Man, 60, dies after $1 NYC mugging
A 60-year-old man who was kicked and punched while defending his partner during a $1 mugging on Christmas Eve has died.
Juan Fresnada died Friday afternoon at the Bronx hospital where he was taken in critical condition after the mugging early Tuesday, the New York Police Department said Saturday. Officers have released surveillance photos and videos in hopes of pinpointing suspects.
His partner, Byron Caceres, told the New York Daily News that Mr. Fresnada suffered the fatal blows while trying to spare him and urging him to run to safety, which he did. He “tried to defend me,” Mr. Caceres, 29, said. He said he had been unable to summon help because he doesn’t have a cellphone.
Police said the two men were walking in the Morrisania neighborhood of the Bronx at about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday when several muggers approached them and demanded their property. When they refused, they were attacked.
The muggers took $1 from the men and fled, police said.
Workers help woman
The woman’s boyfriend had threatened to kill her, police say.
So as they drove to visit the boyfriend’s family, she told him she needed to use a restroom at a McDonald’s — then told an employee at the counter to call 911 and gave her the car’s license plate number, officials said.
The woman tried to place an order at the store in Lodi, Calif., according to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office. But by that point the boyfriend was nearby and demanded she use the drive-through.
“Help me,” authorities say the woman mouthed to staff as the car went by the service window.
The help arrived. Deputies had just entered the store, the sheriff’s office said, and employees hurried them outside to pull the couple over. Law enforcement arrested Eduardo Valenzuela, 35, on charges of making criminal threats, possessing stolen property and possessing a firearm illegally as a felon.
Valenzuela’s lawyer did not immediately respond to inquiries Saturday. Jail records show him being held on $1 million bond with many charges of unspecified “prior serious felonies” in addition to those from the McDonald’s incident, which took place this week.
Astronaut sets record
A U.S. astronaut set a record Saturday for the longest single spaceflight by a woman, breaking the old mark of 288 days with about two months left in her mission.
Christina Koch, a 40year-old electrical engineer from Livingston, Mont., arrived at the International Space Station on March 14. She broke the record set by former space station commander Peggy Whitson in 2016-2017.
Ms. Koch is expected to spend a total of 328 days, or nearly 11 months, on board the space station before returning to Earth. Missions are typically six months, but NASA announced in April that it was extending her mission until February.
The U.S. record for the longest space flight is 340 days, set by Scott Kelly in 2015-2016. The world record is 15 months, set in the 1990s by a Russian cosmonaut aboard the former Mir space station.