Failing the Turing Test

A large piece of debris fell from the ceiling of a tunnel on the busy Trans-Manhattan Expressway Thursday morning, narrowly missing passing drivers in a harrowing caught-on-camera episode.

City Department of Environmental Protection worker John Toledo said he was on his way home from work at about 6 a.m. when a large piece of what he thought was concrete fell in front of his car just east of the George Washington Bridge. He said he had no time to stop, and plowed into the debris, violently shaking his car and blowing out one tire on impact. A Port Authority spokesperson said officials believe the material was actually dust and light material.

Toledo, 61, recorded the incident on his dashcam and shared the footage on Reddit.

He said he’s lucky to be alive.

"If I would have been one or two more seconds further forward, instead of that piece of concrete hitting the front of the car, it could have come through the windshield, and I wouldn't be speaking to you,” Toledo said.

Officials from the state transportation department said the section of roadway is under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority, which owns the bridge. The tunnel runs beneath the Bridge Apartments complex in Washington Heights.

“The material appears to consist primarily of dust and light material from above,” Port Authority spokesperson Seth Stein wrote in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, the Port Authority will conduct additional overnight inspections of the ceiling panels in this section of roadway, including lane closures to allow for a comprehensive examination and any necessary immediate mitigation measures.”

The congested, busy section of expressway where the debris fell connects the George Washington Bridge with the Cross Bronx Expressway.

Toledo said he’s not looking for a huge payout, just for his car repairs to be covered. He said more needs to be done to prevent similar incidents.

“For the sake of anybody else driving that road in the future there should be some concerted effort by those responsible for that structure to examine it, to inspect it, and to maintain it so that something like that does not happen again to anyone,” he said.

This story's headline has been updated to accurately reflect how officials describe the material.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Friday ordered an investigation into why Bellevue Hospital discharged a man who, about five hours later, allegedly shoved a 76-year-old he apparently did not know down a Chelsea subway staircase, killing him.

The mayor directed NYC Health and Hospitals, which runs Bellevue, to conduct a “root cause analysis” of its psychiatric evaluation and discharge protocols. He also asked the state Department of Health to launch its own review, and the agency agreed to send officials on-site immediately.

"New Yorkers deserve answers," Mamdani said in a statement. "I've directed NYC Health + Hospitals to conduct both an immediate investigation on what steps should have been taken to prevent this tragedy and a comprehensive review of their psychiatric evaluation and discharge protocols."

Christopher Miller, a spokesperson for NYC Health and Hospitals, said in a statement that the hospital welcomes the review.

“We expect that it will find our care was appropriate,” he said. “NYC Health and Hospitals/Bellevue is justly nationally recognized for its services for complex patients and all New Yorkers without exception.”

The announcement of an investigation marks an early test for Mamdani, who campaigned on overhauling the city's public safety and mental health care systems.

Police say Rhamell Burke, 32, ran up behind Ross Falzone at the West 18th Street and Seventh Avenue subway station around 9:30 p.m. Thursday and pushed him down the stairs. Falzone, who lived alone on the Upper West Side, suffered a fractured spine and a traumatic brain injury, authorities said. He was taken to Bellevue in critical condition and died several hours later.

Burke had been brought to Bellevue’s psychiatric hospital earlier that same afternoon. According to police, officers took him into custody around 3:30 p.m. Thursday after he acted erratically outside the NYPD's 17th Precinct stationhouse near East 51st Street and Third Avenue, at one point grabbing a stick from a garbage can and holding it at his side as officers told him to drop it.

Officers took him to Bellevue's emergency room for a psychiatric evaluation. He was discharged about an hour later, around 4:30 p.m., according to the mayor's office and police.

Burke was arrested Friday afternoon on the uptown C and E platform at Penn Station by two NYPD detectives who had his picture on their phones, officials said. Later Friday evening, the NYPD said Burke had been charged with murder. Attorney information for Burke was not immediately available.

Mamdani said that state health officials will remain on-site at Bellevue throughout the investigation and work with hospital leadership on any corrective actions.

This story has been updated with comment from NYC Health and Hospitals.

Two New Jersey residents are being monitored closely after they were possibly exposed to a form of hantavirus that recently caused a deadly outbreak of the disease on an international cruise ship, the New Jersey Department of Health said Friday.

The Garden State residents are not currently showing symptoms of illness and were not passengers on the cruise ship MV Hondius, where several people were infected and three died, New Jersey health officials said. Rather, the pair were exposed to someone who had been on the cruise, according to the department.

Several international travelers on board the cruise ship, now off the coast of West Africa, have been infected with a particular strain of hantavirus known as the Andes virus, according to the World Health Organization, which was first notified of the outbreak on May 2. While some are isolating onboard, others have already disembarked, according to NPR.

Hantaviruses — a family of viruses that can cause severe pulmonary disease with flu-like symptoms — are most commonly transmitted to humans by rodents, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The Andes virus, however, is the one type of hantavirus that is also known to spread from person to person, according to the CDC.

“At this time, the risk to the general public in New Jersey remains very low,” the New Jersey health department said in a statement. “No current hantavirus cases have been identified in the state, and there is no history of a confirmed hantavirus case reported in New Jersey.”

New York City Health Commissioner Alister Martin said he has not been notified of any residents of the five boroughs who were exposed to the virus, but added, “this is an evolving situation that we’re monitoring in close communication with other health agencies.”

In New York state, only six hantavirus infections were recorded statewide between 1995 and 2023, according to the New York state Department of Health.

Here’s what to know now about the virus.

What do we know about the current outbreak?

As of May 7, eight cases of the Andes virus linked to the cruise ship outbreak have been confirmed and three people have died, according to the World Health Organization.

After being notified of the infections, WHO said it deployed an expert to the ship to help assess all passengers and crew. WHO has also sent 2,500 diagnostic testing kits to multiple countries to help test for the Andes virus, which is typically seen in Chile and Argentina.

Argentinian health authorities are investigating the theory that a Dutch couple brought the Andes virus onto the cruise ship after contracting it from a rodent in a town called Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina, according to NPR.

What are the symptoms of Andes virus?

According to the CDC, symptoms of the Andes virus are flu-like and can include a headache, muscle aches, a fever, nausea and vomiting, a cough, chest pain and difficulty breathing. These symptoms can appear anywhere from four to 42 days after exposure.

Hantavirus, in general, is typically diagnosed through discussing possible exposures with a medical provider, since symptoms can appear similar to other illnesses, according to the New York state Department of Health.

How is hantavirus spread and how can I avoid exposure?

Hantaviruses can be carried in rodent droppings, saliva or urine and then inhaled by humans — creating a risk for anyone entering a poorly ventilated building with a rodent infestation, according to the New York state health department.

While New York City has its fair share of rodents, most cases of hantavirus in the United States have been found west of the Mississippi River, according to the New York state Department of Health. The Andes virus, in particular, is not found in rodents in the United States, according to the CDC.

According to the state health department, the best way to prevent exposure to hantavirus is to avoid contact with live or dead rodents as well as their droppings and urine and to avoid disturbing any rodent burrows or nests.

How is the Andes virus transmitted from person to person?

Since outbreaks of the Andes virus are rare and it’s the only hantavirus known to be transmitted from person to person, it’s still not fully understood how the virus spreads among humans, said Dr. Kartik Chandran, a professor of  microbiology and immunology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

“The most likely way the virus spreads is through oral secretions such as saliva,” Chandran said.

But whether it typically spreads through direct contact with a person’s saliva or through droplets in the air “is not so clear at the moment,” Chandran said.

He added that past studies suggest it spreads among people with “very close contact.”

So is the Andes virus likely to become the next COVID-19?

It seems the Andes virus is not very contagious, considering how rarely it has caused outbreaks in the past, Chandran said.

”One would imagine that with the proper precautions and contact  tracing and isolation [of those exposed to the virus], one should be able to control it,” Chandran said.

But he added that it can be hard to predict when a transmission event will allow a virus to take hold and spread in a way that hasn’t been seen before.

Is there a treatment or cure?

According to the CDC, there is no specific antiviral treatment or vaccine for the Andes virus. But the New York state Department of Health says early medical care to address the symptoms is crucial, and that anyone suspected of having hantavirus should be taken to an emergency room or intensive care unit immediately for close monitoring.

Chandran said he and others in his field have been developing monoclonal antibody treatments for hantavirus that he believes are ready for clinical testing.