The wounded tenant is a Mexican immigrant who speaks no English, police said, and may not have understood cops’ commands to put down the knife he carried outside to confront a man he said was trying to dislodge the air conditioning unit from his window on E. 148th St. near Courtlandt Ave. in Mott Haven.

It was the shooting victim who called 911 before dashing to the hallway and through a door leading to an alley over which the air conditioner hangs.

Separate videos show the victim in the alley, and one cop opening fire when he returns to the hallway. The shooting video shows the officer squeezing the trigger at a person off camera.

Police said a “butcher knife” was recovered from the scene.

“When he called, he spoke Spanish,” said Rohan Griffith, commanding officer of NYPD’s force investigation unit.

Griffith said officials need to determine if the officers and the tenant understood each other.

Neighbor Juan Rivera, 78, said cops responded quickly.

“I was walking my dog and so many cops came into the building,” Rivera said. “The detectives told me someone tried to steal the guy’s air conditioner [and] he went after the guy with a knife. They told him to drop the knife.”

Police said it was unclear if the man in the alley was trying to actually steal the appliance or remove it to get into the apartment.

The shooting happened within seconds.

“Bang, bang. Two shots,” Rivera said. “When they brought him out he was bleeding. I don’t think the shooting is totally right. … They didn’t waste any time shooting him.”

Neighbor David Bermudez, 25, said he also heard two shots.

“The lady cop shot him,” Bermudez said. “The guy was laid out. He was bleeding. I saw a lot of blood. I was scared and confused. The cops were telling me ‘you have to leave, you can’t stay here.’ The Bronx is getting worse and worse everyday.”

Griffith said police are still searching for the would-be thief.

The two have said some ugly things about each other over the years: Trump said Obama wasn’t born in America. Obama said Trump was a threat to democracy.

“Donald Trump is a 78-year-old billionaire who has not stopped whining about his problems since he rode down his golden escalator nine years ago,” Obama said last year while campaigning for Vice President Kamala Harris

Yet there they were last week at Carter’s state funeral yucking it up before the program began like they were sitting courtside at a Knicks game.

Who knows what they were saying — lip readers have their version of the conversation — but whatever it was, it sent social media spinning.

“It did look very friendly, I must say,” Trump later told Fox News. “I don’t know, we just got along.”

The two haven’t talked about taking their act on the road, yet some grudge holders were acting like the sky was falling.

Among them was radio host Charlamagne tha God, who accused Obama of “kissing the ring.”

“After you went so hard calling somebody a threat to democracy and calling somebody a fascist and now you’re just chummy-chummy with the man?” Charlamagne said on his radio show “The Breakfast Club.”

“You got the last real leader of the Democratic Party, Barack Obama, laughing and giggling with Trump. Looking like, yeah, he’s kissing the ring,” Charlamagne said. “That’s what it looked like.”

What were they supposed to do? They were sitting next to each other. At a funeral. For Jimmy Carter.

Obama and Trump were among the five living presidents at the Washington National Cathedral honoring Carter, the 39th president, who died Dec. 29 at the age of 100.

They were joined by former President George W. Bush, former President Bill Clinton, and President Biden, who lauded Carter for his character.

“Jimmy Carter’s friendship taught me, and through his life, taught me that strength of character is more than title or the power we hold,” Biden said in his eulogy. “It’s the strength to understand that everyone should be treated with dignity, respect, that everyone, and I mean everyone, deserves an even shot.”

The presidents were each joined by their wives, except Obama, whose wife missed the event because of a scheduling conflict.

Michelle Obama’s absence was extremely significant because she probably would have been seated between her husband and Trump, and spared us all the political intrigue.

Or she might have created even more.

The last time Michelle Obama was at a state funeral for a president, she received a piece of candy from Bush, who was eulogizing his father, former President George H.W. Bush.

The younger Bush had also given Michelle Obama a piece of candy at the funeral for former U.S. Sen. John McCain.

Trump doesn’t seem like the candy giving type.

Of course, if it had been Trump with the candy, we would have accused him of trying to poison Michelle Obama.

We’ve all had to deal with the discomfort of a wedding, funeral or graduation in the presence of someone we don’t like, an in-law, a former boss or an ex.

We do what these former and future presidents did, we suck it up and act like adults.

It also helps to remember the old adage about politics: There are no permanent enemies, and no permanent friends, only permanent interests.

Obama and Trump are members of one of the most exclusive clubs in the world. Why would Obama need to kiss the ring? He has a ring of his own.

What began as an online clash exploded into a bloody melee that ended with the stabbing death of Jennira Roundtree, a 43-year-old mother of four, outside her home in NYCHA’s West Brighton Houses Tuesday evening.

Detectives on Wednesday identified a 25-year-old woman with a criminal record as a suspect in the stabbing, the Daily News has learned. Police are still searching for her.

Relatives said Roundtree wasn’t even involved in the brawl and was only trying to pull her 13-year-old daughter out of the fray when someone in the crowd plunged a knife twice into the mom’s chest about 7:35 p.m., cops said. Roundtree was also slashed in the stomach with an umbrella.

“She only wanted to protect her baby,” a devastated relative told the Daily News. ”She only went outside to get her child in the house, only to find her child with a pack of more than a dozen girls on her. She tried to pull her child away and they all jumped her.”

Family and police sources said the content of the social media screeds was not immediately clear Thursday.

“I’m not sure how it started,” the relative said. “But I do know it shouldn’t have ended in murder.”

In the days before her death, Roundtree, who worked as a security guard, according neighbors, appears to have been involved in her own social media scrum.

“Just punched a MF with both hands at the same time I’m not playing this year,” she posted on Facebook Jan. 3.

“B—h I’m an officer now so no I’m not fighting I’m gonna let you swing n pop your a– then you gonna go to jail for a minimum of 7 years,” she posted in her final Facebook message a day later, just three days before she was killed. “F–k wit me if you want to.”

The relative said the Facebook post is likely unrelated to the social media dispute involving Roundtree’s daughter.

“I think it may have started from her daughter’s page because this was a fight dealing with her daughter and one of her daughter’s friends,” the relative said.

Janice Diggs, the victim’s aunt, described Roundtree as an outgoing person.

“She loved her kids, loved them to death,” she said.

Relatives worried the victim’s daughters may still be in danger because there have been no arrests.

Neighbors and friends left cards and candles at a makeshift memorial outside the apartment building on Henderson Ave. near Broadway.

“This is a tradition in these projects that when someone passes away you give them respect by giving them a candle,” said one of Roundtree’s neighbors, a 70-year-old man. “I mean it’s only a dollar. It’s the thought that counts.”

A friend of the victim told ABC’s Eyewitness News that Roundtree used to host cookouts in the courtyard to bring the community together.

The friend said the open-to-all barbecues were a safe space that kept kids out of trouble.

A neighbor said Roundtree was friendly.

“We used to talk,” he said. “She had just got a new job. I saw her the other day. I said ‘How’s the new job?’ she said, ‘Oh, you know, it’s coming. It’s coming.'”

He said Roundtree’s death traumatized the whole community.

“She was a pretty woman too,” he said. “I’m kind of hurt. What’s going to happen to the kids?”

Jennira Roundtree, 43, was knifed in the heart and lungs during the melee outside the West Brighton Houses on Henderson Ave. near Broadway at about 7:35 p.m. Tuesday, cops said. She was also slashed in the stomach with an umbrella during the wild melee.

“The mother went outside in defense of her daughter,” a police source told the Daily News. “One person approached and stabbed her.”

A neighbor heard a group of girls picking a fight with Roundtree’s daughter and believes Roundtree died defending her.

Before Roundtree apparently intervened, friends of her daughter ran into the building to summon her older sister for help, according to neighbors.

“Some girls come in to fight with the little girl, and some friends, they go upstairs, and then the sister was coming,” said the 30-year-old neighbor. “I don’t know where her mom came from. Maybe she was outside [already].”

Scaffolding obscured the neighbor’s vision, but she said that she could hear everything.

“A friend of the [victim’s 12-year-old daughter] runs away to the building, to like let [the victim’s older daughter] know about her sister. The sister comes, and she starts fighting with the girls,” said the neighbor.

“When I see the sister fighting I said, ‘Let me go downstairs’ because I know those kids. There were a lot of people fighting.”

By the time she got downstairs Roundtree was on the ground.

“The police took her,” she said. “When they carried her, I saw she had a lot of blood. I heard her say, ‘I can’t breathe!’ That’s the only thing she said.”

“I think it’s around over here,” she said of the victim’s visible wound, pointing to an area under her chest.

Medics rushed Roundtree to Richmond University Medical Center, but she could not be saved.

The knife used to kill her was recovered at the scene, police said. Cops said the victim also was slashed with an umbrella.

There were no immediate arrests.

The victim’s mother, Jenna Roundtree, said she and her grandchildren were distraught.

“She was my eldest daughter,” she said. “Just pray for the family.”

A cousin of the victim expressed more outrage.

“Why stab her mom??” the relative posted on Facebook. “She was only trying to get her child out the pack and in the house. She wasn’t trying to cause none of y’all any harm. l pray every last one of y’all fry in prison bc this is capital murder, bringing the knife to a young teen fight then stabbing her mom in the chest multiple times was just pure overkill and premeditated.”

The cousin praised the victim for defending her daughter.

“I know she took these wounds to save her baby’s life,” the cousin wrote. “I’m so heartbroken. This hit hard. She did exactly what any and every parent was suppose to do, and that was to get between her child and anything causing harm to her child so she could get the child to safety. You will always be remembered for your bravery.”

Cops said Roundtree had seven prior arrests and 10 domestic incident reports. It wasn’t clear if she was a victim or perpetrator in the domestic incident reports, which often involve fights or other disturbances.

“This is not the time to speak right now,” a distraught woman who answered the door at Roundtree’s apartment told the Daily News. “She was a great mother … and she lost her life.”

Neighbors said Roundtree was the mother of two older boys in addition to the two daughters and worked security.

“I saw her earlier yesterday,” the neighbor said Wednesday. “She was in the front of the building with the little one, around like 4:25 p.m. I can’t sleep. I can’t believe this happened.”

Carlos Rivas, 17, was much more likely to help a resident carry groceries up the stairs of the Bronx building where he lived with his family than he was to get into a curbside clash with a total stranger.

“He was a very nice kid,” said Rivas’ crying neighbor, Anita Birmingham, 65. “Every time I saw him he was very respectful. He would help everybody. It’s crazy. He was very respectful. He was not one of those kids you saw out in the street getting into difficulty for nothing. He was very family-oriented. I can’t believe it. I would never thought [it would be] him.”

Cops said Rivas and a 22-year-old friend got into a fight on Friday with an older man at an East Harlem Korean restaurant.

The caught-on-camera clash shows the man stabbing Rivas outside the storefront eatery after a scuffle that apparently started as they entered around 6:15 p.m.

Cops arrested Saul Sanchez, 62, and charged him with murder, assault and weapons possession. He was arraigned in Manhattan Criminal Court Sunday and ordered held without bail.

It was unclear what set off the fight.

Surveillance video shows Rivas’ friend bumping into the suspect when the three entered the restaurant. Moments later, Rivas and his friend are wrestling with the man as they exit the eatery. The older man grabs Rivas by the collar and stabs him in the chest and stomach before both fall to the ground.

As the struggle continues, Rivas’ friend grabs a chair left outside the K-Street Food restaurant, and strikes the stabber over the head with it before jumping on the stabber’s back, the video shows. The stabber ran off when Rivas collapsed.

Cops said Sanchez initially fled the scene before he returned and was arrested. Sanchez claimed he pulled his knife after he was hit on the sidewalk with a chair, according to police. But the video shows that Sanchez was hit with the chair after the stabbing and that Rivas’ friend used the chair to try to defend Rivas from the attack.

“The video of the incident … shows two young men fighting with a 62-year-old man,” Sanchez’ lawyer, Kenneth Gilbert, told the Daily News Monday. “I have spoken to several of his friends and neighbors who say very dear things about him. Mr. Sanchez is very remorseful about what has happened.”

Gilbert said Sanchez went home to wash the blood off his face and to bring his dog home, although no dog appears in any of the videos. He returned 15 minutes later, according to prosecutors. Gilbert said Sanchez suffered a cut to his head during the fight. He appeared in court with a bandage wrapped around his head.

Medics took Rivas to Harlem Hospital but he couldn’t be saved, cops said. The friend, who was stabbed in the left arm, was also taken to an area hospital.

Sanchez had no prior criminal record.

Gilbert said Sanchez, whose mother is suffering from dementia, was the sole breadwinner, and has been happily married for years.

Friends and neighbors said they had a hard time connecting Rivas to the clash.

“I’m heartbroken,” said a neighbor named Caprice, 35. ”He’s never in the way of anybody. He’s never into trouble. He’s very quiet. I’m completely shocked and heartbroken. We lost a good young man in the community.”

Another neighbor, Joanna Sosa, 36, said his daughter and Rivas were close friends. Sosa was taping laminated pictures of Rivas to a cardboard poster board that she left in the lobby so friends and neighbors could scribble personal tributes to the teen.

“That way his mom can have this as something to understand and see how much he really was loved and cared for,” Sosa said. “He was a kind soul. If anybody needed help with groceries, older people, even me — he would help me out.”

Sosa said she was struggling to understand the stabbing.

“No matter what the situation is, let’s say if they bumped into you or it’s a tight space, you have to be more conscious of the fact that you can’t be walking around with so much anger and so much hatred so you get to that point of killing a child,” she said.

“Maybe you didn’t have the intention of killing him but at the end of the day you have to understand that you’re using a weapon against somebody and this child had no weapons on him.”

The horrific stabbing was hauntingly similar to the murder of on-duty postal worker Ray Hodges, who was knifed to death in a Harlem deli a day earlier during an argument over his spot on a sandwich line, cops said.

Hodges, a USPS mail carrier who worked out of the Morningside post office in Harlem, was stabbed by 28-year-old Jaia Cruz at Joe’s Grocery on Lenox Ave. near W. 118th St. at about 2:30 p.m. Thursday, police said.

When the Democratic nominee for president hails from a Historically Black College or University, we want to puff out our chests and swell with pride.

“Kamala Harris is a Bison,” we bragged. “She’s reppin’ Howard U.”

Some of us had never even stepped on a Black campus, but we were as proud as parents of a newborn baby.

But when the marching band at Mississippi Valley State, an HBCU, accepts an invitation to perform at the presidential inauguration, we want to treat them like a bunch of Uncle Toms who snitched on a runaway slave.

Why? Because the man being sworn in as president will be Donald Trump.

“This is not just a moment of pride for our university but for the entire state of Mississippi,”  said university president Jerryl Briggs,. “It is an opportunity to showcase our legacy, celebrate our culture, and invest in the future leaders of our community. This participation allows students to engage in the peaceful transition of power and gain global exposure while celebrating the university’s 75th anniversary.”

It’s as simple as that.

Yet, when the band went on social media to raise money for the trip, some detractors — let’s just call them haters — acted like Mississippi Valley State was betraying the Black race.

“That is not an excuse to step n fetch for the most heinous person in modern AmeriKKKan history,” one user on X wrote in response to the fundraising request.

“No Valley..Hell Nawl..This ain’t it..,” another critic cried on social media. “Not raising money to go before the Klan Rally..raise money for the betterment of Valley but not to entertain the MAGA faithful.”

C’mon. Really? Did the tuba player raise money for Donald Trump? Did the guy on trombone promote Project 2025?

It doesn’t help that this year’s Jan. 20th inauguration falls on what is also the Martin Luther King Jr. national holiday.

It’s hard to get around the irony of the Hater-in-Chief being sworn in on the same day the country pauses to honor King’s legacy of love and tolerance.

But that’s not the university’s fault.

“An inaugural parade is just that — a parade,” tweeted Danny Glover, a prominent Black actor and social activist.

Glover has been one of Trump’s toughest critics, but he says the band backlash is way off key.

“It’s an honor for any band to participate in this celebration of American music and pageantry. HBCUs have known this for decades and are no strangers to marching in Republican parades.”

Indeed. Florida A&M University’s Marching 100 performed at Ronald Reagan’s inauguration in 1981.

Howard University’s Showtime Marching Band performed at George H.W. Bush’s inauguration in 1989. Grambling State University’s Tiger Marching Band performed at George W. Bush’s inauguration in 2001. And after he was re-elected in 2004, Southern University’s Human Jukebox Marching Band performed at the inauguration in 2005.

And, in 1969, Mississippi Valley State’s band, the “Mean Green Marching Machine” performed at Richard Nixon’s presidential inauguration.

The band launched a GoFundMe site to raise $350,000 it said is needed for uniforms, instruments, scholarships and “other essential resources for its continued development.”

We haven’t seen the program yet, but unless the band was asked to play “Dixie,” or was scheduled to perform between the Proud Boys and Kentucky’s Trinity White Knights, we should accept the moment and stand up and cheer.

“Don’t worry about the people who don’t support,” Kishia Ruiz posted on the site after donating $25. “You all are LOVED & encouraged by many. You are about to show the world the meaning of UNITY. This is a proud moment. Sometimes hate, bigotry, & division comes from people you would least expect. Stand strong. Stand tall.”

And stand proud.

President Biden awarded the coveted Medal of Valor on Friday to a pair of heroic FDNY firefighters who ignored intense flames and selflessly raced into danger to save desperate New Yorkers who were trapped in burning buildings.

Lt. John Vanderstar was recognized for his heroics on Oct. 23, 2022, when he raced through raging flames in a Bronx apartment to rescue a mother and daughter who were trapped in a fire in a back bedroom.

Firefighter Brendan Gaffney also was honored for rushing into a burning Inwood building on Feb. 5, 2023 — twice — first to save an unconscious child, and again, to rescue a pregnant woman.

“They allowed people to continue their lives in ways that they never would have been able to,” Biden said at a White House ceremony honoring the firefighters and six other first responders.

“There’s a lot fewer empty chairs around the kitchen table and dining room table because of what these guys did. And what they did is — is amazing. They literally put their lives at risk — some of them at the point that you wonder how they could have had the nerve to do it.”

Also among the honorees were law enforcement officials who responded to a shooter who killed six people on March 27, 2023, at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee, where, facing gunfire, they cleared out classrooms before taking down the shooter.

“So, thank you, guys,” Biden said. “I really mean it. You’re the best America has to offer. I’m so damn proud to stand with you.”

FDNY Commissioner Robert Tucker said the medals — the nation’s highest award for valor by a public safety officer — were an honor for the entire department.

“Every day, FDNY members do amazing work serving the people of New York,” Tucker said. “We are incredibly proud of Lieutenant Vanderstar and Firefighter Gaffney for receiving the Medal of Valor for their extraordinary actions.”

Both firefighters had each previously received department medals for their bravery.

Vanderstar rushed into action after a neighbor banged on the door of his Bronx firehouse and told them about a blaze in a building up the street.

Without water to hold back the fire, Vanderstar pushed to the back bedroom, where he found a young girl lying on top of her suffocating mother. He dragged them to the window for fresh air until other firefighters arrived with a hose. Then he raced out of the apartment with the girl, handing her to paramedics. The mother and child both survived.

In the Manhattan fire, Gaffney used a removed door as a shield to move through a raging fire to find a pregnant woman and a child, who were both unconscious.

He first shielded the child with his own body to get him to safety. Gaffney then ran through the fire again and rescued the woman. He performed CPR on her while waiting for paramedics. The woman and child both survived.

Four gunmen fired nearly 30 shots at a crowd of about 15 people waiting outside the the Amazura concert hall at 144th Pl. near Archer Ave. in Jamaica Wednesday hoping to get in about 11:15 p.m., police said. The 10 victims — six females and four males between 16 and 20 years old — were taken to various local hospitals.

Cops on Thursday were trying to establish if the shooting was sparked by tensions between rival gangs.

“That’s one of the avenues we’re pursuing but it’s too early to determine right now,” NYPD Chief of Patrol Philip Rivera said at an early morning press conference outside the Queens club.

Most of the victims were shot in the legs as they scrambled for cover. One victim was shot in the arm and another suffered a graze wound to the back, cops said.

Many of the victims were found bleeding at the scene, waiting for ambulances. At least three showed up at Jamaica Hospital on their own seeking medical care.

The shooters fired from the corner — about 75 to 100 feet from the crowd.

As the gun smoke cleared, four young men, at least three of whom opened fire, ran off west on 91st St. and jumped into a gray Infiniti sedan with New Jersey plates, cops said. No arrests have been made.

The celebration of life event was being held in honor of Tea’Arion Mungo, who was shot to death outside NYCHA’s Walt Whitman Houses in Brooklyn during a spate of October violence that claimed the lives of five teens in Brooklyn, Manhattan and the Bronx in as many days.

The 11th grader, who attended George Westinghouse Career and Technical Education High School, was an aspiring electrician who played varsity basketball for the school’s team, the Warriors, relatives said in October.

On Wednesday night, friends gathered at the venue to celebrate what would have been Tea’Arion’s 17th birthday.

Investigators said the venue space was booked for more than it could hold, with people entering as others left. According to sources, Tea’Arion’s still-grieving mother wanted to invite 120 people, but the space only holds 90. Police said the limit left some people waiting outside as the gunfire erupted.

“There’s zero tolerance for these senseless shootings, these horrible acts of violence on our streets,” Rivera said. “Those responsible for this crime will be apprehended and brought to justice.”

Among the victims of the Amazura shooting was an 18-year-old girl who was friends with Tea’Arion from their Brooklyn neighborhood, according to her father. The girl was struck in the left shin and was undergoing a five-hour operation.

“She’s in a lot of pain,” the worried father said. “Only time will tell, and we’ll see what happens with recovery, and, you know, emotionally. I’ve been at the hospital from the time it happened, so I’m still trying to process all this stuff. It’s very heartbreaking, I have to sit here and watch my child screaming at the top of her lungs and stuff like that.”

He said his daughter called him shortly after she had been shot.

“You get this phone call in the middle of the night and this is what happened,” he said. “And you panic because there’s no information given to you until you get there. She called me, actually. She said ‘Dad I got shot.’ She was in the ambulance. I was like, ‘What?’ The ambulance guy, he told me what hospital she was at, so I just went there.”

He said between being shot and her friend’s death, his daughter had been through a lot.

“Everybody grew up together,” he said. “It was heartbreaking to hear that, when that happened. They grew up from elementary school and everything.”

He said the New Year’s Day shooting only made it worse.

“It’s unfortunate because Jan. 1 is also her mother’s birthday,” the father said. “Her mom passed away six years ago, so that’s why I said she’s been through worse. It was just a celebration of Mommy’s birthday. They were celebrating the life of her friend … and this happened. Nobody wants to hear this. This is something that no parent wants to hear.”

Mayor Adams said the shooting isn’t linked to any terror attacks like the one which occurred on New Year’s Day in New Orleans which left 15 people dead after a truck rammed into a crowd of revelers.

“There is no room for this criminal behavior in our city and we are determined to bring these dangerous individuals to justice and get illegal guns off our streets,” he added.

Queens Borough President Donovan Richards also condemned the violence.

“Under no circumstance will we allow any example of gun violence in our borough to go unpunished,” Donovan said. “I’m confident that those who perpetrated this heinous act will be arrested and held accountable.”

A 19-year-old man from Pennsylvania visiting relatives near the club said his family thought what they heard was fireworks ringing in the new year.

“It was like really loud,” he said. “And then me and my cousin are thinking, ‘Wait, you think it could be what we’re thinking?’ And then maybe five minutes later we get a message on the Citizen app: Shooting. We heard the ambulances and the cops came really quickly. We all got really scared.”

The visitor said his relatives have heard gunfire before but he wasn’t used to it as an out-of-towner.

“They know this nightclub right here is always a lot of people there, like police presence every now and then,” he said. “So this is pretty much normal for them … It was pretty surprising for me.”

Another neighborhood visitor, Aspen Palmquist, 29, said he accidentally stepped in a pool of blood outside the club.

“We’re just enjoying our day when suddenly I just accidentally stepped in blood,” said Palmquist, who is visiting from Hawaii. “We’re actually on vacation here for New Year’s and just kind of checking out the city today,” he added. “Not what I expected to see though.”

The nightclub can hold up to 4,000 people and usually holds DJ dance parties and raves. DJs who have performed there in the past include Felix Bizarre, Black Daddy, and DJ X-Dream.

“We are deeply saddened by the recent and unfortunate isolated incident that occurred,” Amazura’s management wrote on Instagram. “Our hearts go out to all those affected by this senseless act. We are working closely with law enforcement to ensure a thorough investigation and to help bring those responsible to justice.”

Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Crime Stoppers at (800) 577-TIPS. All calls will be kept confidential.

Carter went into hospice care at home on Feb. 18, 2023 after a short series of hospital stays, the Carter Center charity organization said at the time. The ex-commander-in-chief opted to spend his final days with family rather than seek any additional medical intervention. His son Chip confirmed his death, at his home in Plains, to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

His wife of 77 years, Rosalynn Carter, preceded him in death on Nov. 19, 2023. The 39th president was in attendance at her memorial service Nov. 28, where, seated in a wheelchair with a blanket over his lap, he appeared frail and was unable to speak, according to family. His daughter Amy delivered remarks on his behalf at the service.

In a statement, President Biden said he would order “an official state funeral to be held in Washington D.C. for James Earl Carter, Jr., 39th President of the United States, 76th Governor of Georgia, Lieutenant of the United States Navy, graduate of the United States Naval Academy, and favorite son of Plains, Georgia, who gave his full life in service to God and country.”

Former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton also honored Carter for his work in and out of the Oval Office.

“He believed some things were more important than reelection, things like integrity, respect, and compassion,” Obama stated, while Bush, on X, praised Carter’s “efforts to leave behind a better world didn’t end with the presidency,” including through his work with Habitat for Huanity and the Carter Center. Clinton praised Carter for bing “guided by his faith.”

Carter, a Democrat, lived longer than any other U.S. president, earning that distinction in 2019 when he reached 94 years and 172 days old.

Relegated to the historical sidelines after a four-year presidency mired in malaise, Carter rebounded to write 32 books, build houses for the poor, stand up to tyranny abroad and capture the coveted Nobel Peace Prize in 2002.

Carter took office in 1977. With his victory over incumbent Gerald Ford, he aimed to restore faith in America and its government after the nightmare of Watergate forced President Nixon to resign in disgrace.

But his own term was plagued by rampant inflation, long gas lines, wars in Afghanistan and Nicaragua, and a 444-day hostage crisis in Iran — the latter low-lighted by an embarrassingly failed rescue attempt.

Carter’s bid for re-election was crushed by Republican Ronald Reagan, sending the former commander in chief back to Georgia a beaten man, deeply unpopular and seemingly destined for obscurity.

Carter instead grabbed a hammer, climbed a ladder and built houses for the poor with Habitat for Humanity. He boarded planes to monitor elections abroad and broker peace deals. And he returned to his church in Plains, Ga., to teach Sunday school.

“I have one life and one chance to make it count for something,” Carter told his biographer, Jim Wooten, in 1995. “My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to try to make a difference.

“Most of the time, believe it or not, I enjoy myself.”

James Earl Carter, Jr. was the first American president born in a hospital — Wise Sanitarium in tiny Plains, Ga., where his mother worked as a nurse.

He was raised without electricity or plumbing on his family’s nearby peanut farm. The backwoods town of 600 residents would remain Carter’s beloved and modest home for the rest of his life.

His father Earl was an enthusiastic segregationist. But his mother, known to all as Miss Lillian, made a point of caring for poor Black women while cheering on Black boxer Joe Louis and baseball’s color-line defying Jackie Robinson of the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Carter joined the Navy in 1943 to see the world and did so well at Annapolis that he earned a place in the new, elite nuclear submarine program. Nine years later, Carter helped build the reactor for the first nuclear sub and did graduate work in nuclear physics at Union College.

The following year, he went home to save the ailing family farm, and with new bride Rosalynn, welcomed three sons and a daughter. He became a deacon at Plains Baptist Church, served on civic boards and in the Georgia state senate.

Carter won the Georgia governorship in 1970, at least in part by cozying up to segregationists, who were then furious when he declared the time for racial discrimination was over.

Carter soon began outlining the remarkable national campaign that propelled “Jimmy Who?” past a half-dozen high-profile Democrats to the party’s presidential nomination.

He stressed his honesty, sincerity, Christianity and outsider status — the perfect panacea for voters in the aftermath of Watergate and Vietnam.

Despite some gaffes — he nearly blew a 30-point lead after infamously confessing to Playboy that he had “lusted in my heart” after other women — Carter vanquished Ford in the bicentennial year of 1976.

He tried from the start to return humility to the White House. Carter walked the inaugural parade route rather than ride in a limo, banned the playing of “Hail to the Chief,” carried his own luggage and personally kept the schedule for the White House tennis court.

But his outsider status didn’t play well on Capitol Hill, where Democratic party leaders regarded him as sanctimonious and balked at his agenda.

His younger brother, Billy, who hawked Billy Beer and got drunk in public, didn’t help when he cozied up to Libyan officials and collected $220,000 from the nation’s government. A bizarre attack by a rabid swimming rabbit during a fishing trip added to Carter’s hapless image.

His big foreign policy achievement — personally brokering the 1978 Camp David peace treaty between Israel and Egypt — failed to save him.

Though he never actually said the word, a malaise settled over his White House.

In 1980, voters overwhelmingly chose Reagan’s sunny optimism over Carter’s gloomy warnings about cutting back and conserving. He lost 44 states in the general election.

The undaunted political has-been went on to found The Carter Center, which pioneered election monitoring and sent watchdogs to 81 elections in 33 countries. Carter personally traveled on peace missions to Haiti, Bosnia, Ethiopia, North Korea, Sudan, Nepal and Colombia.

Though criticized for talking to despots, dictators and tyrants, his rebuttal was always simple: “I’ll talk with anybody who wants to talk about peace.”

Carter insisted his presidency was more successful than people remember, noting recently that the United States military never launched a missile or dropped a bomb under his watch.

Carter announced in August 2015 that he had cancer after having surgery to remove a small mass from his liver. Though the cancer spread to his liver and brain, the battled-toughened old politician pulled through.

He was survived by his three sons, Jack, Chip and Jeff; a daughter, Amy; and 11 grandchildren, including one who captured grandfather’s old seat in the Georgia state senate.

The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson 

In a killing that grabbed worldwide attention, 26-year-old Luigi Mangione was accused of shooting UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, 50, on a Midtown sidewalk on Dec. 4. After a five-day interstate manhunt, Mangione was found in an Altoona, Pa., McDonald’s with a 3D printed ghost gun, the fake ID he used to check into a Manhattan hostel and a handwritten manifesto that read, in part, “Frankly, these parasites had it coming.”

Mangione, valedictorian of his Baltimore private high school and an Ivy league computer science major, was extradited to New York City on Dec. 19. Initially charged with first-degree murder and terrorism charges by New York State, Mangione was instead arraigned in Federal Court on charges of murder, stalking and firearm offenses. The federal charges could result in the death penalty.

Despite being accused of the cold-blooded murder of a father of two, Mangione’s apparent anger toward the health insurance industry prompted an outpouring of support and sympathy for him. He is due back in court in Manhattan in January.

Woman found stuffed in a duffel bag in Manhattan closet, squatter couple charged

Nadia Vitels, a 52-year-old woman found dead inside a duffel bag in the closet of a Kips Bay apartment on March 14 by her son was later discovered to have been attacked and killed by a pair of squatters four days earlier, who then stole her credit card and car and went on the run, according to prosecutors. Nadia Vitels was killed by blunt force trauma to the head, said the city’s Medical Examiner.

The duo — Halley Tejada, 19, of Manhattan, and Kensly Alston, 18, of the Bronx — were grabbed by U.S. Marshals in York, Pa., after cops said they had crashed Vitels’ car and gotten engaged on the road with a ring they bought with Vitels’ card, cops said. They were hit with multiple charges, including murder, concealment of a human corpse and grand larceny.

Wheelchair-bound ex-con charged with killing roommate, dumping body in the trash

Family, friends and neighbors were devastated to find out that the body found wrapped in a sleeping bag, placed on a dolly and left by the trash on E. 27^th St. near Third Ave. on July 5 was 31-year-old Buffalo State College grad Yazmeen Williams, who had lived for a time in the nearby Straus Houses.

Residents of the Straus Houses began to immediately suspect 55-year-old Chad Irish, who lived two blocks away — especially after video of a man in a wheelchair dumping Williams’ body was widely seen on social media. Williams had also been his roommate.

After being confronted by several neighbors and pulling a gun in response, Irish was swarmed by an angry crowd just as police came to arrest him on July 8. Cops and medics had to fight their way through the irate mob while carrying Irish on a gurney.

Irish was charged with murder, concealment of a human corpse, tampering with physical evidence and criminal possession of a weapon.

Sister of Bollywood star accused of killing two in Queens arson

On Nov. 26 Aliya Fakhri, the sister of Bollywood movie star Nargis Fakhri, was arrested for murder and arson, accused of setting the fire that killed her ex Edward Jacobs, 35, and his new pal Anastasia “Star” Ettienne, 33.

The blaze was set in a cluttered two-story garage Jacobs was squatting in behind a private home in Jamaica,Queens on Nov. 2. Jacobs was asleep when Fakhri allegedly came in screaming “You’re going to die today!” before starting the fire, according to a witness.

Ettienne died while trying to wake Jacobs to get him out of the burning garage.

“It was an abusive relationship,” a man who escaped said of the relationship between Jacobs and the accused arsonist. “She told everybody [in the past] she was going to burn his house down, that she was going to kill him. We just laughed at her.”

Murder of Bronx woman, allegedly by ex-celebrity photographer, sends victim’s boyfriend spiraling to his own death

The murder of Jacklyn Timinski— struck in the head with a kettlebell by former celebrity photographer Benjamin Lozovsky, according to cops— sent her boyfriend Juan Boria on a downward spiral of grief that included a string of arrests, desperate attempts to get him help and finally ending with him being fatally stabbed weeks later in a tussle with a homeless man over a box to sleep in.

Lozovsky, 41, was found naked and bloody on Timinski’s Bronx lawn Sept. 8, after police say he smashed her head in with a kettlebell. According to law enforcement sources, the pair had gone to the victim’s home to do drugs.

Boria, 51, continued living among blood spatter in the Throggs Neck house where Timinski was attacked and was not taking medication for his bipolar disorder, according to his heartbroken son, Joshua Boria. After an encounter with Robert Brent, a 52-year-old homeless man who was mourning his own loss, Boria was fatally stabbed in the abdomen in the bustling commercial area of the Bronx called the Hub on Oct. 26.

Lozovsky is due back in court Jan. 15.

Parents accused of starving 4-year-old boy to death in Harlem home

It was horrific enough that the boy was being starved to death by his own parents. But what took  4-year-old Jahmeik Modlin’s death over the top was that he died in a Harlem apartment that was reportedly stocked with food.

Prosecutors said the home where the malnourished boy lived his last days was a feces-covered hellhole where the cupboards were locked with zip ties and the refrigerator was turned to the wall so Jahmeik and his sisters couldn’t open it.

His sisters, ages 5, 6 and 7, managed to survive under the same conditions, although none of them were able to ingest solid food when they were rescued in October.

The boy’s mom, Nytavia Ragsdale, 26, was jailed and charged with criminally negligent homicide and endangering the welfare of a child after Jahmeik was found unconscious, malnourished and suffering from hypothermia outside their apartment on Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd. near W. 145th St.

Days later, the boy’s father, Laron Modlin, 25, was arrested on similar charges. Relatives said the family had been on the radar of the city’s child welfare agency,  whose handling of the case is being reviewed by the city’s Department of Investigation.

Oct. 15, 2024: Child death tragedy

Body dismembered in Bronx, then torched on Yonkers street

Grisly doesn’t begin to describe this head-scratching caper, which somehow managed to link Yonkers and the South Bronx to a pair of severed hands found in a bleach-filled crockpot.

It started with burning body parts dumped under a Yonkers bridge in August that cops traced back to a Bronx apartment. There, investigators found a black bag in a freezer that contained a human leg in an apartment in a building on Rogers Place near Dawson St.

Caught on camera were a man and a woman who rented a room in the apartment.

Muhammad Aadil, 40, and Ronei Harris, 18, were indicted for murder and related charges in the death of 46-year-old Lutalo Henderson, the Bronx DA said.

Aadil and Harris allegedly killed Henderson after a dispute in the home that Aadil shared with Henderson, the Bronx DA said. The two then wrapped the torso in trash bags and took it in a shopping cart to Yonkers on the Metro North Train.

They set the shopping cart on fire under the Oak Street Bridge, the DA said.

Police, using surveillance videos, traced the murder back to the Bronx.

“This was brutal disregard for a human being.” Bronx District Attorney Darcel Clark said when she announced the indictments.

Custody battle ends in murder-suicide down the street from Gracie Mansion

New York City was rocked by a murder-suicide in July that unfolded on an Upper East Side street just a block away from the mayor’s heavily-guarded residence.

Police said single mom, Marisa Galloway, 45, was shot to death by her former mother-in-law in a bitter custody battle that reached its deadly climax just a half-block away from Gracie Mansion.

Shooting suspect and grandmother Kathleen Leigh’s son is the father of Galloway’s 4-year-old daughter. Authorities said Leigh, 65, escalated the contentious custody fight by shooting Galloway outside a white Honda Civic on E. 88th Street around 9 a.m. on July 26 before shooting herself.

Galloway’s other daughter, a 1-year-old girl, was in the car. She was unhurt.

In a suicide note, Leigh described herself as a terminally-ill cancer patient and accused Galloway of child abuse, an accusation debunked by city child’s services investigators.

Galloway was a special education teacher, described by neighbors and friends as a loving, doting mother.

Artist murdered by boyfriend benefactor in upscale Hamptons spa

A Brooklyn artist was murdered in October at an upscale Hamptons wellness spa by an ex-boyfriend who later killed himself in a shocking murder-suicide filled with emotion and intrigue.

Sabina Rosas, 33, was part of the 2021 Technology Immersion Program at Harvestworks, a New York-based nonprofit that helps artists creating work with technology. She received a scholarship from the organization that spring.

More recently, Rosas had won her first residency, which was due to begin in Portugal in November. She launched a GoFundMe over the summer asking for contributions as a birthday gift.

Her boyfriend Thomas Gannon, who went on to kill her, contributed $1,000, making him the top donor.

“You have an amazing gift and soon all the world will see,” he posted on the fundraising page.

“I love you.”

Rosas, 33, was staying at the posh Shou Sugi Ban House in Water Mill with Gannon, 56, who was later seen leaving the spa alone, according to cops. He was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his home in Honesdale, Pa., according to Suffolk County police.

Rosas was married, but was estranged from her husband, authorities said.

Homeless woman set on fire on Brooklyn train

He set her on fire, then he watched her burn.

That’s what cop said a Guatemalan immigrant did to a homeless woman on a Brooklyn subway train last Sunday, just days before Christmas.

Cops said Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, 33, approached the sleeping woman without saying a word and set fire to her clothes, engulfing her in flames “in a matter of seconds.”

Surveillance video appears to show him sitting on a bench watching the woman burn as police officers quickly responded around 7:30 a.m. on an F train pulling into the Coney Island-Stillwell Avenue station in Brooklyn.

Zapeta-Calil has been charged with first- and second-degree murder and first-degree arson, according to police.

“The depravity of this horrific crime is beyond comprehension, and my office is committed to bringing the perpetrator to justice. This gruesome and senseless act of violence against a vulnerable woman will be met with the most serious consequences,” Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said in a statement.

Police released body camera images of the suspect to the public, and three high school-age New Yorkers recognized him and called the police, officials said.