NEW YORK: A 17-year-old boy opened fire and wounded three people in New York City’s heavily touristed Times Square early Saturday, the New York Police Department said.
The shooting occurred around 1:20 am (0520 GMT) following a “verbal altercation,” an NYPD spokesperson told AFP without giving further details.
An 18-year-old woman’s neck was grazed, while a 19-year-old man and a 65-year-old man’s lower limbs were injured, police said.
None of the injuries was considered to be life-threatening.
The three victims were taken to New York City’s Bellevue Hospital, where they were determined to be in stable condition.
“The perpetrator has been taken into police custody, and a firearm has been recovered,” the NYPD spokesperson added.
The suspect had not been formally charged.
The shooting occurred at 44th Street and Seventh Avenue, an intersection in the middle of the city’s theater district, which draws tens of thousands of tourists a day.
Earlier this month, the NYPD said shooting incidents and shooting victims in the city were at an all-time low for the first seven months of 2025.
“This isn’t luck. It’s the result of precision policing, relentless effort, and our dedicated officers,” it said in a post on X. “Fewer guns on the street, more lives saved.”
On July 30, a man armed with a semi-automatic rifle gunned down four people then killed himself as he rampaged through a skyscraper in Manhattan.
There have been 254 mass shootings in the United States this year including the Manhattan skyscraper incident, according to the Gun Violence Archive — which defines a mass shooting as four or more people shot.
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Teen shooter wounds three in Times Square: NYPD
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Teen shooter wounds three in Times Square: NYPD
- One person was held in custody and being questioned over the shooting
Former French minister Lang summoned over Epstein links, source says
- Pressure grows on ex-culture minister to quit Paris-based Arab World Institute
- Jack Lang’s correspondence with Epstein raises questions about their relationship
PARIS: Pressure rose on Friday on former French culture minister Jack Lang to resign as president of the Arab World Institute over his ties to late convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, after he was summoned to the foreign ministry to discuss the matter.
Lang said earlier this week he had been unaware of Epstein’s 2008 sex-offense conviction when they met in around 2012, describing the financier as an acquaintance interested in art and cinema introduced to him by US film-maker Woody Allen.
The 86-year-old former minister, head of the Arab World Institute since 2013, has not been accused of wrongdoing. Lang told BFMTV on Wednesday that Epstein was not a friend, that he knew little about the convicted sex offender, but had found him to be “passionate about art, culture and cinema.”
But files released by the US Department of Justice last week raise questions about Lang’s characterization of his relationship with Epstein.
They show Epstein and Lang corresponding intermittently between 2012 and the financier’s 2019 death by suicide in jail.
In an email sent by Lang to Epstein on April 7, 2017, nearly a decade after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he thanked Epstein for a “splendid time” the previous day.
“Your friendship, the amazing pl=ne (sic)m and your extraordinary generosity really touched us,” Lang wrote.
Lang, who served multiple terms as culture and education minister between 1981 and 2002, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lang urged to ‘think about the institution’
A source close to President Emmanuel Macron said the presidency and prime minister’s office had asked relevant ministers to summon Lang and encourage him to “think about the institution.” The foreign ministry said a summons had been issued.
The Arab World Institute is a cultural and research institution that promotes understanding of the Arab world and is located in Paris on the banks of the Seine river.
Lang’s name appears over 600 times in the Epstein files, according to a Reuters review of the documents.
“I fear nothing, and I am clean as a whistle,” Lang told French radio RTL on Wednesday.
The files dump has heightened scrutiny of Epstein’s global connections with public figures, including Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles, and Peter Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to the United States.
On Monday, Lang’s daughter Caroline resigned as head of France’s Independent Production Union after her own links to Epstein surfaced.
Both father and daughter deny wrongdoing, with Caroline telling BFMTV on Thursday she only knew about Epstein’s 2008 conviction after he told her to look him up on Google in 2014.
Lang said earlier this week he had been unaware of Epstein’s 2008 sex-offense conviction when they met in around 2012, describing the financier as an acquaintance interested in art and cinema introduced to him by US film-maker Woody Allen.
The 86-year-old former minister, head of the Arab World Institute since 2013, has not been accused of wrongdoing. Lang told BFMTV on Wednesday that Epstein was not a friend, that he knew little about the convicted sex offender, but had found him to be “passionate about art, culture and cinema.”
But files released by the US Department of Justice last week raise questions about Lang’s characterization of his relationship with Epstein.
They show Epstein and Lang corresponding intermittently between 2012 and the financier’s 2019 death by suicide in jail.
In an email sent by Lang to Epstein on April 7, 2017, nearly a decade after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from an underage girl, he thanked Epstein for a “splendid time” the previous day.
“Your friendship, the amazing pl=ne (sic)m and your extraordinary generosity really touched us,” Lang wrote.
Lang, who served multiple terms as culture and education minister between 1981 and 2002, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Lang urged to ‘think about the institution’
A source close to President Emmanuel Macron said the presidency and prime minister’s office had asked relevant ministers to summon Lang and encourage him to “think about the institution.” The foreign ministry said a summons had been issued.
The Arab World Institute is a cultural and research institution that promotes understanding of the Arab world and is located in Paris on the banks of the Seine river.
Lang’s name appears over 600 times in the Epstein files, according to a Reuters review of the documents.
“I fear nothing, and I am clean as a whistle,” Lang told French radio RTL on Wednesday.
The files dump has heightened scrutiny of Epstein’s global connections with public figures, including Britain’s Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the younger brother of King Charles, and Peter Mandelson, the former UK ambassador to the United States.
On Monday, Lang’s daughter Caroline resigned as head of France’s Independent Production Union after her own links to Epstein surfaced.
Both father and daughter deny wrongdoing, with Caroline telling BFMTV on Thursday she only knew about Epstein’s 2008 conviction after he told her to look him up on Google in 2014.
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