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A 43-year-old man was stabbed in the chest in Times Square this afternoon, police sources told The Observer.

The incident took place in broad daylight just after 2 p.m. right outside the Disney store after two men who appeared to know each other began fighting.

The two men were seen arguing near 45th and Broadway, before one attacked the other with a folding chair, the New York Post reported. After being hit with the chair, the assailant stabbed his acquaintance.

"The dude picks up a folding chair and starts flailing on the other guy. He stabs him and jets," Mitch Harper, a clerk at a local jewlery store, told The Post.

A brave bystander interrupted the attack and helped the wounded man. The attacker fled and the bystander applied pressure to the wounded man with an iconic "I <3 NY" t-shirt.

The police are still searching for the suspect, described as a black male in his 40s.  The victim was transported to Bellevue Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.

The NYPD’s bee expert showed a Bushwick swarm who’s boss Wednesday morning after receiving a complaint from a nearby firehouse.

Bee (Getty Images).

Detective Anthony “Tony Bees” Planakis vacuumed up the 12,000 insects out of a tree and transported them to a hive in Queens, reported DNAinfo. Mr. Planakis said he arrived just before they would have begun stinging passersby.

"They're relatively docile now but as soon as they sense a swarm coming they get antsy...they'll get ticked off," Mr. Planakis told DNAinfo. "They know they're stuck here then and they get protective.... Just as the weather affects us it affects them."

To prevent future swarms from returning to old the gathering spot, Mr. Planakis smoked the spot out with horse manure to mask the bees’ previous scent.

“You can’t get a better smoke than horse manure,” he told DNAinfo. No bees were harmed in the capture of the swarm.

We are pretty sure the scent of manure is going to keep more than the bees away from that spot, Mr. Planakis.

Don't touch these guys. Seriously. (Getty)

Great news (not really). Today the New York Senate passed a bill that makes “annoying” a police officer a felony—punishable by up to four years in prison.

Have they ever even seen how people behave on the subway at rush hour? Everyone is annoying.

The bill, which was sponsored by Republican State Senator Joe Griffo and will be voted on by the State Assembly, seeks to make “aggravated harassment” a felony.

“Police officers all across this state put their lives on the line every day to protect the people of New York,” the bill states. “New York State must establish laws and toughen existing laws that protect the police from becoming victims of criminals.”

While we don’t condone assaulting the NYPD by any means, “aggravated harassment” is a nebulous term that assumes malicious intent where there might be none. According to the bill, aggravated harassment constitutes “the intent to harass, annoy, theaten or alarm” a police officer. Super specific, right?

Stacey Richman, a criminal defense attorney, told Gothamist, "This bill will be so arbitrarily and capriciously applied to people that it is senseless. The intent to harass, that's the impression of the person that's annoyed. You're asking someone making a charge to say what was in the mind of the person they're charging."

The bill singles out physical contact such as striking, shoving, and kicking, but beyond that, the definition is vague. Existing New York State law already outlaws assault, aggravated assault and menacing police officers. “Aggravated harassment” adds very little to their protections, Ms. Richmond said.

"If a cop is having a bad day, he's annoyed. The elevation of crime based on subjectivity is so dangerous to the populace...I don't know why we're spending time on this."

In an almost motion picture-esque turn of events, police said a 10-year-old Brooklyn boy deterred two burglars with their own gun.

Officials say that two men forced themselves into an East 80th street home in Canarsie on Monday, telling the two teens they found inside to stay put. They began searching the house for valuables, without knowing that a third child was upstairs in his bedroom, police told The Observer.

After going through much of the house, the burglars tried to enter the 10-year-old's bedroom, gun first. The child slammed the door on their hand, forcing them to drop their firearm, police said. Then, the boy picked up the weapon and fired a shot at the intruders.

While he didn't hit the thieves, the bullet was enough to cause them to flee the scene, according to the NYPD.

As of Tuesday morning, the police are still looking for two suspects in their early 20s. The boy's identity has not been released.

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Seven pit bulls were rescued from a Brownsville apartment where officials say a highly-organized dog fighting ring was based.

Upon entering the apartment at 836 Boylan St, investigators found the makings of a large scale dog fighting operation. Law enforcement officials told DNAinfo, that they found 25 dog kennels, an animal treadmill, and modified hanging scales with a rope attachment used to strengthen dogs' teeth and jaws. They also found syringes and narcotics used to keep the animals “jacked up” for fighting.

The ASPCA dispatched their "Blood Sport Unit," used to investigate animal fighting rings, as well as a Forensic Medical Team to examine the pit bulls for scars and wounds in order to determine how long the animals have been victimized.  The dogs showed signs of bite marks and scars along their bodies.

Prosecutors are planning to use the information found by the ASPCA to build their case against the operators of the dog fighting ring.

Wesley Alexander, 39, who lived in the apartment, was arrested on weapons possession and animal cruelty charges, including torturing and overdriving animals, failure to provide proper sustenance to animals, and marijuana possession. Cops recovered a .40-caliber handgun, several ammunition clips and marijuana from the scene, sources told DNAinfo.

Mr. Alexander was released on $7,500 bail.

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Sex workers and advocates have scored a small victory with a recent decision by the Brooklyn DA’s office to ban the seizure of condoms as evidence against prostitutes.

Brooklyn’s district attorney, Charles J. Hynes, sent a letter to Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly stating that his office would no longer confiscate condoms as evidence of prostitution or loitering for the purpose of prostitution, The New York Times reported.

“Accordingly,” Mr. Hynes wrote, “the collection and vouchering of condoms as evidence by members of your department should immediately cease.”

The NYPD’s seizure of condoms in prostitution-related arrests is a contentious practice. Advocates of sex workers have argued that seizing condoms as evidence discourages prostitutes from using them, presenting a huge public health risk.

A 112-page report by Human Rights Watch documenting “how police and prosecutors use condoms to support prostitution charges” concluded that “the practice makes sex workers and transgender women reluctant to carry condoms for fear of arrest, causes them to engage in sex without protection, and puts them at a higher risk of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

"We think what DA Hynes has done shows great leadership," Rebecca Schleifer, advocacy director of the Health and Human Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, told The Observer. "What we want to happen next is for commissioner Kelly to take immediate steps to order the police force to stop using condoms as evidence in prostitution-related offenses."

Paul J. Browne, a spokesman for the Police Department, agreed that “it is not necessary to seize condoms as evidence of the intent of an individual to engage in prostitution,” but added that they are still of value in pursuing pimps and sex traffickers.

“If there is a bowlful of condoms in a massage parlor, we want our officers to be able to seize them as evidence against the trafficker,” Mr. Browne said.

But Ms. Schliefer argued that even anti-trafficking advocates have come out in support of the ban. "The public health harm and the harm to trafficking victims outweighs any value of these condoms as evidence," she said.

"People ask us, 'How many condoms is it legal to carry?'" she added. "There's no law against carrying condoms."

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Urban Outfitters has been caught with its pants down—and out.

Police are still searching for a group of five men that made away with 20 pairs of pants in mid-March.

The store, in the trendy Cobble Hill neighborhood of the borough, refused to comment on the robbery, but it is believed that the thieves entered the store one at a time on the evening of March 26.

Police told the Brooklyn Paper that two of the culprits distracted a clerk while the other three ran off with the jeans, some of which retail for up to $300.

It is unclear whether the jeans were from the men's or women's department. (But who can really tell skinny jeans apart?)

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Four of the men are said to have been between the ages of 25 and 35.

The NYPD have confirmed that there have been no extra leads regarding the case since releasing the pixelated photos.

This may have something to do with the frosty local reception concerning the theft.

"Oh boy, 20 pairs of skinny jeans that will never have the chance to have PBR spilled on them or have the crotch worn out by the seat on a Schwinn," one commenter wrote on the Brooklyn Paper.

Horseshoe crabs .
Photograph by Laurel Wilkerson / USFWS.

Horseshoe crab poaching is on the rise in New York and the city might have New Jersey to thank.

Monday night, the NYPD apprehended a group of men who were allegedly attempting to poach 200 horseshoe crabs from a Jamaica Bay island. A police helicopter conducting night vision exercises spotted the four men working under cover of darkness just before they sped off in speedboats leading to a high-octane, 30-minute chase, The New York Times reported. Robert Wolter, 28, and Joseph Knauer, 33, were apprehended, while the other two suspects remain at large.

The sharp-tailed arthropods, whose existence predates the dinosaurs, live mainly in shallow waters and crawl to shore in the early summer months to mate and lay eggs.

The U.S. Parks Department has been cracking down on increased horseshoe crab poaching in New York in recent years. The crabs are sold as bait in the eel, conch and whelk fishing industries, and a component in their blood is used to test pharmaceuticals for bacterial contamination, Marin Hawk, from the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, told The Observer.

“We put harvest quotas in place for each of the states,” Mr. Hawk said, “but New Jersey has put a moratorium on horseshoe crab harvest. That has provided the incentive for poaching in surrounding areas.”

This moratorium is due in part to New Jersey’s efforts to conserve the red knot, a shore bird that feasts on horseshoe crab eggs. In New York, they can be harvested only within the boundaries of the quota by licensed individuals, but the New Jersey moratorium has prompted an increase in illegal poaching in New York, experts said.

This story has a happy ending for the crabs, which were safely returned to their habitat.

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A teenager who has been connected to the attempted robbery of six school-age children over a two-day spree is in custody, according to police. He is yet to be charged with a crime.

Victims told police that the boy approached them on their way to school in Red Hook and Carroll Gardens, brandishing a knife or box cutter and demanding a dollar.

The series of mostly unsuccessful attempted robberies occurred on May 20 and May 22, reports show.

The "dollar bandit," as the Brooklyn Paper calls him, began bright and early at 7:20 am last Monday by stopping a 12-year-old on Court Street and Second Place. After the suspect accosted the victim with a knife and demanded a dollar, the victim resisted and escaped unharmed, police said.

Two days later the alleged thief was more successful. He managed to get a dollar from a 13-year-old boy on Smith and President streets. Later he approached a 14-year-old in the same spot and demanded more money. The suspect got away with the victim's wallet.

Later that day, the suspect attempted, and failed, to rob a 15-year-old using a box cutter.

According to the police, none of the victims were harmed in the string of robberies.

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As if Memorial Day traffic weren’t already horrific, police evacuated the Brooklyn Bridge yesterday because of a suspicious SUV blocking the Manhattan-bound lane.

Authorities received a 911 call around 5:15PM about the abandoned Dodge Durango. By 6PM, police had shut down both lanes of traffic, causing traffic jams as drivers were forced to find alternate routes. Pedestrians, also evacuated, watched from afar as a bomb-sniffing dog circled the vehicle.

By 7PM, authorities reported nothing suspicious inside the car, which also had no license plate. Hordes of onlookers broke into applause as the bridge was reopened.

The vehicle was eventually traced to Lori Young of Douglasville, PA. According to NYPD, while Ms. Young is the last registered owner of the vehicle, she claimed she was not driving the SUV when it was parked and abandoned. Authorities remain unclear on the driver’s identity.