Kennedy Fights to Stay on Ballot, but Everyone’s Talking About the Bear

Reeling from a bizarre case of bear-dumping, the presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday found himself in an elegant Albany courtroom in a fight to remain on the New York ballot and keep his campaign hopes afloat in the state.

Mr. Kennedy, the political scion whose independent campaign has caused heartburn for both major parties, has been challenged by a group of voters who say he used a false address to try to get on the ballot in New York. He has deep ties in the state, where a surreal scandal has now erupted involving the revelation that he once deposited a dead bear cub in Central Park.

That story, which Mr. Kennedy revealed in a video he posted on social media Sunday, came just before a critical New Yorker profile that included the same anecdote.

It is a doozy, involving the candidate’s saying he found a dead cub by an upstate road in 2014 after a falconry outing, posed for a photo looking as though it was chomping his hand and later showed the dead bear off to friends.

Then, with a flight to catch and no time to deal with the carcass, he left the dead baby bear in Central Park along with an old bike he happened to have in his car, apparently to suggest a cyclist had mowed down the bear.

Mr. Kennedy said he thought this would be “amusing,” though he seemed to understand that his sense of humor may not be for everyone.