The two men who came across a travel bag containing an undetonated pressure cooker bomb in Chelsea have been identified as Egyptian pilots who have returned to their native country, according to a report. Law enforcement sources told ABC News the two men seen pulling the bomb from a bag on W. 27th St. on Sept. 17 — then walking off with the bag — are Egypt Air pilots. Neither the NYPD nor the FBI could immediately confirm the report Wednesday.A second bomb planted on W. 23rd St. by Ahmad Khan Rahami exploded, injuring 31 people. Rahami, 28, was ultimately apprehended in New Jersey two days later following a shootout with police.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

The SoHo couple accused of plying a Utah woman with tequila and Ecstasy before forcing her into an S&M threesome during the Sundance film festival last January has pleaded not guilty. Anne Hardcastle, 27, and Michael Taylor, 45, appeared in a Park City courthouse Monday and entered their pleas after being released on $20,000 cash bail, sources told the Daily News. The well-heeled world travelers were ordered to surrender their passports by Oct. 5 or have the bail forfeited, one court source said.Taylor was given a preliminary hearing date of Nov. 18 while Hardcastle was told to return Dec. 12. Those dates could change as prosecutors try to get the cases heard together, another source said.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A 6-year-old Harlem boy covered in bruises died after being rushed to the hospital by his mother, police said Tuesday. The child’s mother, Geraldine Perkins, had been the subject of five child abuse allegations stretching back to 2010, sources said. But she told detectives her muscle-bound boyfriend, Rysheim Smith, beat little Zymere Perkins with a broken broomstick for defecating in an ice bucket, sources said. Cops got a call from Zymere’s apartment on W. 135th St. near Broadway about 2:20 p.m. Monday saying the boy was unconscious, officials said.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A sailor with the Navy Reserve is in hot water after taking a page out of Colin Kaepernick’s playbook. Janaye Ervin, an intelligence specialist, declined to stand and did not salute during the national anthem played at a morning flag-raising at Pearl Harbor on Sept. 19.

“I feel like a hypocrite singing about the ‘land of the free’ when I know that only applies to some Americans,” she wrote on Facebook, according to Military.com. “I will gladly stand again, when ALL AMERICANS are afforded the same freedom.” Kaepernick, the 49ers quarterback, has refused to stand for the anthem before NFL games this year. He cited racial injustice and police brutality among the reasons for his actions.Other athletes all over the country have protested the anthem in recent weeks. Several weeks before Ervin’s protest, another sailor also refused to stand for the flag, according to Military.com.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A husband kicked out of the house two months ago returned home Monday and stabbed his wife to death, police said.

Hannah Donald, 47, was rushed to Kings County Hospital with multiple stab wounds to her chest, neck and arm just before 6 p.m. after an argument turned violent inside the woman’s home on E. 17 St. near Dorchester Rd. in Flatbush, police said. She later died of her injuries.A disheveled man identified by friends as Donald’s 58-year-old husband was taken into custody at the Cortelyou Rd. Q train station around 9:30 p.m., witnesses said. Friend Izafet Colok, 57, who works at a nearby laundromat, said the husband had harassed the victim after she kicked him out.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

DENVER — A high-ranking Air Force Space Command officer who was charged with rape and other crimes was found dead in his Colorado home after civilian police received a report of a suicide, officials said Monday. The body of Col. Eugene Caughey, 46, was found Sunday at his off-base home in Colorado Springs, city police said. Authorities haven’t said how he died. Caughey was relieved of his duties in June 2015 after the rape investigation began, the Air Force has said. His court-martial was scheduled for Oct. 17.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

An explosion in a Bronx drug lab killed a firefighter Tuesday morning, sources said. Emergency responders were called to the home on W. 234th St. near Irwin Ave. for a gas leak at 6:22 a.m., officials said. After they arrived, firefighters discovered a drug lab, sources said.The house exploded about 7:30 a.m., collapsing its roof and sending smoke billowing over the neighborhood.“When it exploded, 3 blocks away me and my son were in my apartment and the entire building shook,” Instagram user advocateofwordzw wrote.An FDNY battalion chief wounded by the blast was rushed to the hospital but could not be saved, sources said.(nydailynews.com)…[+]

A gun-toting skateboarder shot a man dead outside a Harlem apartment building, police said Sunday. Cops identified Koron Bailey, 30, as their suspect in the 1:50 p.m. Friday killing of the 21-year-old man on W. 141st St. near Frederick Douglass Blvd.

Bailey approached the unidentified victim from behind and started spraying bullets, cops said. When the man dropped to the ground, they said, the killer fired a single gunshot to his head. The shooter bolted from the scene on a skateboard, heading east on 141st St., police said.(Nydailynews.com)…[+]

The hope is that the silly season in Presidential politics might come to an end Monday night with the first debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. But that probably isn’t the way to bet, not after 15 months when the whole thing has been about as real as the reality television that made Trump a television star in this country.

Whatever happens this is the main event at long last, after all the name-calling and fabulism and outright lies from the Trump campaign, about everything from the invasion of Iraq to the definition of real sacrifice to the notion that Hillary Clinton is looking to abolish the Second Amendment, even to calling Lester Holt, the moderator of the first debate, a lousy Democrat. Maybe what we really find out at Hofstra is if the main event turns out to be nothing more than something out of pro wrestling: “Monday Night Raw.”(nydailynews.com)…[+]

Multiple people were injured in an early-morning shooting near a shopping center in southwest Houston, according to police and local media reports. Shots rang out before 7 a.m. local time. Police reported an active shooter situation in a shopping center near the corner of Weslayan and Bissonnet streets. The suspected shooter was shot by cops, and authorities don’t believe any other suspects were involved in the attack, police confirmed.The conditions of the shooter and victims haven’t been revealed.

One witness, speaking to ABC station KTRK-TV, said he heard “over 100 shots” fired – including AK-47 and AR-15 gunfire. It was “steady shooting back and forth” between police and the suspect, the man said.(nydailynews.com)…[+]