Slashing suspect shot at Grand Central subway station in New York, police say
People walk through Grand Central Terminal on November 4, 2025, in New York City. (Photo by Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Police shot and killed a knife-wielding man on a subway platform at Grand Central Station in New York City on Saturday after he stabbed at least two people, according to the NYPD.
Officers were called to the scene shortly after 9:30 this morning.
Police said the man had been acting erratically on the train and slashed at least two people on the 4/5/6 platform. The slashing wounds are severe but the victims are stable in the hospital.
The suspect refused repeated commands to drop what police described as a machete before an officer opened fire, killing him, according to the NYPD.
There is no connection to terrorism, police said.
The identity of the knife-wielding suspect was not immediately released.
The NYPD will hold a news conference at the scene.
Fraudsters are posing as ICE officers, immigration lawyers and federal judges. (Evelin Flores)
(NEW YORK) — Twenty-year-old Edith from Guatemala has remained in her home with her 1-year-old baby Justin for weeks after selling her only means of transportation.
“Being stuck at home, locked up inside, is very, very difficult for us,” she told ABC News.
Edith, a U.S. citizen who was raised in Guatemala and requested she only be referred to by her first name out of concern over her privacy, sold her car and spent her life savings to pay someone who she thought was an attorney to help her husband Dimas, who was arrested and placed in immigration custody in March.
After Dimas, the undocumented breadwinner of the family, was quickly sent to a detention center in Georgia, Edith sought an immigration lawyer on social media, where a stranger recommended a supposed Florida-based attorney.
“I was scheduled for a video call, and the woman who said she was a lawyer said that to get someone out of immigration detention, a habeas corpus needed to be filed,” Edith told ABC News.
Edith retained the woman and began communicating with her frequently. She completed documents the woman sent her, and began sending the woman payments. She even received documents that appeared to be from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), the federal agency that oversees immigration services.
“She began asking for money, $500, $600, $1,750, $4,000 for the bond, petition, copies [of forms],” Edith said.
But last month, when the woman was scheduled to participate in a video call for Dimas’ initial hearing before an immigration judge, she never appeared on the call. Edith’s husband later told her that the judge said that the attorney wasn’t registered in the court system.
“He said, ‘They’re scamming you,'” Edith said. “I said, ‘But why? Why me?’ I started to feel really bad and I didn’t know what to do.”
After confronting the woman she had hired, Edith realized she had been scammed out of more than $10,000 — her life savings. And with all her money gone, she was unable to pay for a legitimate lawyer to represent her husband, who last month was ordered deported by an immigration judge.
‘A billion-dollar industry’ Edith is one of many victims across the country that law enforcement and immigration lawyers say are being targeted by bad actors seizing on the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda.
Some scammers, according to officials, are using artificial intelligence to hold fake immigration court proceedings with scammers wearing judicial robes and law enforcement uniforms, using fake documents that appear to be from federal agencies.
“In my experience, this is a billion-dollar industry,” said Jorge Rivera, an immigration lawyer in Florida.
Rivera told ABC News that scammers, including the woman who Edith hired, have used his credentials and his law firm’s information to target immigrants.
“[Victims] have shown up to our office and they say, ‘What happened to my case?'” he said.
ABC News found cases of sophisticated immigration scams across the country, including in New York, where five defendants pleaded not guilty to charges accusing them of holding “sham immigration proceedings” including asylum interviews and court appearances.
According to the complaint, one victim ended up missing their real immigration hearing and was deported.
“In doing so, the defendants demonstrated a complete and utter disregard for the potentially life-altering consequences that their actions inflicted on their victims — vulnerable individuals who not only lost significant funds, but also missed their actual immigration court appearances,” prosecutors said.
And last month, four people in Orlando, Florida, were charged with setting up a fake immigration law firm and extorting millions from victims. They have not yet entered formal pleas.
‘It’s heartbreaking’ Rivera said immigration scams have gotten “exponentially worse” during the second Trump administration, because more pathways for immigration relief “have closed.”
“There’s been pauses, there’s more denials, undoubtedly, it’s more difficult to be able to resolve your immigration status,” he said. “So this is a perfect storm for the criminals.”
Rivera said that if those seeking help are “talking to a legitimate attorney and they’re talking to a fraudster, and the fraudster is giving them hope and giving them possibilities, they’re going to go with the person that’s giving them the hope.”
Rivera said he has been working with law enforcement across the country to send them information on alleged scammers, and has been reaching out to social media companies to take down fake profiles.
In a statement to ABC News, the Department of Homeland Security said scammers are also “pretending to be ICE and USCIS to trick people into giving them money or personal information.”
The DHS said that officials will never call out of the blue, demand money, or accept payments using gift cards or crypto currency.
Scammers are also targeting immigrant advocacy groups like Catholic Charities, Kevin Brennan, Catholic Charities’ vice president, told ABC News.
“It’s really been over the past year or so that we started hearing reports of people claiming to be Catholic Charities and other organizations that provide legal services to immigrants and refugees and using social media to fraudulently offer services, express urgency, ask for money,” Brennan told ABC News.
“It’s heartbreaking to see people who are in need and looking for help and being taken advantage of in such a terrible way by these fraudsters and criminals,” he said.
In Edith’s case, the possibility of getting legitimate legal help to try to get her husband released before he’s deported is slipping away. After an immigration judge ordered her husband deported on April 28, he is currently in ICE custody awaiting removal to Guatemala.
Edith said she will likely go to Guatemala to remain with her husband.
“It’s very ugly, and I don’t wish it on anyone else — to a person who is alone and without support,” she said. “This is not easy.”
(CHICAGO) — An 18-year-old student at Loyola University in Chicago was shot and killed while walking with her friends near campus, authorities said.
The group was walking near Tobey Prinz Beach Park, less than 1 mile from the university’s Lake Shore campus, when an unknown male walked up to them at about 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Chicago police said.
The male showed a gun and opened fire toward the friends, police said.
The victim was shot in the head and died at the scene, police said, adding that no one else was injured.
Loyola University president Mark Reed identified the slain student as Sheridan Gorman.
“This is a tragic loss, and our hearts go out to Sheridan’s family, loved ones, and all who knew her,” Reed said in a statement.
Reed said the university is offering counseling services and is in touch with law enforcement.
“Based on the information available to us now, there is no ongoing threat to our campus community,” he said.
Gorman was also a “beloved” student at her former high school in Westchester County, New York.
“We are so deeply shattered by this tragic and senseless loss,” Yorktown Central School District Superintendent Ron Hattar said in a statement. “Sheridan was loved by all who knew her, and her impact on students and staff alike was profound. She was a shining light for so many people.”
Houses are perched on a cliff at Buena Vista above the beach trail in San Clemente, CA on Monday, April 28, 2025. (Paul Bersebach/MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images)
(NEW YORK) — Measurements of coastal sea-level height around the world may be higher than scientists previously thought, according to new research.
Past research may even have underestimated coastal sea level heights around the world by an average of .3 meters, or about 1 feet, a study published Wednesday in Nature found.
Sea levels in some areas in the Global South — regions such as Asia and the South Pacific — could be up to 3 feet higher than previously assumed, according to the paper.
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that ocean levels may increase by between 0.28 meters and 1 meter by 2100. Human-amplified climate change is the primary cause for present-day rising sea levels, climate research shows.
However, assessments of coastal sea-level often assume overall sea levels rather than the direct measurements of sea-level height in specific regions, according to the paper.
Researchers from Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands analyzed 385 pieces of peer-reviewed scientific literature on coastal exposure and hazard impact assessments published between 2009 and 2025 and calculated the difference between commonly assumed and actual measured coastal sea level.
They found that 90% of all studies relied on assumed sea levels based on gravitational models — or geoids — rather than using the measured sea level, according to the paper.
Earth’s gravitational models only account for gravity and Earth rotation and do not account for other factors that determine local sea levels, such as tides, current and winds.
Less than 9% of the existing studies combined land elevation measurements and sea level measurements, but those studies appeared to suffer from conversion errors and data alignment issues, Katharina Seeger a geographer studying flood hazards and risks at Wageningen University & Research in The Netherlands and co-author of the study, said during a press conference Tuesday.
Sea level was found to be underrepresented by .24 to .27 meters, depending on the model used. Some discrepancies were found to be as high as 5.5 meters to 7.6 meters, the researchers said.
The underrepresentations were particularly noteworthy in regions like Southeast Asia, and the South Pacific.
Coastal sea heights were also underrepresented in Latin America, the west coast of North America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific.
The new estimates could put up to 37% more land below sea level, impacting 77 million to 132 million people globally, the researchers said.
Coastal subsidence is often underrepresented in flooding models, a 2024 study published in Nature found. The inundation coastal regions will experience due to rising sea levels may actually be worse than previously thought when factoring in how rapidly the land is sinking, according to the study.
Large cities surrounded by water — like Boston, New Orleans and San Francisco — will be among the regions that could experience flooding in the near future due to land elevation changes combined with sea level rise — about 4 millimeters per year, the 2024 study found.
The sinking is expected to cause structural damage to most existing properties, the authors said.
Parts of low-lying Florida, such as Miami, are already dealing with more frequent and impactful high tide flooding events. High tide flooding, the overflow or excess accumulation of water that covers typically dry coastal land during times of high tide, is happening more often in many coastal communities, even on generally quiet weather days, according to NOAA.
Miami showed the greatest share of exposure to flooding, with up to 122,000 people and up to 81,000 properties that could be at risk of flooding by 2050.
The latest research indicates that re-evaluation of the methodology of existing assessments for characterizing sea-level rise impact is needed, the paper noted. This could have implications for policymakers, climate finance and coastal adaption plans, the scientists said.
