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An 18-year-old college student was repeatedly stabbed by a group of assailants in a Manhattan park on Wednesday night before stumbling away for help, only to collapse before she could find any. The woman, identified as Tessa Majors, a first-year student at Barnard College, was later found collapsed in front of a security booth near Columbia University by a security guard who had been out on patrol. But after being rushed to St. Luke’s hospital, she succumbed to her injuries. Law enforcement sources cited by the New York Daily News said a group of suspects approached the woman in Morningside Park and tried to rob her before stabbing her in the torso several times. She was reportedly walking down a set of steps to the park on W. 116th St. near Morningside Drive when she was surrounded by the group.After the attack, she managed to climb back up the stairs but collapsed in front of a Columbia security guard booth that at that moment happened to be empty. ABC News reports that she was found by the security guard about a half hour after collapsing on the sidewalk. Mary, a woman who works as a nanny in the area, told The Daily Beast she received an alert from the Citizen app around 7:05 p.m. that there had been an assault with a knife a few hundred feet away. She looked out the window and saw a woman laying in the street as a police officer performed CPR. “There were about six cops in total at that point surrounding the girl,” Mary said in a text message. She said police were still searching the area when she left around 10:30 p.m.“I hope they catch the guy, no one should ever have to fear their walk home,” she told The Daily Beast.In an email to students, Barnard College President Sian Leah Beilock said Majors was fatally stabbed during an armed robbery in Morningside Park. “Tessa was just beginning her journey at Barnard and in life. We mourn this devastating murder of an extraordinary young woman and member of our community,” Beilock said in the email. “This is an unthinkable tragedy that has shaken us to our core.”Police have not yet announced any suspects, but sources cited by the Daily News said a 16-year-old boy was being questioned in connection with the attack. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

(Bloomberg) -- Taiwanese authorities believe thousands of mainland Chinese, including government officials, may have illegally entered Taiwan over the past two years, highlighting a security risk to the island ahead of a national election.More than 5,000 Chinese citizens are suspected of entering Taiwan illegally between 2017 and 2019, Taipei District Prosecutors Office spokeswoman Chen Yu-ping said by phone. Many of the arrivals are believed to have been government officials, according to the Taipei-based Central News Agency.Taiwanese prosecutors are now investigating 20 travel agencies and 10 civic associations for assisting Chinese nationals to travel to Taiwan under false pretenses, CNA reported Wednesday.The travel agencies were suspected of passing the personal details of prospective mainland visitors along to local associations, who in turn issue invitations allowing visitors to secure travel permits from Taiwan’s immigration authorities.The investigation into the possible national security lapse comes a month before Taiwanese voters head to the polls to elect their president. President Tsai Ing-wen, who has received a boost in the polls amid anti-China protests in Hong Kong, is up against Han Kuo-yu, of the more Beijing-friendly Kuomintang, in January’s vote.Since Tsai came to power in 2016, Beijing has ratcheted up the diplomatic and military pressure on Taiwan in an attempt to force her to accept its negotiating framework that both sides are part of “one China.” Tsai, whose Democratic Progressive Party supports independence, has refused to do so.To contact the reporters on this story: Samson Ellis in Taipei at sellis29@bloomberg.net;Adela Lin in Taipei at alin95@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Scott at bscott66@bloomberg.net, Iain MarlowFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Texas on Wednesday executed an inmate convicted of killing a prison boot factory supervisor because he was upset he had to work as a janitor. Travis Runnels, 46, was put to death by lethal injection at the state’s death chamber in Huntsville for the 2003 murder of 40-year-old Stanley Wiley, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said in a statement. Runnels' death was the final execution scheduled in the United States for 2019, bringing the total to 22 this year, according to the Catholic Mobilizing Network, which opposes the death penalty.