A Centereach woman has filed a lawsuit against the Nassau County Police Department, alleging she was wrongfully arrested and seriously injured during a 2024 Legislature hearing.

According to the suit, officers were responding to reports of an unruly person at the hearing on the Mask Transparency Act. The complaint claims police detained the wrong person — 27-year-old Maria Campanelli — and used excessive force in the process.

Campanelli says she suffered a traumatic brain injury, bruising and ongoing emotional distress as a result of the arrest. She is seeking $60 million in damages.

Nassau County police have not yet publicly commented on the lawsuit.

NEW YORK (AP) — Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York on Tuesday, capping a stunning ascent for the 34-year-old, far-left state lawmaker, who promised to transform city government to restore power to the working class and fight back against a hostile Trump administration.
In a victory for the Democratic party’s progressive wing, Mamdani defeated former Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Republican Curtis Sliwa. Mamdani must now navigate the unending demands of America’s biggest city and deliver on ambitious — skeptics say unrealistic — campaign promises.
With his commanding win, the democratic socialist will etch his place in history as the city’s first Muslim mayor, the first of South Asian heritage and the first born in Africa. He will also become New York’s youngest mayor in more than a century when he takes office on Jan. 1.
“The conventional wisdom would tell you that I am far from the perfect candidate. I am young, despite my best efforts to grow older. I am Muslim. I am a democratic socialist. And most damning of all, I refuse to apologize for any of this,” Mamdani declared to a roaring crowd at his victory party.
He cast his win as a boon for blue-collar workers struggling to get by. “New York, tonight you have delivered a mandate for change,” he said, vowing to “wake up each morning with a singular purpose: To make this city better for you than it was the day before.”
More than 2 million New Yorkers cast ballots in the contest, the largest turnout in a mayoral race in more than 50 years, according to the city’s Board of Elections. With roughly 90% of the votes counted, Mamdani held an approximately 9 percentage point lead over Cuomo.
Mamdani’s unlikely rise gives credence to Democrats who have urged the party to embrace more progressive candidates instead of rallying behind centrists in hopes of winning back swing voters who have abandoned the party.
He has already faced scrutiny from national Republicans, including President Donald Trump, who have eagerly cast him as a threat and the face of a more radical Democratic Party that is out of step with mainstream America. Trump has repeatedly threatened to cut federal funding to the city — and even take it over — if Mamdani won.
A commanding win
At his victory party in Brooklyn, Mamdani supporters cheered and embraced, some tearfully, after The Associated Press called the race. Campaign posters flew through the air, as one person hoisted the official flag of New York City and Bad Bunny played from the speakers.
The mood was far more muted at Cuomo’s party at a midtown Manhattan theater. In his concession speech, a defiant Cuomo called his campaign “a caution flag that we are headed down a dangerous, dangerous road” and noted that “almost half of New Yorkers did not vote to support a government agenda that makes promises that we know cannot be met.”
Still, he corrected his supporters when they began to boo at the mention of Mamdani’s name.
“No, that is not right,” he said, offering to help the incoming mayor in any way. “Tonight was their night.”
Mamdani’s grassroots campaign centered on affordability, and his charisma spoiled Cuomo’s attempted political comeback. The former governor, who resigned four years ago following allegations of sexual harassment that he continues to deny, was dogged by his past throughout the race and was criticized for running a negative campaign.
Mamdani will also have to deal with Trump, who not only threatened retribution against the city but also suggested he might try to arrest and deport Mamdani if he won. Mamdani was born in Uganda, where he spent his early childhood, but was raised in New York City and became a U.S. citizen in 2018.
In his speech, Mamdani addressed Trump head on.
“New York will remain a city of immigrants, a city built by immigrants, powered by immigrants and as of tonight, led by an immigrant,” he said, adding that, “If anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”
Trump appeared to acknowledge Mamdani’s challenges, posting “…AND SO IT BEGINS!” on his Truth Social site.
New mayor will pursue an ambitious agenda
Mamdani, who was criticized throughout the campaign for his thin resume, will now have to begin staffing his incoming administration and planning how to accomplish the ambitious but polarizing agenda that drove him to victory.
Among the campaign’s promises are free child care, free city bus service, city-run grocery stores and a new Department of Community Safety that would send mental health care workers to handle certain emergency calls rather than police officers. It is unclear how Mamdani will pay for such initiatives, given Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul’s steadfast opposition to his calls to raise taxes on wealthy people.
His decisions around the leadership of the New York Police Department will also be closely watched. Mamdani was a fierce critic of the department in 2020, calling for “this rogue agency” to be defunded and slamming it as “racist, anti-queer & a major threat to public safety.” He has since apologized for those comments and has said he will ask the current NYPD commissioner to stay on the job.
Mamdani’s campaign was driven by his optimistic view of the city and his promises to improve the quality of life for its middle and lower classes.
Cuomo, Sliwa and other critics assailed him over his vehement criticism of Israel ‘s military actions in Gaza. Mamdani, a longtime advocate of Palestinian rights, has accused Israel of committing genocide and said he would honor an arrest warrant the International Criminal Court issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Mamdani won over the city while Cuomo faltered
Mamdani began his campaign as a relatively obscure state lawmaker, little known even within New York City.
Going into the Democratic primary, Cuomo was the presumed favorite, with near-universal name recognition and deep political connections. Cuomo’s chances were buoyed further when incumbent Mayor Eric Adams bowed out of the primary while dealing with the fallout of his now-dismissed federal corruption case.
But as the race progressed, Mamdani’s natural charm, catchy social media videos and populist economic platform energized voters in the notoriously expensive city. He also began drawing outside attention as his name recognition grew.
Mamdani trounced Cuomo in the primary by about 13 points.
The former governor relaunched his campaign as an independent candidate for the general election, vowing to hit the streets with a more energetic approach. However, much of his campaign continued to focus on attacking opponents. In the race’s final stretch, he claimed Mamdani’s election would make Jews feel unsafe.
Meanwhile, supporters packed Mamdani’s rallies, and he held whimsical events, including a scavenger hunt and a community soccer tournament.
Cuomo also juxtaposed his deep experience in government with Mamdani’s less than five years in the state Legislature. But the former governor also faced his own political baggage, as his opponents dredged up the sexual harassment allegations that led to his resignation, as well as his decisions during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Sliwa, the creator of the Guardian Angels crime patrol group, also had his moments — mostly in the form of funny quips on the debate stage — but had difficulty gaining traction as a Republican in an overwhelmingly Democratic city.
He conceded the race about a half hour after the polls closed, wishing Mamdani “good luck because if he does well, we do well.”
But he also issued a warning: “If you try to implement socialism, if you try to render our police weak and impotent, if you forsake the people’s public safety, we will become the mayor-elect and his supporters’ worst enemies.”

By ROB MAADDI AP Pro Football Writer
Sauce Gardner went from last place to first and teammate Quinnen Williams also is on the move in separate blockbuster trades.
The New York Jets agreed to trade two star defensive players for draft picks and players in an effort to rebuild a franchise that has the longest active playoff drought in the NFL.
Gardner, a two-time All-Pro cornerback, goes to the Indianapolis Colts on Tuesday for two first-round draft picks and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell.
The Jets will receive the Colts’ first-round selection in 2026 and in 2027.
Williams is heading to the Dallas Cowboys for a second-round pick in 2026, a first-round pick in 2027 and defensive tackle Mazi Smith, two people with knowledge of the deal told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the teams hadn’t announced the trade.
The Jets will get the better of the Dallas’ two firsts in 2027. They acquired a pair of first-rounders when they sent two-time All-Pro pass rusher Micah Parsons to Green Bay before the season. The Cowboys (3-5-1) have the second-worst defense in the NFL and made two moves to bolster that unit ahead of the NFL’s trade deadline at 4 p.m. EST.
The Cowboys acquired linebacker Logan Wilson from the Cincinnati Bengals for a seventh-round pick in early Tuesday.
In other moves, wide receiver Jakobi Meyers goes to Jacksonville from Las Vegas for draft picks in the fourth and sixth rounds.
The Seattle Seahawks got wideout Rashid Shaheed from the New Orleans Saints for picks in the fourth and fifth rounds, a person with knowledge of the deal told the AP on condition of anonymity because the teams haven’t announced.
Gardner, an All-Pro selection in his first two seasons, signed a four-year, $120.4 million contract extension with the Jets in July. He was the AP Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2022. He joins the AFC South-leading Colts (7-2) after spending his first 3 1/2 seasons with the losing Jets.
Williams is a three-time Pro Bowl pick and 2022 All-Pro. Williams is signed through 2027 on a contract averaging $24 million per season.
Shaheed goes from the 1-8 Saints to the 6-2 Seahawks, giving Sam Darnold another option along with Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
Meyers, who requested a trade, gives the Jaguars (5-3) depth. Travis Hunter will miss at least three more games and Brian Thomas Jr,. Dyami Brown and Tim Patrick are dealing with injuries.
Wilson had requested a trade after his playing time decreased for the Bengals, who have the league’s worst defense.
“Some guys have the ability to see a certain key and, at the same time, take a step up in the hole,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said on his radio show on 105.3 The Fan. “He knows how to get in the gaps right now. … For what we need right now, he can come in immediately and help us at linebacker.”
The reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles have been aggressive leading up to the deadline. General manager Howie Roseman continues adding players to a talented roster to improve the team’s chances for a repeat.
Since the Eagles (6-2) last played a game, they’ve acquired edge rusher Jaelan Phillips and cornerbacks Michael Carter II and Jaire Alexander.
Phillips, who came from Miami on Monday for a third-round pick, immediately bolsters the pass rush. The 2021 first-round pick had three sacks in his last five games for the Dolphins. All of Philadelphia’s edge rushers combined have three sacks this season.
Carter gives the defense a veteran slot cornerback to allow defensive coordinator Vic Fangio more flexibility to use Cooper DeJean outside. Alexander, a two-time Pro Bowl selection, is a low-risk, high-reward acquisition.
The Baltimore Ravens also added an edge rusher, getting Dre’Mont Jones from Tennessee for a conditional fifth-round pick. Jones has 4 1/2 sacks this season so he’s an upgrade for the Ravens (3-5) at a position of need.
Several trades already went down last month. The Bengals acquired Joe Flacco. The Rams got cornerback Roger McCreary. Defensive end Keion White went to the 49ers. Safety Kyle Dugger was traded to the Steelers. The Jaguars and Browns swapped cornerbacks Greg Newsome II and Tyson Campbell.
The Chargers added edge Odafe Oweh in a deal that sent safety Alohi Gilman to the Ravens.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Dick Cheney, the hard-charging conservative who became one of the most powerful and polarizing vice presidents in U.S. history and a leading advocate for the invasion of Iraq, has died at age 84.
Cheney died Monday night due to complications of pneumonia and cardiac and vascular disease, according to a statement from his family.
“For decades, Dick Cheney served our nation, including as White House Chief of Staff, Wyoming’s Congressman, Secretary of Defense, and Vice President of the United States,” the statement said. “”Dick Cheney was a great and good man who taught his children and grandchildren to love our country, and to live lives of courage, honor, love, kindness, and fly fishing. We are grateful beyond measure for all Dick Cheney did for our country. And we are blessed beyond measure to have loved and been loved by this noble giant of a man.”
The quietly forceful Cheney served father and son presidents, leading the armed forces as defense chief during the Persian Gulf War under President George H.W. Bush before returning to public life as vice president under Bush’s son George W. Bush.
Cheney was, in effect, the chief operating officer of the younger Bush’s presidency. He had a hand, often a commanding one, in implementing decisions most important to the president and some of surpassing interest to himself — all while living with decades of heart disease and, post-administration, a heart transplant. Cheney consistently defended the extraordinary tools of surveillance, detention and inquisition employed in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Years after leaving office, he became a target of President Donald Trump, especially after his daughter Liz Cheney became the leading Republican critic and examiner of Trump’s desperate attempts to stay in power after his election defeat and his actions in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol.
“In our nation’s 246-year history, there has never been an individual who was a greater threat to our republic than Donald Trump,” Cheney said in a television ad for his daughter. “He tried to steal the last election using lies and violence to keep himself in power after the voters had rejected him. He is a coward.”
In a twist the Democrats of his era could never have imagined, Dick Cheney said last year he was voting for their candidate, Kamala Harris, for president against Trump.
A survivor of five heart attacks, Cheney long thought he was living on borrowed time and declared in 2013 he now awoke each morning “with a smile on my face, thankful for the gift of another day,” an odd image for a figure who always seemed to be manning the ramparts.
His vice presidency defined by the age of terrorism, Cheney disclosed that he had had the wireless function of his defibrillator turned off years earlier out of fear terrorists would remotely send his heart a fatal shock.
In his time in office, no longer was the vice presidency merely a ceremonial afterthought. Instead, Cheney made it a network of back channels from which to influence policy on Iraq, terrorism, presidential powers, energy and other cornerstones of a conservative agenda.
Fixed with a seemingly permanent half-smile — detractors called it a smirk — Cheney joked about his outsize reputation as a stealthy manipulator.
“Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole?” he asked. “It’s a nice way to operate, actually.”
A hard-liner on Iraq who was increasingly isolated as other hawks left government, Cheney was proved wrong on point after point in the Iraq War, without ever losing the conviction that he was essentially right.
He alleged links between the 2001 attacks against the United States and prewar Iraq that didn’t exist. He said U.S. troops would be welcomed as liberators; they weren’t.
He declared the Iraqi insurgency in its last throes in May 2005, back when 1,661 U.S. service members had been killed, not even half the toll by war’s end.
For admirers, he kept the faith in a shaky time, resolute even as the nation turned against the war and the leaders waging it.
But well into Bush’s second term, Cheney’s clout waned, checked by courts or shifting political realities.
Courts ruled against efforts he championed to broaden presidential authority and accord special harsh treatment to suspected terrorists. His hawkish positions on Iran and North Korea were not fully embraced by Bush.
Cheney operated much of the time from undisclosed locations in the months after the 2001 attacks, kept apart from Bush to ensure one or the other would survive any follow-up assault on the country’s leadership.
With Bush out of town on that fateful day, Cheney was a steady presence in the White House, at least until Secret Service agents lifted him off his feet and carried him away, in a scene the vice president later described to comical effect.
From the beginning, Cheney and Bush struck an odd bargain, unspoken but well understood. Shelving any ambitions he might have had to succeed Bush, Cheney was accorded power comparable in some ways to the presidency itself.
That bargain largely held up.
“He is constituted in a way to be the ultimate No. 2 guy,” Dave Gribbin, a friend who grew up with Cheney in Casper, Wyoming, and worked with him in Washington, once said. “He is congenitally discreet. He is remarkably loyal.”
As Cheney put it: “I made the decision when I signed on with the president that the only agenda I would have would be his agenda, that I was not going to be like most vice presidents — and that was angling, trying to figure out how I was going to be elected president when his term was over with.”
His penchant for secrecy and backstage maneuvering had a price. He came to be seen as a thin-skinned Machiavelli orchestrating a bungled response to criticism of the Iraq war. And when he shot a hunting companion in the torso, neck and face with an errant shotgun blast in 2006, he and his coterie were slow to disclose that extraordinary turn of events.
The vice president called it “one of the worst days of my life.” The victim, his friend Harry Whittington, recovered and quickly forgave him. Comedians were relentless about it for months. Whittington died in 2023.
When Bush began his presidential quest, he sought help from Cheney, a Washington insider who had retreated to the oil business. Cheney led the team to find a vice presidential candidate.
Bush decided the best choice was the man picked to help with the choosing.
Together, the pair faced a protracted 2000 postelection battle before they could claim victory. A series of recounts and court challenges — a tempest that brewed from Florida to the nation’s highest court — left the nation in limbo for weeks.
Cheney took charge of the presidential transition before victory was clear and helped give the administration a smooth launch despite the lost time. In office, disputes among departments vying for a bigger piece of Bush’s constrained budget came to his desk and often were settled there.
On Capitol Hill, Cheney lobbied for the president’s programs in halls he had walked as a deeply conservative member of Congress and the No. 2 Republican House leader.
Jokes abounded about how Cheney was the real No. 1 in town; Bush didn’t seem to mind and cracked a few himself. But such comments became less apt later in Bush’s presidency as he clearly came into his own.
Cheney retired to Jackson Hole, not far from where Liz Cheney a few years later bought a home, establishing Wyoming residency before she won his old House seat in 2016. The fates of father and daughter grew closer, too, as the Cheney family became one of Trump’s favorite targets.
Dick Cheney rallied to his daughter’s defense in 2022 as she juggled her lead role on the committee investigating Jan. 6 with trying to get reelected in deeply conservative Wyoming.
Liz Cheney’s vote for Trump’s impeachment after the insurrection earned her praise from many Democrats and political observers outside Congress. But that praise and her father’s support didn’t keep her from losing badly in the Republican primary, a dramatic fall after her quick rise to the No. 3 job in the House GOP leadership.
Politics first lured Dick Cheney to Washington in 1968, when he was a congressional fellow. He became a protégé of Rep. Donald Rumsfeld, R-Ill,, serving under him in two agencies and in Gerald Ford’s White House before he was elevated to chief of staff, the youngest ever, at age 34.
Cheney held the post for 14 months, then returned to Casper, where he had been raised, and ran for the state’s single congressional seat.
In that first race for the House, Cheney suffered a mild heart attack, prompting him to crack he was forming a group called “Cardiacs for Cheney.” He still managed a decisive victory and went on to win five more terms.
In 1989, Cheney became defense secretary under the first President Bush and led the Pentagon during the 1990-91 Persian Gulf War that drove Iraq’s troops from Kuwait. Between the two Bush administrations, Cheney led Dallas-based Halliburton Corp., a large engineering and construction company for the oil industry.
Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, son of a longtime Agriculture Department worker. Senior class president and football co-captain in Casper, he went to Yale on a full scholarship for a year but left with failing grades.
He moved back to Wyoming, eventually enrolled at the University of Wyoming and renewed a relationship with high school sweetheart Lynne Anne Vincent, marrying her in 1964. He is survived by his wife, by Liz and by a second daughter, Mary.

OJAI, Calif. (AP) — Diane Ladd, the three-time Academy Award nominee whose roles ranged from the brash waitress in “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” to the protective mother in “Wild at Heart,” has died at 89.
Ladd’s death was announced Monday by daughter Laura Dern, who issued a statement saying her mother and occasional co-star had died at her home in Ojai, California, with Dern at her side. Dern, who called Ladd her “amazing hero” and “profound gift of a mother,’ did not immediately cite a cause of death.
“She was the greatest daughter, mother, grandmother, actress, artist and empathetic spirit that only dreams could have seemingly created,” Dern wrote. “We were blessed to have her. She is flying with her angels now.”
A gifted comic and dramatic performer, Ladd had a long career in television and on stage before breaking through as a film performer in Martin Scorsese’s 1974 release “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” She earned an Oscar nomination for supporting actor for her turn as the acerbic, straight-talking Flo, and went on to appears in dozens of movies over the following decades. Her many credits included “Chinatown,” “Primary Colors” and two other movies for which she received best supporting nods, “Wild at Heart” and “Rambling Rose,” both of which co-starred her daughter. She also continued to work in television, with appearances in “ER,” “Touched by Angel” and “Alice,” the spinoff from “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore,” among others.
Through marriage and blood relations, Ladd was tied to the arts. Tennessee Williams was a second cousin and first husband Bruce Dern, Laura’s father, was himself an Academy Award nominee. Ladd and Laura Dern achieved the rare feat of mother-and-daughter nominees for their work in “Rambling Rose.”
A native of Laurel, Mississippi, Ladd was apparently destined to stand out. In her 2006 memoir, “Spiraling Through the School of Life,” she remembered being told by her great-grandmother that she would one day in “front of a screen” and would “command” her own audiences.
By the mid-1970s, she had lived out her fate well enough to tell The New York Times that no longer denied herself the right to call herself great.
“Now I don’t say that,” she said. “I can do Shakespeare, Ibsen, English accents, Irish accents, no accent, stand on my head, tap dance, sing, look 17 or look 70.”