Bank of America Vice President Erin Piacenti was killed during a high-profile stabbing in New York City’s Times Square on Monday. 

The New York City Police Department (NYPD) identified Erin Piacenti, 32, of Chester, New Jersey, as the deceased victim. 

Bank of America acknowledged Piacenti’s death in an email obtained by Reuters.

“We are shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic loss ​of our colleague. She was a ​valued teammate who will be greatly ⁠missed. Our hearts go out to her ​family and all of her loved ones,” the bank wrote in the email. 

After receiving a 911 call shortly before 4:30 p.m. on Monday, NYPD officers found a 49-year-old woman wielding two knives in Times Square. 

Officers shot the assailant, who was later pronounced dead at the hospital. 

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Travis Kelce’s new Tommy Hilfiger fashion campaign gave the world its first official look at another member of his household this week: a fluffy white Samoyed named Wendy, the dog he shares with his wife, Taylor Swift.

Kelce, the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, is one of several sports and fashion stars featured in Tommy Hilfiger’s Fall 2026 campaign, which debuted Tuesday and was filmed at the Plaza Hotel in New York City. In the roughly two-minute ad, Kelce arrives at the hotel wearing a gray hoodie and tan coat, encountering fellow campaign stars including model Gigi Hadid, tennis player Frances Tiafoe and retired NBA All-Star Carmelo Anthony before settling into a suite, where Wendy joins him on a couch for the campaign’s most talked-about moment.

Speaking with Vogue about the dog’s inclusion in the shoot, Kelce said the Hilfiger creative team had originally floated the idea of bringing a canine into the campaign, and he offered up Wendy without hesitation. “We figured, why not her? She crushed it, and actually really fit into that Tommy aesthetic, too,” Kelce told the magazine. “Those are some of my favorite shots.” Asked about the dog directly, Kelce did not hide his affection. “Are you kidding me? She lights up my day,” he said.

Wendy’s name had not been officially confirmed prior to the campaign’s release, despite months of fan speculation about a dog first spotted traveling with Kelce in July, when the Samoyed was photographed disembarking a private jet with him in Palm Beach, Florida. Forbes identified the dog’s name as Wendy in its coverage of the Tommy Hilfiger ad, according to reporting from TMZ, though the outlet briefly removed the name from its story before it was later reinstated and picked up more broadly by other outlets.

The dog’s public debut adds a fourth pet to the household Kelce and Swift have built since their wedding this summer. Swift has long been known for her trio of cats, Meredith Grey, Olivia Benson and Benjamin Button, animals that have appeared throughout her career in social media posts, music videos and professional photo shoots. Benjamin Button notably appeared alongside Swift on the cover of Time magazine after she was named the publication’s 2023 Person of the Year.

Kelce and Swift married this offseason in a ceremony held at Madison Square Garden, an event that drew a wide array of high-profile guests from both the entertainment and sports worlds. Photos from the wedding reportedly included garden-themed decor featuring a portrait of the couple holding a white dog, an image some fans have since connected to Wendy’s earlier, less formal public sightings.

Tuesday’s campaign marks the formal start of Kelce’s new partnership with Tommy Hilfiger, which the brand’s namesake designer described in a statement as a natural pairing given Kelce’s cultural reach. “Travis Kelce is one of the most magnetic figures in sport and culture today,” Tommy Hilfiger said. “He is at the forefront of a new generation of athletes expressing themselves through style.” Kelce, for his part, described a personal connection to the brand dating back to his teenage years. “Ever since high school, when I used to ask my mom to buy [Tommy Hilfiger] Sailing Gear jackets, I’ve been drawn toward the brand’s confident style,” he said.

The Fall 2026 campaign is set to be followed by a deeper collaboration between Kelce and the brand, with a dedicated design partnership planned for spring 2027. Kelce joins a lineup of past Tommy Hilfiger collaborators that has included tennis star Rafael Nadal, Formula 1 driver Lewis Hamilton, model Gigi Hadid and actress Zendaya.

The dog’s appearance comes as Kelce continues balancing his football career with an expanding roster of outside business ventures, including a prior limited-edition collaboration with American Eagle under his Tru Kolors brand. Kelce, who considered retirement following the 2025 NFL season, ultimately signed a three-year contract worth up to 57.75 million dollars with the Chiefs this offseason, a deal structured as effectively a one-year, 12 million dollar arrangement that could mark the final chapter of his playing career. Should Kelce eventually step away from football, he now has plenty of company waiting at home, with Wendy set to remain a fixture both in the Kelce-Swift household and, evidently, on brand campaigns going forward.

For decades, a fixed office landline was simply part of running a business.

That’s changing fast. Across the UK, sole traders and small firms are dropping traditional lines in favour of a virtual phone number — a business number that works on the mobile they already carry. Here’s what’s driving the shift.

The old network is being switched off

The timing isn’t a coincidence. The UK’s traditional copper phone network (the PSTN) is being retired, and analogue landlines are being phased out in favour of digital alternatives. For a small business, that looming deadline is a natural prompt to ask a bigger question: do we need a physical line at all?

For many, the answer is no. If your team already works from mobiles, laptops and the odd coffee shop, a desk-bound line starts to look like a cost without a purpose.

What a virtual number actually does

A virtual phone number isn’t tied to a single handset or location. Calls to your business number are simply diverted to whatever device you’re using — usually your mobile. You keep a professional presence, without the hardware.

The practical wins add up quickly:

• Work and personal calls stay separate. You hand out a business number, not your personal mobile.
• You’re reachable anywhere. Calls follow you, whether you’re on site, at home or travelling.
• No engineer, no installation. Setup takes minutes, not weeks, and there’s nothing to wire in.

Crucially, a virtual number still looks the part. You can choose a UK phone number with a local area code — an 0161 for Manchester, an 020 for London — so customers see a familiar, credible number rather than a mobile.

Professional features without the phone system

The other draw is control. Modern virtual services bundle in the kind of features that used to require an expensive on-premise phone system: call forwarding, business hours, voicemail, custom greetings and call menus, all managed from an app.

For a growing business, that means you can route calls to the right person, switch off cleanly after hours, and add numbers or users as the team expands — without a contract renegotiation or a visit from an installer.

A lower-risk way to look bigger

Cost plays a part too. Virtual numbers typically run on a straightforward monthly subscription, with no lengthy contracts and no hardware to buy. Providers like Rinkel start from a few pounds per user per month, which makes a professional setup accessible even for a one-person business.

The bigger picture is simple: as the old network winds down and work becomes more mobile, the fixed landline is quietly becoming optional. For many small UK businesses, a virtual number offers the same professional front — with a lot more freedom behind it.

MOCKSVILLE, N.C. — A North Carolina family is racing through a series of rabies vaccinations for their 4-year-old son after learning that baby goats he petted at a mobile petting zoo tested positive for the virus, part of a broader public health response now underway across the state.

Rebecca Lanning, 30, of Marion, said she received a call from her son’s aunt last Friday informing her that her son had been exposed to rabies. The family had visited a dinosaur-themed exhibit in Mocksville 13 days earlier, on Aug. 15, an event that also featured food trucks, carnival games and a petting zoo where the boy fed baby goats by hand. “I didn’t think anything of it until Friday, when his aunt called me and was like, ‘Hey, we have a situation,’” Lanning said.

The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that three baby goats from the petting zoo had tested positive for rabies. Those animals, along with a fourth goat suspected of carrying the virus, have since been euthanized.

Lanning immediately took her son to the doctor, where he received the first two of six required doses of the rabies vaccine, a regimen known as post-exposure prophylaxis. The shots are administered after a possible exposure in an effort to stop the virus before it can take hold in the body. Once symptoms of a rabies infection begin, the disease, which attacks the brain and spinal cord, is almost always fatal. The vaccine is nearly 100% effective at preventing the disease, but only when it is administered before symptoms appear.

People can become infected with rabies through contact with the saliva of an infected animal, or through a bite or scratch. Lanning said the uncertainty of her son’s specific interactions with the goats has weighed on her heavily in the days since learning of the exposure. “My fear is that if he was feeding the goats, and he’s 4, who’s to say that he didn’t touch his mouth or eyes?” Lanning said. “I don’t want to bury my child.”

Rabies symptoms typically take weeks to months to appear after exposure, and can initially resemble the flu, including weakness, fatigue, fever and headaches. According to the North Carolina health department, people may also experience a prickling or itching sensation at the site where they were touched or bitten by an infected animal.

As of Monday, the state health department said it did not have an estimate of how many people may have been exposed to the infected goats. The animals were part of a North Carolina-based mobile petting zoo operation called Farm Adventures, which had appeared at events across the state between July 28 and Aug. 23. Beyond the Mocksville dinosaur exhibit, the goats were also brought to private gatherings, including birthday parties and a back-to-school celebration, as well as a visit to an assisted living center.

A representative for Farm Adventures did not respond to a request for comment. The company addressed the situation in a post on its Facebook page, stating that its goats, which were too young to have been vaccinated against rabies themselves, appeared to have contracted the virus after a skunk got into their enclosure. Skunks are among the animals most commonly known to carry and transmit rabies, along with bats, raccoons and foxes.

In a statement, the North Carolina health department said it is “working with local health departments and healthcare systems to make sure rabies post-exposure prophylaxis is available to anyone who needs it,” as officials work to identify and reach others who may have come into contact with the infected animals during their weeks on the road.

The incident comes amid what public health officials say is a broader increase in rabies exposures nationally in recent years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, roughly 1.4 million Americans are evaluated annually for possible rabies exposure, with about 100,000 people ultimately receiving post-exposure prophylaxis shots each year. Health officials continue to urge caution around wild and unfamiliar animals, along with prompt medical attention following any bite, scratch or direct contact with an animal’s saliva, given how critical early treatment is to preventing the disease from becoming fatal.