It’s Tuesday in New York City, where investigators are gaining some clarity into the bizarre and dangerous scene outside Gracie Mansion on Sunday.

According to federal prosecutors, two Pennsylvania high school students — 18-year-old Emir Balat and 19-year-old Ibrahim Kayumi — were charged with terrorism after trying to ignite improvised explosive devices in a crowd of protesters outside the mayor’s residence. Both men later expressed support for the extremist group ISIS after their arrest.

It all started with a “Stop the Islamic Takeover of New York City” protest led by far-right influencer and Jan. 6 rioter Jake Lang outside Gracie Mansion on Sunday. Lang brought a live goat to the event, calling it the “next Ayotalloh” and Mamdani’s “second wife.” The event drew a much larger crowd of over 100 counter-protesters. Tensions quickly escalated, as one member of the Lang protest pepper-sprayed a counterprotester and scuffles broke out between the rival groups. Four men, not including Balat and Kayumi, were later arrested for disorderly conduct and assault.

The confrontation descended into chaos when two explosives, originally believed to be smokebombs, were tossed into Lang’s group. Later found to contain nuts, bolts and TATP, a highly volatile homemade explosive material often used in international terrorist attacks, the devices were capable of causing injury or death had they properly detonated. 

Mayor Mamdani, who was not home at the time, condemned the Lang protest, which he said was “rooted in bigotry and racism,” but emphasized the sanctity of the right to protest. “Violence at a protest is never acceptable. The attempt to use an explosive device and hurt others is not only criminal, it is reprehensible and the antithesis of who we are,” Mamdani wrote on X.

Balat told prosecutors that he hoped the attack would be bigger than the Boston bombing of 2013, in which three people were killed and hundreds injured. “[T]his isn’t a religion that just stands when people talk about the blessed name of the prophet. We take action,” Balat allegedly told police. While being held at the precinct, he wrote on a piece of paper, “I pledge my allegience [sic] to the Islamic State.”

Both men are being held in jail without bail while awaiting further proceedings. We’ll have more information as it unfolds.

In “Chinese Republicans,” Alex Lin’s recently opened off-Broadway play, Jennifer Ikeda plays Ellen, a managing director at a fictional major bank and the head of an “affinity group” of female Asian employees. She is brisk, acerbic, ambitious and definitely a Manhattanite. 

It’s a change for Ikeda, who has made a home in Brooklyn for decades. 

When the actor moved to New York in the ‘90s to attend the Juilliard School, she started, as many do, in Manhattan. In 2001, she moved to Greenpoint.

Read on to learn more about Ikeda’s life in Brooklyn and her new role.

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