NEW YORK (AP) — Bacteria that cause potentially fatal Legionnaires' disease were found in a Yankee Stadium cooling tower — one of 10 such towers in the Bronx that tested positive amid several reported cases of the illness including one death, New York City health officials said.
The city's Health Department said Sunday that more tests were being done to determine whether the Legionella bacteria in the towers was live, and the Yankees said none of the current Legionnaires' disease cases in the area has been linked to the stadium. Only live bacteria can cause the disease, which is a form of pneumonia. The initial testing performed on the 10 towers last week found traces of living or dead bacteria.
Health officials said they are investigating a likely community cluster of Legionnaires' in the South Bronx, where Yankee Stadium is located. Ten people have tested positive for the disease including one who died and three who remain hospitalized, the Health Department said. Authorities are still investigating the source or sources of the outbreak.
“I want to assure New Yorkers we are moving aggressively to contain the spread," New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani said at a news conference Monday. He later added, “This has been an issue that New Yorkers have had to deal with for far too many years, and we are looking to develop any kind of tool that can help to ensure that Legionnaires' is something that we’re able to combat.”
Health officials ordered the owners of the 10 towers to clean and disinfect them by Monday. The Yankees said the stadium tower that tested positive was drained and cleaned Sunday morning.
The Health Department said anyone who lives or works in the Melrose and Morrisania sections of the Bronx, or have visited there since late August, and are experiencing flu-like symptoms should contact a healthcare provider immediately.
The Yankees said in a statement that new, state-of-the-art cooling towers were installed at the stadium in 2024 and have been tested weekly for water quality and bacteria since then. Those tests results are reported monthly to the city. The most recent testing on Aug. 20 was negative for Legionella bacteria, the team said, noting it uses a different method than the city used last week for its monthly testing.
“No current cases have been associated with Yankee Stadium,” the team said. "Additionally, the New York City Department of Health has not at any point this month asked us to postpone our games.”
The city is now performing culture tests on samples from the 10 towers than can take up to two weeks to confirm whether bacteria were alive.
Legionnaires’ disease is treatable but kills about 10% of patients, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It’s caused by Legionella bacteria, which grow in warm water and can spread in such places as hot tubs and building cooling equipment. People may contract the disease by inhaling contaminated water droplets, but it doesn’t spread person-to-person.
A Legionnaire's outbreak earlier this summer on Manhattan's Upper East Side killed 11 people among more than 90 who tested positive, the Health Department said. The agency said 59 cooling towers at 58 buildings tested positive for live Legionella bacteria. All those towers were cleaned and disinfected.
Last year, another Legionnaires' outbreak in Harlem killed seven people and sickened dozens of others.
Collins reported from Hartford, Connecticut.
FILE - The grounds crew grooms the field before Game 3 of baseball's American League Division Series between the New York Yankees and the Toronto Blue Jays, Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, File)
WARSAW, Poland (AP) — NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Monday that Russian drone strikes near the Ukraine-Poland border — one of which hit a train shortly after senior visiting officials had passed through the same station — would drive the military alliance to increase its support for Kyiv, calling Sunday's attacks a sign of Moscow's growing desperation.
The strikes “close to NATO territory” show Russian President Vladimir Putin’s "desperation and also his desire to sow fear and terror,” Rutte said at NATO’s political headquarters in Brussels. “Russia is growing increasingly reckless as it continues its terrible war against Ukraine.”
Rutte pledged to increase support for Ukraine and bolster the 32-nation alliance’s own defenses along its long eastern border with Russia.
“He thinks that he can stop us from supporting Ukraine and that he can undermine our unity. He is wrong,” the NATO chief said of Putin.
Sunday’s strikes near the Polish border are the latest in a string of incidents that officials say point to a deliberate pattern of escalation by Putin, as Moscow tests NATO’s response while pressing its offensive in Ukraine.
Rutte's comments came as Poland pledged increased security along its border with Ukraine after a wave of Russian drone strikes near the frontier, including two that landed within kilometers of Polish territory.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned Sunday that Moscow appears poised to intensify its campaign against Ukraine’s borders with European countries. Ukraine is under mounting pressure from Russia’s intensifying air campaign that uses ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce defenses.
“These coming weeks and months will be a time of very intensified actions on the Russian side, and unfortunately we cannot rule out that this escalation will also affect our territory,” Tusk said Sunday after a governmental security briefing in Warsaw. He issued a similar warning on Thursday.
Defense Minister Władysław Kosiniak-Kamysz said Monday in a post on X that the Polish army recovered what was believed to be a Russian military drone from the Baltic Sea near the coastal village of Jaroslawiec.
Polish officials said intelligence reports, including a CIA briefing last week, suggested Russia was likely to attack border points and intensify sabotage actions inside European countries as part of its efforts to discourage partners from supporting Ukraine.
Tusk said he would consult NATO allies on preparing a potential joint response.
Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski underscored the alliance’s military edge in a social media post, saying that in the event of Russian aggression against NATO, European NATO air forces, without U.S. participation, would be capable of destroying half of Russia’s oil refineries faster than Ukraine.
Deputy Defense Minister Cezary Tomczyk described Sunday’s drone strikes as a serious escalation from Russia. He told broadcaster TVN24 on Monday that any spillover into European countries could take the form of sabotage or a sharp intensification of hybrid warfare “on a scale that we have not seen before,” or other actions along NATO’s borders.
The warnings followed a strike Sunday on a train near the Ukraine-Poland border, minutes after a diplomatic delegation that included former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and former Swedish Prime Minister Carl Bildt had passed through the same station, according to Ukraine’s state rail operator. A second strike hit near a separate border crossing point between Poland and Ukraine.
Kaja Kallas, the European Union's top diplomat, said Monday that the drone attacks near Poland's border were “clearly meant to scare Western countries from supporting Ukraine.”
“We should show that we are there for Ukraine and we are not scared,” she said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked Monday about the strike on the train near the Polish border, said Russian forces were operating “across the entire territory of Ukraine and continues to do so — and will continue to do so.”
Peskov noted the potential role of Global South nations in a settlement, saying “any country can use its influence on the Kyiv regime to encourage it to show greater flexibility.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi each expressed willingness to help broker a settlement during recent meetings with Putin, who briefed them on the situation in Ukraine, Peskov said.
Peskov also addressed U.S. President Donald Trump’s call for Ukraine to halt strikes on Russian diesel fuel facilities, saying “any call on the Kyiv regime to stop strikes on civilian economic infrastructure can only be welcomed.”
Trump on Sunday called on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to halt strikes on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure used to produce and distribute diesel, saying the attacks are causing a global shortage. He spoke after diesel prices in the U.S. hit a record on Friday, soaring past an average of $6 per gallon.
Morton reported from London. Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
FILE - Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrives for the EU summit in Brussels, Thursday, June 18, 2026. (AP Photo/Omar Havana, File)
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, right, speaks during a joint news conference with Poland's Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski in Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. (AP Photo)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Ukrzaliznytsia Railway Company Press Office, a locomotive damaged in a Russian drone attack is seen at Yahodyn railway station near Ukraine's border with Poland, Ukraine, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. (Ukrainian Ukrzaliznytsia Railway Company Press Office via AP)
