New York, Empire State Building | featured news

The encounter was breathtakingly brief: a surveillance video showed a gunman outside the Empire State Building on Friday pulling a pistol, pointing it at two police officers, their firing at him and his falling to the sidewalk.

A disgruntled former women's accessories designer shot a former colleague to death Friday and then was killed in a shootout with police near the Empire State Building that left nine others wounded, officials said. The nine people wounded in the gunfire after 9 a.m. on the Fifth Avenue side of the building were expected to survive, police said.

A defining element of the skyline since 1931 is set to get a rival with 15 Penn Plaza, though it is not clear how soon the project will be built.

Authorities say a 21-year-old man has plunged to his death in an apparent suicide jump off the Empire State Building during the evening rush hour.