Court in return for a lighter sentence. She was sentenced on Wednesday by the judge, Justice Danny Chun, to three to nine years behind bars.

The case against Ms. Yarimi, a wig maker with a robust social media presence, became a flashpoint among transportation activists. Ms. Yarimi, who drove a blue Audi A3 sedan with the license plate WIGM8KER, had a long history of driving infractions, according to New York City records, with more than $12,000 in traffic violation fines tied to her vehicle at the time of the crash.

The deaths of Ms. Saada and her daughters set off a wave of outrage in the city over unchecked reckless driving and prompted calls from transportation groups for lawmakers to pass penalties on so-called super speeders.

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Ms. Yarimi “cared about only herself when she raced in the streets of Brooklyn and wiped away nearly an entire family,” Eric Gonzalez, the Brooklyn district attorney, said in a statement after the sentencing. “She should not have been driving a car that day.”

Mr. Gonzalez had recommended the maximum sentence of five to 15 years in prison.

On Wednesday, Ms. Yarimi appeared inside the Brooklyn courtroom wearing a gray shirt and leggings, with her hands handcuffed behind her back. During the brief proceedings, she addressed the court, reading from a piece of paper.

“I’ll have to deal with this for the rest of my life and I think that’s a punishment in itself,” she said, her eyes full of tears. “I think about the victims every day. There’s not a day that goes by where I don’t think about what I’ve done.”

On the afternoon of March 29, a Saturday, Ms. Yarimi was driving with a suspended license, according to prosecutors. Around 1 p.m., she turned onto Ocean Parkway, where surveillance video shows her using her cellphone and running a red light, before continuing north, they said.

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At the intersection with Quentin Road, Ms. Saada was stepping into the crosswalk with her two daughters and 4-year-old son. Nearby, a Toyota Camry was waiting to turn onto the parkway.

Ms. Yarimi sped through a red light and into the intersection. She barreled into the back of the Toyota and then shot forward, plowing into the Saada family. Her car flipped over and came to a rest about 130 feet from the carnage.

Ms. Saada and her daughters were killed, while her son was taken to a hospital where he had a kidney removed and was treated for skull fractures and brain bleeding. The Toyota’s five passengers — an Uber driver, a mother and her three children — also suffered minor injuries.

Ms. Yarimi’s car had been traveling 68 miles per hour in a 25 m.p.h. zone and showed no sign that brakes had been applied, prosecutors said. Ms. Yarimi sustained minor injures from the crash and was later taken to a hospital for psychiatric evaluation.

The episode caused immediate fury, drawing reactions from Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch and Mayor Eric Adams, who attended the Saadas’s funeral.

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According to NYCServ, the city’s database for unpaid tickets, Ms. Yarimi’s Audi had $1,345 in unpaid fines at the time of the crash. On another website that tracks traffic violations using city data, the car received 107 parking and camera violations between June 2023 and the end of March 2025. Those violations, which included running red lights and speeding through school zones, amounted to more than $12,000 in fines.

In the months that followed, transportation safety groups and activists decried Ms. Yarimi’s traffic record and urged lawmakers in Albany to pass legislation to address the city’s chronic speeders.

Mr. Gonzalez on Wednesday said that Ms. Yarimi’s sentence showed “that reckless driving will be vigorously prosecuted.”

But outside the courthouse, the Saada family’s civil lawyer, Herschel Kulefsky, complained that the family had not been allowed to speak in court. “ They are quite disappointed, or outraged would probably be a better word,” he said, calling the sentence “the bare minimum.”

“I think this doesn’t send any message at all, other than a lenient message,” Mr. Kulefsky added.

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Video: What Bodegas Mean for New York

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Video: What Bodegas Mean for New York

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Bodegas have been an essential part of New York City life for decades. Anna Kodé, a reporter at the New York Times, breaks down the history, challenges and triumphs of the bodega and the people who run them.

By Anna Kodé, Gabriel Blanco, Karen Hanley and Laura Salaberry

November 17, 2025

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Video: Why Can’t We Fix Penn Station?

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Video: Why Can’t We Fix Penn Station?

new video loaded: Why Can’t We Fix Penn Station?

The biggest thing holding Penn Station back from a much-needed rehaul is what’s on top of it: Madison Square Garden.

By Patrick McGeehan, Edward Vega, Laura Salaberry and Melanie Bencosme

November 13, 2025

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