Cover photo: President Donald Trump in Uniondale (Credit – Matt Meduri)
National
As the Southeast continues to reel from the devastating effects of Hurricane Helene, the region seems increasingly likely to be faced with a double-barrel set of storms just weeks removed from one another.
Hurricane Milton continued to grow in size earlier in the week, reaching the highest designation of Category 5. As of press time, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) expects Milton to make landfall on Wednesday night into Thursday morning as a Category 3 storm.
Milton is expected to be one of the worst storms to hit Florida in about a century, with forecasts warning of a ten-to-fifteen-foot storm surge and localized rainfall not exceeding one-and-a-half feet. Winds are also expected to track at 80 to 140 miles per hour from its center.
The storm is currently on track to cruise over the Tampa Bay area and travel east. Whether or not the storm will travel up the eastern coast to hit the already-erased communities of North Carolina remains to be seen.
Although Milton is expected to weaken before it makes landfall around Tampa, it is expected to double in size, which means its impacts will be felt over a much larger area.
Local officials have told Florida residents to get out while they can, and with highways leading away from the area jammed with traffic, it is interpreted as a sign that Floridians are taking this seriously.
However, the disastrous impact of Helene is still being handled, with some communities reduced to pure rubble. Officials also expect that debris, such as rubble, appliances, and other loose objects could be turned into deadly projectiles if carried by Milton’s powerful winds.
5,000 residents are said to have reported to shelters in Manatee County (Bradenton), just north of Sarasota.
In political news, former President Donald Trump (R-FL) (pictured above) made a triumphant return to the site of his first assassination attempt in July: Butler, Pennsylvania.
While the former president was delivering a portion of speech dedicated to immigration, he turned his head slightly to look at a bar graph shown on one of the megatron televisions. In that instance, several sniper shots from failed assassin Thomas Matthew Crooks pierced the president’s ear and killed firefighter Corey Comperatore. Two others were critically injured.
Trump told NewsNation before the rally: “I’m going back to Butler because I feel I have an obligation to go back to Butler. We never finished what we were supposed to do. And I said that day when I was shot, I said, ‘We’re coming back. We’re gonna come back.’”
The rally had more than sixty special guests, including an exhaustive list of family and friends of Corey Comperatore, as well as U.S. Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH), several other members of Congress, and CEO of SpaceX and X, the latter formerly known as Twitter, Elon Musk.
“As I was saying…,” Trump started his remarks at the Butler Farm Show, in the near-exact spot he was almost killed three months ago. The chart that he claims saved his life was put on display.
In world news, Lebanon has now entered the ongoing fray between Israel and Palestine, nearly one year after the deadly attacks waged by Hamas on Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has warned the Lebanese people that they risk dropping into the “abyss of a long war” as Israel ramps up its attacks on Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and military group that is widely seen as a resistance movement.
On October 3, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) conducted an airstrike on an underground bunker in the coastal city of Dahieh, a suburb of the capital city of Beirut. The IDF targeted Hashem Safieddine, the head of Hezbollah’s Executive Council and since 2001. He also serves as head of the Jihad Council, a body with control of Hezbollah’s military and security activities. Safieddine’s cousin, Hassan Nasrallah, had been assassinated just days prior on September 27 in an Israeli airstrike on the Hezbollah headquarters where leaders were meeting at a bunker sixty feet underground beneath residential buildings. More than eighty bombs were dropped, including U.S.-made 2,000-pound bunker buster bombs.
As of October 8, Safieddine is likely considered to have been “eliminated,” as reported by Israel Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and Prime Minister Netanyahu.
State
A New York State Supreme Court judge has tossed legislation that would move municipal and local elections from odd-numbered years to even-numbered years. The bill was passed in Albany by Democrats in the Assembly and Senate and later signed into law by Governor Kathy Hochul (D) just before Christmas last year.
The law would move odd-numbered year elections to even years starting in 2025, which would hold local elections, such as those for Town and County government, simultaneously with elections for president, Congress, and state legislature.
A number of municipalities and counties sued the state over the law, including the Suffolk County Legislature. The horseshoe voted 13-5, mostly along party lines to advance the litigation. Legislator Tom Donnelly (D-Deer Park) (pictured right) was the lone Democrat to vote alongside the Republicans to oppose the law.
New York counties have varying levels of home rule. Twenty counties are chartered, including Suffolk, which means they have power to draft and approve their own rules regarding government structure and authority. The State Constitution has also had three separate amendments reinforcing this concept. This serves as a basis for the lawsuit, in that the state violated these provisions afforded to chartered counties, or other forms of local government with autonomy over their own governmental structures.
“The prerequisites of a special law were not followed and the subject matter of the Even Year Election Law is inherently a local issue as it affects no state offices. The Even Year Election Law is unconstitutional as specifically prohibited by Article IX of the New York State Constitution,” Judge Gerard Neri (R) wrote in his ruling.
Article IX of the State Constitution contains three sections pertaining to the bills of rights for and home rule powers of local governments.
Neri also holds that the law supersedes local interests in favor of larger-scale political campaigns of statewide and/or national proportions.
“Be it in the local paper, television, radio, online, or one’s mailbox, the competition for a voter’s attention is fierce. New York and the Plaintiff Counties are home to some of the most competitive House of Representative Races, and with that competition comes massive spending on advertising. There is simply no way local races can compete and obtain media attention, paid or earned, in that maelstrom,” Neri wrote.
Rensselaer County Executive Steven McLaughlin (R-North Greenbush), a plaintiff in the lawsuit, agrees with the ruling.
“This would have been expensive and confusing for voters and the public. This had everything to do with playing politics with the election calendar and nothing to do with serving the public and encouraging more people to vote,” said McLaughlin.
However, the bill’s Senate sponsor, Senator James Skoufis (D-Cornwall) disagrees with the ruling and continues to defend the legislation.
“It’s unsurprising the plaintiff’s hand-picked judge sided with the partisans who prefer fewer people voting in their elections. This case was always going to be appealed and I fully expect a more objective panel of judges to rule in favor of the law’s constitutionality. In the meantime, the plaintiffs continue to waste local tax dollars on their senseless crusade to preserve lower turnout in elections.”
Local
As the expiration date of Suffolk County’s red-light camera law on December 1 nears, residents and advocacy groups are celebrating their efforts to advocate against what they perceive as a “cash grab” and call for the end of the controversial enforcement measure.
Originally implemented to enhance traffic safety and reduce violations at intersections deemed high-risk, the red-light camera system has sparked heated debate since its inception. Proponents argue that the cameras deter dangerous driving behaviors and prevent accidents, while opponents criticize the program as primarily a revenue-generating scheme that disproportionately penalizes drivers.
Under the current law, red-light cameras capture images of vehicles that run red lights or fail to come to a complete stop before making a right turn on red at designated intersections. Violators receive fines by mail, often sparking frustration among drivers who contest the accuracy of the camera systems or feel unfairly targeted.
Supporters of the red-light camera program, however, argue that it has contributed to a reduction in intersection collisions and improved compliance with traffic laws. They point to studies that suggest a decrease in red-light violations and related accidents at intersections equipped with cameras.
County and State officials have even acknowledged the polarizing nature of the red-light camera issue. They have opted to not support it moving forward currently. At a recent “Meet the Candidates” civic meeting, candidates and current incumbents Senator Anthony Palumbo (R-New Suffolk) and Assemblyman Ed Flood (R-Port Jefferson) stated that neither of them currently support the red-light camera law being extended. Palumbo stated that people unfortunately die at intersections regardless of this law and that rear end accidents have increased since it passed. Assemblyman Flood echoed this and added that the Suffolk County Legislature will not carry this bill at this time.
