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Three years ago today, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, killing 1,195 people, including Shani Louk, whose body was taken into Gaza along with 251 hostages. Yet protests planned today in New York City shamefully will not denounce Hamas, but Israel.

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Off-runway celeb style at fashion week

EVA MARIE SAINT

"Waterfront" actress.

Star of classic era dies at 102

Eva Marie Saint, one of the last actresses from the golden era of movies, has died. She was 102.

The “On the Waterfront” star died Tuesday of natural causes at her home in Los Angeles, a family spokesperson announced, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Born in Newark, NJ, Saint's career spanned over seven decades and included an Academy Award, an Emmy and a role in one of Alfred Hitchcock's most famous movies.

In the 1950s, she earned Emmy nominations for her roles in Paddy Chayefsky's "Middle of the Night" and a television musical version of "Our Town," which also featured Frank Sinatra and Paul Newman.

Saint made her feature film debut in 1954's Elia Kazan-helmed "On the Waterfront," opposite Marlon Brando and Karl Malden, which later earned her the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

At the time she accepted the award, Saint was pregnant with her son, Darrell, whom she shared with husband Jeffrey Hayden.

The couple — who also had a daughter, Laurette — were married for 65 years until Hayden died in 2016.

Hitchcock cast Saint over a slew of other blondes in “North by Northwest,” which is widely considered one of his masterpieces.

Saint's other prominent movies included “Exodus,” “The Sandpiper” with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, and “A Hatful of Rain.” Nicki Gostin

PARIS WEAR IT'S AT

By ELANA FISHMAN

It's a fashion world gone mad! Zendaya repeated an outfit!

Of course, between the press tours for both “Spider-Man” and “The Odyssey,” it was bound to happen.

And, in fairness, the ubiquitous actress dressed it up differently — taking a ruffled jacket she had worn with a lacy dress for the Paris premiere of “The Odyssey” and pairing it instead with jeans for Tuesday’s Louis Vuitton show during Paris

Fashion Week.

Zendaya was one of the many celebrities to check out Vuitton designer Nicolas Ghesquière's latest collection.

Ana de Armas rocked a dominatrix-chic look with a laced-up black leather jacket and boots, while K-pop star Lisa's minidress had a built-in boa bursting with ruffles.

Emma Stone stunned in a blue power suit with 1980s-esque shoulder pads, plunged to the navel

to show off a lar-

iat necklace.

IT'S SURVIVAL OF THE FITTED: Celebs turning heads at Paris Fashion Week include Ana de Armas, Emma Stone, Zendaya and K-pop star Lisa (clockwise from top left).

OCTOBER 7: THREE YEARS LATER

Hate spikes as crime falls

Murders and shootings in the Big Apple have continued to hit historic lows so far this year, but hate crimes including antisemitic incidents are only soaring, new NYPD crime stats reveal.

Police said hate crimes jumped by nearly 13% over the first nine months of the year compared to the same period in past years, with antisemitic incidents accounting for more than half of them — marring otherwise stellar city stats that show a drop in major crimes.

Meanwhile, a new poll found that more than half of Jewish voters in the city fear for their safety, with a troubling 42% saying they’ve been verbally harassed.

“Half of Jews saying they feel unsafe is an alarming figure,” said Bradley Honan, CEO of the Honan Strategy Group pollsters. “Fifty-five percent of Jewish voters say it has gotten worse since October 7th.”

Jewish New Yorkers said in the survey they have even changed their daily routines to avoid trouble.

NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, told reporters in announcing the NYPD figures, “The most striking trend continues to be antisemitic hate crimes.

“Throughout this year, 53% of all confirmed hate crimes have targeted Jewish New Yorkers, despite Jews making up only roughly 10% of the city’s population,” she said.

“Those numbers are deeply concerning,” Tisch added.

Police recorded 463 hate crimes through the end of September this year — up from 410 over the same time span last year — with 245 of them classified as anti-Jewish, the data show.

Meanwhile, major crimes have continued to dip.

Police recorded 73 murders so far this year, a near 20% dip from this point last year — breaking the record low of 215 set in 2017 for the fewest murders for the period.

In terms of the NYPD stats, Mayor Mamdani noted gender-based crimes jumped by 122% over the first nine months of the year, while anti-Hispanic crimes increased 83.3% and anti-Muslim crimes were up 77.8%.

Amanda Woods,

Carl Campanile

and Jorge Fitz-Gibbon

Tisch vows NYPD will protect Jewish NYers

The NYPD assured Jewish New Yorkers they have a “partner” in the police as the city prepares for anti-Israel protests Wednesday, the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 terror attacks.

Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch made the pledge Tuesday before student organizations will hold a large so-called anti-Zionist resistance rally outside City Hall to criticize Mayor Mamdani's new task force to combat antisemitism.

"The Mayor's claim of solidarity with the Palestinian people is meaningless when it is followed by no action and capitulation to zionist pressure," the pro-Palestinian activist group Within Our Lifetime posted Monday on X.

The group railed against Hizzoner's newly announced \$26 million “Strategy to Combat Antisemitism” — claiming it will “provide funding for Zionist propagandist groups.”

School walkouts are planned as well — including one at Fort Hamilton HS in Brooklyn.

Rumored walkouts at Columbia University and New York University have also been promoted on social media.

"On the eve of the third anniversary of October 7th, we renew our pledge to Jewish institutions that they will not be left to protect themselves without a strong partner in the NYPD," Tisch said. Hannah Fierick

PARADES

MICHAEL GOODWIN

A T first glance, the announcement is a head-scratcher. Then it hits you like a sledge-hammer: These people really are monsters.

Not so long ago, calling them antisemites would have been a sufficiently complete description of their sickness. But over the last three years, their ilk has crossed that line so many times that the word no longer comes close to capturing the full extent of their venality.

These are not your ordinary Jew haters. These are Nazi wannabes in search of their Hitler.

And now they are planning a New York City protest on Oct. 7, the third anniversary of the invasion of Israel by Hamas terrorists.

Oct. 7 rallies to cheer mass killing of Jews

For a fleeting second, I had foolishly dared to hope the protest would be a denunciation of the beasts who carried out the slaughter of 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians. Women and children were raped, murdered and mutilated in a frenzy of satanic blood-lust.

Hostages, some seriously injured, were stolen from their homes and taken to the hellholes of Gaza — after being paraded publicly through the streets where Palestinian civilians, including children, celebrated the orgy of Jewish blood.

And now those horrors are to be celebrated again in an event I never considered to be within the realm of possibility.

It is a plan to praise and glorify the deadliest day for Jews since the end of the Holocaust.

---

'Glory to martyrs'

Groups calling themselves “anti-Zionists” say they will mark the event with rallies in Gotham and many other cities around the world.

In effect, they aim to turn Oct. 7 into an international day of joyful celebration of the butchers who carried out the initial attack, and hail their ultimate cause of eliminating the Jewish state.

“Glory to the martyrs, victory to the resistance,” say some flyers for the rallies. Some display a figure wearing a keffiyeh and an upside-down triangle, a symbol often used to signify Hamas.

Upside down certainly fits the logic of condemning Israel on the anniversary of Oct. 7, when it dared to defend itself and later respond with a military invasion of Gaza.

Calling that response “genocide” doesn’t make it true, as if Israel’s self-defense of its territory and people is somehow proof of a secret plan to occupy Gaza and slaughter the inhabitants.

If that were the goal, Israel could have achieved it at almost any time over the last two decades had it wanted to.

But acknowledging its restraint would also require an explanation for Israel's complete and voluntary withdrawal of all its troops and more than 20,000 citizens from Gaza in 2005, under Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Successful Israeli farms and high-tech greenhouses were purchased by some American Jews, including James Wolfensohn and Mort Zuckerman, for millions of dollars and transferred to Palestinian ownership.

But instead of being put to use to feed Gaza and make money on exports, the greenhouses were dismantled and demolished.

Soon after the Israeli withdrawal,

OCTOBER 7: THREE YEARS LATER

OF MONSTERS

BLOODLUST: Hamas terrorists launch their attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing 1,200 Israelis along the border with the Gaza Strip, including at the Nova Music Festival (right), and taking hundreds more as hostages (top left). Still, some anti-Zionists plan to celebrate the anniversary of this mass slaughter.

the Bush administration foolishly demanded that Palestinians hold an election. Hamas, behind the power of the gun and its willingness to use it, quickly captured control over the corrupt Palestinian Authority.

It now ruled over a true Palestinian state, which it turned into a terror state.

Eliminating Israel was the stated reason for Hamas' founding, and its gunmen were the law of the land and in a position to attack Israel, which it did repeatedly even before the slaughter of 2023.

The gangster government hijacked much of the international aid supposedly meant to establish a modern Palestinian homeland.

Much of that aid, including millions in cash, was siphoned from the public and used to prepare for war against Israel. Miles of pipes designed to carry water and sewage were converted to rocket launchers, as other building materials were diverted to the sprawling warren of tunnels where Hamas soldiers trained and hid.

Many of the 251 hostages taken from Israel three years ago, including children, were also held in the tunnels, and some were tortured and murdered there.

All the good will and cash from around the world and region had no effect except to help Hamas prepare for its big invasion.

Even now, the fiendish gangsters, after promising to disarm under the terms of President Trump's widely endorsed Gaza Peace Plan, have refused to do so. Until they do, international plans for peacekeeping and reconstruction are stalled.

---

Twisted activists

Yet such facts have no relevance to the twisted organizers who are using the third anniversary to claim that “resistance against imperialism changed the fate of our world forever.”

As many as 25 activist groups are said to be behind the New York plan, including Students for Justice in Palestine, Within Our Lifetime and others.

Meanwhile, Israeli government officials have found some 262 events are scheduled for Wednesday in 37 countries. The Jerusalem Post reports that 45 are to be held in the US, 40 in Spain, 21 in Australia, 19 in the United Kingdom, 16 in Italy, 14 in both Germany and Canada, 10 in France and eight in the Netherlands.

Significant numbers of the events are planned to take place close to offices of the Israeli government, including embassies and consulates, leading to concerns about possible violence.

Some of the groups behind the events are so are far off the deep end that they charge Mayor Mamdani with not being sufficiently committed to the elimination of Israel.

A coalition of radicals wrote a statement accusing him of abandoning their cause, saying in part: "The mayor's claim of solidarity with the Palestinian people is meaningless when it is followed by no action and capitulation to Zionist pressure."

They cite as an example his failure to arrest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when the Israeli leader came for the opening of the United Nations General Assembly.

In fact, Mamdani wanted to have the NYPD arrest Netanyahu for “war crimes” in Gaza, but the US doesn’t recognize the International Criminal Court. That meant the court’s warrant for his arrest could not be executed on American soil.

No sane person would conclude that is proof Mamdani has changed his stripes. Especially when he still refuses to say Israel has the right to exist as the Jewish homeland, and was the first mayor in six decades to skip the annual Salute to Israel parade last May.

---

Still radical

Additionally, his new plan supposedly aimed to combat antisemitism helps fund some groups that have anti-Israel histories.

As The Post reports, one suspicious grant is the \$6.4 million the mayor is sending to Partners Against the Hate (PATH), doubling last year's public funding for the program. It counts among its partners the anti-Israel Arab-American Association of New York.

That group was run for 12 years by Linda Sarsour, a longtime Israel hater who was a mentor and campaign aide for Mamdani. She was also involved with the anti-Israel campus demonstrations at Columbia University following the October 2023 massacre.

So as long as the mayor has friends like Sarsour, there is no need for the radical nutjobs to worry Mamdani is selling out their cause. When it comes to hat-ing all things Israel, he's still one of them.

OCTOBER 7: THREE YEARS LATER

Hamas' terror Healing survivors

Hamas' terror tunnel exposed

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL and RONNY REYES

SHUJA-IYYA, Gaza City — The Hamas tunnel system used to launch their devastating Oct. 7, 2023 assault on Kibbutz Nahal Oz — killing more than 60 soldiers and 15 civilians in one of the bloodiest clashes of the attack — was on display Tuesday.

The tunnel — a $1^{1}/_{2}$ -miles-long “city under a city” in the Gaza Strip — was used by terrorists to escape and hide the 18 hostages they took from the kibbutz.

Three years after the massacre that left more than 1,200 people dead, the Israel Defense Forces gave journalists an in-depth look inside the massive tunnel systems discovered less than half a mile from Nahal Oz.

Benjamin Weinthal

“It is hard to imagine, but [the tunnel] is all connected and goes back to [Gaza City],” an IDF commander in the southern Gaza Strip told reporters.

The outside of the tunnel laid inconspicuous in what is now a leveled area, with a screen door leading to the underground network below.

The tunnel entrance itself was equipped with a massive, reinforced door that was designed to slow IDF soldiers' entry while allowing Hamas terrorists to escape through another exit, the commander said.

Inside, the barracks were equipped with a bathroom, several rooms with air conditioning, a working water system and sleeping quarters.

The eerie, dark corridors of the tunnel were where Hamas dragged 18 victims after invading Nahal Oz and unleashing one of the bloodiest massacres of the day, an IDF commander said.

UNDERGROUND LAIR: The IDF gave journalists a look inside a tunnel under Gaza, used to transport 18 hostages after an attack on a kibbutz.

The IDF commander estimates that Israel has destroyed at least 32 miles of Hamas' tunnel network on his watch since the war began, but it could “take years” to dismantle the more than 300 miles remaining beneath Gaza.

Along with a tour inside the tunnel, the IDF also escorted journalists to a military post inside of Gaza overlooking the ancient city of Deir al-Balah.

Despite the IDF's control over the majority of the Palestinian enclave, fighting continues with Hamas terrorists — who targeted an engineering vehicle with a roadside bomb just days before the tour, officials said.

By REUVEN FENTON

They survived hell — and are determined to make something good come from it.

Former Oct. 7 hostage Keith Siegel is among those who have turned unimaginable trauma into a new sense of purpose — experiencing what psychologists call “post-traumatic growth” after 484 days in captivity.

After his February 2025 release, the American-Israeli threw himself into the campaign to free the hostages still in Gaza — meeting repeatedly with President Trump and other senior administration officials and speaking to audiences around the world.

Zo 'reality' show invite

An Israeli diplomat invited Mayor Mamdani to watch a nearly hourlong documentary about the Oct. 7 terror attacks — hoping the horrors from the footage filmed by Hamas themselves will “convey the reality of what happened.”

"On the third anniversary of the October 7th massacre, I would like to invite you to join us for a screening of a 47-minute film produced by the Israel Defense Forces documenting the events of that terrible day through footage captured by the Hamas terrorists themselves on their GoPro cameras,” Ambassador Ofir Akunis said on social media.

“Perhaps after watching this film, you will truly understand why the Jewish State is so important and why we will continue to defend ourselves, no matter against whom, and no matter when,” the general consul continued. “I hope you will come with an open heart and that seeing the footage for yourself will help convey the reality of what happened on October 7th in a way that words alone cannot.”

Craig McCarthy

“I did something I had never done before, and I never thought I would ever do, and I never believed I could do it,” Siegel, 66, told The Post.

“Something horrible happened to me, and because of that, people will listen to me,” he said. “So I have a voice.”

---

Trauma for good

Three years after Hamas terrorists stormed into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and dragging 251 others into Gaza, many of the hostages who made it home have transformed the darkest chapter of their lives into a mission to bring light to others.

They have become artists and authors, advocates and humanitarians. Some have taken their unexpected platforms into business and technology, determined not simply to heal, but to use their trauma for good.

Former hostage Eli Sharabi turned his 491 days in captivity — and the devastating loss of his wife and two daughters — into “Hostage,” which became the fastest-selling book in Israeli history and later a New York Times bestseller.

And Noa Argamani, whose terrified face became one of the defining images of Oct. 7 as she was hauled into Gaza on the back of a motorcycle, has embarked on a new career in venture capital.

Argamani, 28, who was rescued after 246 days in captivity, recently joined Vine Ventures, where the former artificial-intelligence student hopes to use the extraordinary international network she built while advocating for the hostages to help Israeli startups break into the US market.

“I lost a lot of people. I saw in my own eyes hell, being in tunnels, looking in Hamas’ eyes,” Argamani told Business Insider.

“But I choose every day to have another part of my life, to look

OCTOBER 7: THREE YEARS LATER

on mission to bring light to others

STRENGTH FOLLOWING HORROR: Oct. 7 hostage Eli Sharabi (left) wrote a best-selling book about his 491 days in captivity, while Keith and Aviva Siegel (below left) travel the world speaking about their shared trauma. Noa Argamani (inset), whose terrified face became one of the defining images of Oct. 7 as she was hauled into Gaza on the back of a motorcycle, has embarked on a new career in venture capital.

forward, to go to work, and not let the grief become my identity."

To be sure, not all survivors of the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attack have thrived — and many have spoken openly about their struggles after surviving the ordeal.

Shirel Golan, 22, who lived through the Nova Festival massacre, killed herself about a year after the attack. Her family blamed the horror of that day on her deteriorating mental health.

A 2024 report by the Knesset found that more than half of the 3,000 survivors of the Oct. 7 attacks had been referred for mental health counseling.

But survivors who spoke to The Post said they are striving to look forward like Argamani — and not let the violence of Oct. 7 overtake their lives.

---

'Part of the healing'

Siegel and his wife, Aviva, who was released after 51 days in captivity, turned that voice toward people far beyond Israel after the hostage campaign ended.

The couple traveled in January with Israeli humanitarian organization IsraAID to Kenya's Kakuma refugee camp, where more than 300,000 refugees live after fleeing conflicts across Africa.

Keith said he was stunned by the parallels between their lives and his own experience in Gaza — hunger, thirst, poor hygiene, separation from family and the constant sense that death could come at any moment.

Afterward, the Siegels traveled across the US seeking support for IsraAID's work.

“I just found that by doing that, and by learning to do things that I never thought I could do, and getting more self-confidence in doing that . . . I kind of felt like I’m growing as a person,” Keith said.

Andrey Kozlov, meanwhile, has found his outlet on canvas.

Kozlov, who was rescued alongside Argamani and two other hostages in a daring Israeli operation in June 2024, began painting his captivity after his release, building a collection he hopes to exhibit in New York.

Now he is racing to complete the larger body of work documenting Oct. 7 and captivity while the story remains fresh in the world's consciousness.

“We all lost time. Some people lost a lot more than just time — members of families, homes,” Kozlov, 31, told The Post.

“We lost something and we can’t take it back, but we can make lemons into lemonade,” he said. “It’s part of the healing.”

'GOLD BAR' GUILT

'GOL Lying ex-CIA officer's \$194M fraud

Alexandria Sheriff's Office

By JOSH CHRISTENSON and DANIEL CODY

A CIA officer charged with stealing tens of millions of dollars' worth of gold bars and stashing them at his Virginia home pleaded guilty Tuesday to defrauding the federal government.

David Rush, 49, entered the guilty plea in federal court after copping to having fraudulently obtained nearly \$194 million by abusing his position to handle top-secret matters at the agency.

He also copped to providing a foreign official with sensitive intel about the identity of a secret source for the US government, according to court documents.

"The Trump administration is committed to rooting out waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government, including by prosecuting those who foolishly defraud American taxpayers."

Prosecutors alleged that Rush, who served in the senior executive-level position and held a top-secret security clearance, lied about his education and military experience before entering the CIA — and eventually faked an entire program to pilfer government funds.

“Federal employees are entrusted with serving the American people, not themselves,” said Attorney General Todd Blanche in a statement.

---

Wire transfers

Rush obtained 298 gold bars and also oversaw a total of \$145 million in wire transfers that ended up being used to purchase fine watches, luxury real estate and cars.

Before Rush was indicted, the CIA had conducted an internal in-

GLITTERING SCAM: David Rush managed to get away with a litany of lies on CIA job applications to land a job with the spy agency handling top-secret matters, then defrauded the government of hundreds of millions of dollars in gold and cash.

vestigation into the movement of the funds and referred the matter to the FBI.

CIA Director John Ratcliffe said in a statement that Rush “abused his position and betrayed the public trust and should be held fully accountable for his actions.”

Rush requested the substantial amount of foreign currency and gold bars from the agency between November and March, according to a federal affidavit.

His requests were fulfilled, but the CIA could find no official records explaining the operational purpose for the valuables.

Dan Meyer, a partner at law firm Tully Rinckey specializing in security-clearance issues, told The Post the funds appeared to be “resources to be used in US operations overseas” that were “diverted for his personal use.”

“I doubt this is coming from a

foreign source," Meyer added.

National-security experts expressed alarm that Rush managed to manipulate his way into the role given the sensitivity of the work.

Former CIA staff operations officer Tracy Walder told The Post she was stunned that Rush bypassed background checks to obtain top-secret clearance and millions in agency gold.

---

'Slipped through'

"The fact that this slipped through the cracks makes me concerned that there are other people who slipped through the cracks," she said.

Walder emphasized that the agency's vetting procedures are typically exhaustive.

She said of her own vetting experience: "They don't just verify your college. They came to my sorority house. They talked to my sorority sisters. They came to my parents' house. They went to the friends of the friends of my parents."

Rush worked in the CIA's Directorate of Science and Technology, though officials have declined to disclose specific details about his duties.

His job applications listed a bachelor's degree in mathematics and information systems from Clemson University, a master's degree in electrical engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, as well as US Naval Test Pilot certifications.

None of those claims was true.

Both Clemson and Rensselaer told the FBI they had no record of him attending classes at their institutions. Rush enlisted in the US Navy in 1997, but was never a pilot, according to the affidavit for his arrest.

AUGUST HANNING

Ex-spymaster busted.

'Treason' a spying shame in Germany

Germany's former spymaster was arrested Tuesday on suspicion of selling state secrets to a foreign intelligence service.

August Hanning, who led the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) between 1998 and 2005, is accused — along with a former aide — of sharing sensitive information in multiple cases, according to prosecutors.

It's not clear which country Hanning was allegedly passing German secrets to, but the case does not involve Russia, according to the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

He is alleged to have agreed with a former BND office manager to trade confidential intelligence information in exchange for payment dating back to 2010 — after he left office.

The 80-year-old ex-spook was arrested in the town of Bad Toelz-Wolfrathausen, while the office manager, identified as Manfred D., was charged with aiding and abetting attempted treason and treasonous espionage in Steinfurt.

Manfred allegedly supplied 2,000 documents over the years, including classified material intended solely for internal BND use.

Hanning allegedly used the information to prepare an analysis for an officer of a foreign intelligence service.

Both men's homes were searched on Tuesday.

“Hanning is strongly suspected of treasonous espionage, obtaining state secrets, attempted treason and espionage,” prosecutors said in a statement. Anthony Blair

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Lobbyist cashes in with pol's rise

By BRANDON CRUZ, MATTHEW FISCHETTI and ALEX OLIVEIRA

The lobbyist who joined state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie on a trip in Brazil has raked in millions since the Democrat's 2015 election to his powerful post — as questions swirl about who picked up the tab for their romp.

Patrick Jenkins, 59, was a low-level lobbyist before his roommate from their Stony Brook University days became speaker in 2015, apparently leading to a gravy train he's ridden to this day.

Jenkins' lobbying firm netted \$5 million in 2025 — a nearly 22-fold increase in the decade since former Speaker Sheldon Silver was ousted by corruption charges and Heastie (D-Bronx) landed the speaker slot.

The firm netted a paltry \$238,000 from five clients in 2013 when the Joint Commission on Public Ethics first started reporting its earnings. His income later eked up to just eight clients worth \$331,500.

But when Jenkins' buddy Heastie became speaker in 2015, his firm earnings more than doubled to \$872,830 from 20 clients, according to JCOPE.

---

Haul of millions

Within a year, the firm’s cash flow had surpassed \$2 million, then \$3 million until finally reaching the \$5 million heights enjoyed today.

Heastie's pal runs up \$cores

Jenkins' inclined earnings and his closeness to Heastie have been scrutinized in the past — but were cast into the spotlight again on Monday after The Post reported the two jaunted off to Rio de Janeiro in September for a “Boys in Brazil” party hosted by former Dallas Cowboy Charles Haley.

As New York public servants and lobbyists have strict rules governing the monetary value of gifts between them — nothing over a “nominal value” can be exchanged — exactly how the trip to Brazil was paid for could be an important question.

Both Heastie and Jenkins have avoided answering it — with Heastie dodging it Tuesday when

BALLERS: Lobbyist Patrick Jenkins (left) and state Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (right) are being eyed since a trip to Brazil to watch NFL football.

confronted by The Post.

Heastie was supposed to have a Q&A session after a tour of the Amityville Senior Center on Long Island, but once questions were asked about the Brazil trip his staff rushed him to a waiting car.

There are exceptions for exchanges between politicians and friends that “do business with the state” so long as “the relationship is not being used as a pretext to give an otherwise impermissible gift," according to the New York State Commission on Ethics and Lobbying in Government.

But so far, mum's the word from Heastie — with the high-profile public servant merely taking to Instagram after the Brazil story broke to lament that he couldn't go anywhere without the press asking questions.

“Damn I can’t take a birthday trip without getting an article,” Heastie wrote on Instagram Monday. “This is even low for the Post. Hey Post [Jenkins] came to my house yesterday to watch football, you left that out the story.”

“Because I post a picture on a birthday trip I have to tell a newspaper who paid for my personal trip? I find it comical actually,” he added in the comments. “Because you work for the government you don’t have to answer questions about your personal life.”

brandon.cruz@nypost.com

'Staff on student' school sex probe

The US Department of Education on Tuesday announced it's launching a federal investigation into allegations of widespread “staff-on-student” sexual misconduct at New York City public schools.

The investigation, led by department Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey, will seek to determine whether the district's handling of sexual harassment and assault claims against teachers, administrators and other school personnel violated federal Title IX rules — including by being swept under the rug.

"Some of the reports indicate that there have been almost 2,000 instances in New York City where school staff have engaged in sexual misconduct with students," Richey said in an interview with "Cats and Cosby Show" hosts John Catsimatidis and Rita Cosby.

“We are just not going to allow school staff to engage in this type of abuse,” the assistant secretary continued. “We are taking a hard stance against this.”

Richey called the allegations against NYC's Department of Education "systemic and disturbing" and suggested the district may be "enabling child abuse in schools."

The Trump administration official said many of the complaints have come from “scared parents,” who believe “something may be going on with their child,” while others have been leveled by school staff.

The NYC Department of Education did not immediately respond for comment.

Victor Nava

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CHRISTA PIKE

1st US execution survivor.

Killer is awake & talking: lawyers

Christa Pike is awake and speaking less than a week after surviving a botched execution attempt, which included two doses of lethal injection drugs, her lawyers said Tuesday.

The convicted murderer, 50, was due to become the first woman put to death in Tennessee in over 200 years on Wednesday last week but instead was rushed to the hospital and has been receiving lifesaving care in a critical condition.

She now appears to be the first person ever to survive an execution in the US.

“Against all odds, Christa Pike is conscious, speaking, and continues to receive critical medical care,” attorneys for Pike said in a statement. “Despite the severe damage she endured to her arms, she is still handcuffed and shackled to the bed.

“Her recovery is medically unprecedented. Her prognosis remains unclear but, at a minimum, we expect a long recovery.”

The announcement is the first indication that Pike's condition improved since an ambulance rushed her to hospital after she was administered two doses of pentobarbital.

Her lawyers previously said she was unconscious and on a ventilator while medical professionals worked to clear the pentobarbital from her system.

Legal experts told The Post Saturday that if Pike survives and is found to be mentally competent to understand the punishment, the state could seek to execute her again.

Pike's lawyers have sought to have her sentence commuted.\_ Alex Diaz

SHOVED TO DEATH

HORRIFYING: Nathaly Ramirez and her 8-month-old daughter were shoved off of a Bronx balcony Tuesday. A diaper and blanket were still on the ground later (below left).

James Keivom; Nathaly Ramirez/Facebook

Ma killed after her & tot's 15th-fl. toss

By JOE MARINO, FENIX SURIEL, AMANDA WOODS and JORGE FITZ-GIBBON

A “kind-hearted” 23-year-old mother was killed and her baby daughter critically injured when they were pushed from a 15th-floor balcony at a Bronx apartment building Tuesday, police said.

“Please don’t do this!” a neighbor told WABC-TV she heard a woman yelling before seeing something plummet to the ground.

The mother's ex-boyfriend is being sought for questioning, law-enforcement sources told The Post.

The tragic “very sweet” mother, identified by the NYPD as Nathaly Ramirez, was clutching her 8-month-old baby when she was pushed at around 3:40 a.m. at 2550 Olinville Ave., police said.

“I heard screaming at 2:40 this morning,” a local named Mickey told The Post.

He added he went to bed with the bad feeling he would wake up to see something in the news.

Officers found the mother and child on the ground with injuries consistent with a fall, the NYPD said.

---

Past violence

They were rushed to Jacobi Hospital, where Ramirez was pronounced dead and the girl is clinging to life, police said.

Investigators “determined that both individuals had been pushed from a balcony,” police said.

Witnesses told cops the two had

been shoved, the sources said.

There were numerous reports of domestic violence at the home resulting in arrests over the past few years, the sources said.

Mickey said Ramirez “was a happy person” and “always smiling,” but, “sometimes she did look a little stressed out.”

A neighbor who identified herself as Katrina called Ramirez “very sweet, very calm, mild-mannered. Her daughter was very, very sweet, very, very cute. She was able to smile, very expressive . . . a happy baby to me.”

She recalled that Ramirez had lost her puppy recently and “she was going to any lengths to find out what happened to her dog. She was obviously a kind-hearted person.”

Katrina added, "It's very sad.

She's super young. To lose your life like that is very tragic. I'm hoping they find the person responsible."

A cashier at a nearby deli, 674 Gourmet, described Ramirez as “a quiet girl.

"I never saw her arguing with anybody," the worker said. "She was always alone or with a kid. She was always very respectful, very quiet."

NYPD officers continued to investigate at the 18-story building, where haunting photos showed a diaper and baby blanket still on the ground hours later.

Ramirez studied psychology at Baruch College after attending Bronx Leadership Academy HS, and previously interned at a Manhattan consulting company.

Additional reporting by Chris Bradford

FRANCE DEVOLVES

Riot squads spark intifada in heart of Europe

CHAOS: Protesters in France on Tuesday were seen hurling objects — including garbage bins into a bonfire — in what started as unrest over classroom conditions for students. Others fired red smoke at Place de la République, a square in Paris, as others dodged tear gas thrown by police.

BRENDAN O'NEILL

A FIREFIGHTER engulfed in flames as a youthful mob watches and laughs. A teacher doused in gasoline by guffawing thugs as his beloved school burns to the ground.

A woman's face set alight by a masked goon with a makeshift flamethrower. Two dozen schools burned and ransacked; cars flipped upside down; buses and fire engines savagely smashed.

It sounds like a montage from a dystopian horror movie — but it's happening right now in France. What started late last month as a protest about underfunded public schools has morphed into an orgy of Islamo-leftist violence.

Paris and other cities are now awash with foreign flags as throngs of unassimilated youths scream their hatred for France itself. “In the name of Allah, we can kill them all,” barked one masked thug, to the mob’s

demented glee.

We are witnessing something extraordinary: an intifada in the heart of Europe. Surely no one can now deny the lethal error of throwing open a nation's borders to the world, while sacrificing the ideals of integration at the altar of multiculturalism.

The speed with which scattered school protests turned into an Islamist-infused uprising was truly frightening. It all kicked off less than two weeks ago, when thousands of students played hooky to shout at the government. They called themselves the “disenchanted generation” and called for education improvements.

But within days it became something monstrous. Crowds began burning schools down — more than 20 across France have been set alight. At one of them, Nelson Mandela School in Nantes in western France, the torch-wielding mob caused \$3.4 million in damage.

---

Beyond schooling

Teachers have been horribly assaulted, 78 injured so far. Why would protesters for “better education” reduce schools to blackened ruins, and whack teachers with iron bars?

Clearly these riots no longer have anything to do with schooling. Rather, student protests have been hijacked by sinister political elements whose aim is nothing less than to heap fiery contempt on France, on Europe and on Western civilization itself.

Towns across France resemble war zones, littered with the smoking wreckage of battered cars and

INTO EIFFEL MESS

INSANITY: One masked protester used a makeshift flamethrower to burn a bystander last week. About 715 police officers and 215 teenagers have also been injured in the weeks-long clashes, according to French Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu's office.

burnt-out buses. The foreignness of the protests feels especially chilling, as vandals wrap themselves in the flags of Algeria and Morocco. In Marseille, gangs of North African-heritage youths rode through the city center on motorbikes, waving the Palestine flag.

On Tuesday, President Trump drew widespread scorn for calling out the obvious: The riots, he said, are the inevitable result of “out of control mass migration. This isn’t about schools, this is about Islam wanting to take over a once great Country!”

Anyone who refers to Europe's immigration crisis as an “invasion” is instantly denounced as racist. Yet what other word can we use when mobs of foreign-descended youths raise the flags of Africa and the Middle East as they destroy French schools?

Shady political actors have helped to whip the mob into a scorching frenzy. La France Insoumise (“France Unbowed”), the party of the extreme left and now an unholy alliance of nutty Islamists and cranky socialists, has played an especially dark role.

Bally Bagayako, the LFI's Muslim mayor of Saint-Denis in Paris, told the throng, “Violence can sometimes be legitimate.”

Another LFI-linked activist was arrested after telling a crowd in Paris to “set the Elysee Palace on fire”—the office of the president.

---

Hard-left tactic

The events in France are hard proof of the most dangerous tactic of the modern left: its use of disgruntled, often foreign-descended kids as a kind of grunt army against Western values. After all, the Islamists and the far left are as one in their violent loathing of the Western way of life.

Of course France is no stranger to political tumult; strikes and protests are commonplace there. But this seems different, and more visceral. It feels like a knife plunged into the heart of France, by youths who have not only failed to assimilate but who harbor a deep contempt for the country in which they live.

These are the wages of multiculturalism. When you open your doors to half the world, then tell the newcomers their culture is just as valid as yours, you sign your own death warrant. You cause your nation to fracture, to split, to descend into ugly tribal conflict.

France is a cautionary tale for the West. Every nation that wants to avoid its own internal intifada must police its borders, defend its sovereignty and loudly assert its values. Anything less is suicide.

Brendan O'Neill is chief political writer for spiked.

Cop 'slash duo ID as migrants

By JOE MARINO

and JORGE FITZ-GIBBON

The two thugs accused in the cowardly slashing of an off-duty NYPD detective are both illegal migrants from the Dominican Republic who snuck into the US under former President Joe Biden, according to officials.

Detective Jose Mercedes was grabbing items out of the trunk of his car at Rochambeau Avenue and East 208th Street in Norwood in The Bronx around 1:45 p.m. Friday when the brazen pair pulled up on an e-bike.

The criminals tried to snatch the cop's gold chain, but Mercedes fought back and was slashed seven times by the violent muggers, who sped off and left the detective bleeding on the sidewalk, police said.

MANHUNT: Police have ID'd as suspects D'Angelo Caraballo (shirtless) and Sneider Mejia (steering bike) in the mugging and slashing of off-duty NYPD Detective Jose Mercedes (inset).

Arrests after border sneak

Mercedes, who is assigned to the 44th Precinct in The Bronx, was rushed to Jacobi Medical Center and was listed in stable condition after the broad-daylight attack, the department said.

Police identified the suspects Tuesday in the midst of a continuing massive manhunt for them.

---

Police mobilized

The suspects had been caught on surveillance video near the scene of the crime, with the driver speeding down the sidewalk and his passenger, the suspected stabber, sitting shirtless behind him.

The accused slasher was identified as 25-year-old D'Angelo Caraballo, while the suspect behind the wheel of the bike was ID'd as Sneider Mejia, 24.

Mejia crossed the US border with Mexico in Arizona on Dec. 2, 2022, and was nabbed by Border Patrol agents but released into the country, Fox News correspondent Bill Melugin reported.

Mejia was arrested in The Bronx on a gun-possession charge last year but was released despite an ICE detainer to hold him, Melugin added.

Caraballo was detained after crossing the border at Arizona on Dec. 2, 2023, but was released with a future court date — and disappeared.

He has two prior arrests — a menacing rap for allegedly threatening to stab a person who rented him a room in The Bronx in July and a 2025 gun-possession charge for allegedly having a loaded .380 Taurus gun in his car, sources said.

Mercedes' uncle, aunt and nephew were at his hospital bed-side Saturday.

"We want the justice system to ensure the police do their job effectively, but the courts go too easy on them, sending criminals right back out on the street," Ricardo Mercedes, the cop's uncle, told The Post. "We want a tough stance from the justice system.

---

Outrage at courts

"The police catch them, but then they're let go — right back out on the street," he added. "That is what we want to change."

Mayor Mamdani and NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch also visited the cop at the hospital.

Mercedes was released from the hospital Monday, giving a thumb's up to the crowd of cops gathered to see him leave.

The officer, who joined the force in July 2016, was the first police officer in his family and has inspired other kin to follow suit, his uncle said.

The attack on the cop comes just weeks after a maniac chucked a glass bottle at an NYPD cop's head at a Queens public-housing complex — with the suspect locked up last month.

In May, an FDNY firefighter allegedly punched an on-duty NYPD police officer in the face while suffering a mental-health crisis inside a Queens hospital this week, prosecutors and sources said.

Earlier in the year, an unruly mob of rowdy winter warriors pummeled New York's Finest at Washington Square Park, throwing snowballs in a chaotic scene caught on video.

Reborn tree at Bx. Zoo

The zoo is branching out. The Bronx Zoo reintroduced a “functionally extinct” tree species at its grounds Monday, more than a century after the institution’s own scientist discovered a deadly fungus was decimating the plants.

Twenty American chestnut saplings were scattered across three sites at the sprawling conservation center, including at the footsteps of Tiger Mountain, as part of a citywide effort to breathe life back into the species.

“It’s historic for us. We haven’t had chestnuts on property here for a hundred years,” Craig Piper, the interim director of the Bronx Zoo, told The Post as he watched his team tenderly plant the tiny trees.

"The thought of bringing them back and bringing them to once again be part of the hardwood forests of New York City, that's exciting for us," he said.

The zoo's mini forest, erected in conjunction with the New York Restoration Project, marks the first time American chestnuts have been on the zoo's property since its long-ago chief forester, Hermann Merkel, discovered a "deadly fungus" was eating away at the gorgeous, 100-foot-tall trees.

Katherine Donlevy

---

Runner dad drops dead

A Wisconsin father of four and avid runner died after collapsing just shy of the finish line in his first-ever half marathon.

John Meise, 36, was running at the Milwaukee Lakefront Marathon on Sunday when a witness saw him collapse shortly before 10 a.m., WISN reported.

A fellow runner told the outlet they saw EMTs giving Meise lifesaving care near the 13-mile mark, less than 600 feet from the race's finish line.

Meise was rushed to Froedtert Hospital, where he was pronounced dead shortly after arriving.

Richard Pollina

MARSHA BLACKBURN

Sparks electrocution debate.

Senator: Give 'em the chair

Sen. Marsha Blackburn vowed to “bring back the electric chair” if she becomes Tennessee’s next governor, saying Christa Pike’s failed execution “should not be grounds to halt” the death penalty.

Blackburn (R-Tenn.) called for the return to electrocution as her state's outgoing governor, Bill Lee, paused all remaining executions after deranged killer Pike, 50, horrifically survived two doses of lethal injection last Wednesday.

“While there should be a thorough review of what happened and why the process failed, the answer is simple: bring back the electric chair and deliver justice for these victims swiftly,” said Blackburn, who is expected to win November’s election. “As your governor I will do just that.”

Blackburn said Monday that Pike's unsuccessful execution “should not be grounds to halt carrying out the death penalty,” but a reason to reevaluate the best method.

“If it’s lethal injection, if it is electric chair, what we do know is we have to find a way to do this — and do it successfully,” she said, citing other states using more successful methods.

Chris Bradford, Wires

He won’t delete ‘corruption’ info

'INTIMIDATION': A fired prosecutor for Letitia James claims the AG is demanding info about an alleged scheme to take down President Trump.

By PATRICK REILLY

A former prosecutor in the New York Attorney General's Office claims Letitia James is threatening him after he blew the whistle on a scheme to take down President Trump, as he refuses to delete evidence of the alleged corruption.

Daniel Wiesenfeld, who worked in James' Investor Protection Bureau before he was axed last month, defiantly told his former boss Monday he would not be handing over “confidential and privileged” materials, according to email obtained by the Times Union.

The blistering email also included a photo of a detective's business card from the AG's executive-protection detail that had been jammed into his front door, the upstate paper reported.

“I am in receipt of your September 18th letter threatening me with ‘professional discipline, as well as civil and/or criminal action’ and your subsequent September 30th letter providing a deadline by 5pm today for me to confirm my destruction of your ‘confidential and/or privileged information,’” Wiesenfeld wrote Monday.

“You have also commissioned your ‘protection detail’ detectives to repeatedly hound me by banging on my front door. Attached is the business card one of them left in my door after their latest intrusion,” he continued in the email, which was also sent to Kumiki Gibson, general counsel in the AG’s office.

Wiesenfeld said he understands that James is “fearful” of what he might do with the “confidential and privileged' materials" ahead of this year's election, in which James is on the ballot, but said he would not be intimidated by her threats.

“These documents are simply evidence and your threats will not compel me to destroy such evidence,” he said. “If anything, carrying out your threats by bringing this to a legal forum will make this information public.”

---

'Find Trump crimes'

Wiesenfeld's latest email comes months after he sent an agency-wide email to the AG's Office claiming his supervisor ordered him to find and pursue crimes committed by those affiliated with Trump, James' longtime rival.

"If you believe Trump is using the [Department of Justice] attorneys to prosecute his enemies and further his political interests, you should find it equally troubling that Tish [James] is doing exactly the same thing," Wiesenfeld allegedly wrote in the message, which went to some 2,000 staffers before being deleted.

Wiesenfeld was subsequently placed on administrative leave and fired Sept. 5, according to the Times Union.

A rep for James dismissed the controversy as “a personnel matter” in a statement in August.

"The Office of the Attorney General is committed to upholding New York's laws and protecting the rights and freedoms of all New Yorkers, regardless of political beliefs," the statement said. "We strongly reject any assertion to the contrary."

preilly@nypost.com

Russia neighbors on plague alert after ‘outbreak’

Four more countries have stepped up quarantine precautions and testing, following a possible plague outbreak in eastern Russia.

Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in Central Asia have all tightened or introduced extra public health and epidemic control measures in the wake of the death of a 28-year-old lab technician at an anti-plague laboratory in Irkutsk, Siberia, over the weekend.

Uzbekistan, also in Central Asia, has raised the alert of its relevant services.

Elevated health checks, including thermal imaging and monitoring, are taking place at border checkpoints and international airports for passengers arriving from Russia into Kazakhstan.

In Kyrgyzstan, all regional ports of entry were put on high alert, with health screening protocols carried out for individuals, buses and commercial cargo from Russia.

This was attributed to "information about a registered case of plague" in Russia by the Kyrgyz Ministry of Health in a statement on Saturday.

In Tajikistan, health facilities and infectious teams are making plans to isolate any patients showing acute respiratory symptoms or unexplained fever.

So far, no further cases of possible pneumonic plague have been confirmed by Russia since the death of lab assistant Daria Shipilova — although authorities have been accused of introducing a news blackout on the story.

As of Tuesday, the government-backed REN TV network deleted all five of its posts about the possible outbreak, according to independent Russian outlet People of Baikal.

Shipilova was reportedly exposed to the plague after accidentally breaking a test tube containing the Yersinia pestis bacteria on Sept. 25.

Anthony Blair With Wires

Getty Images

ELECTION 2026

SEA CHANGE: President Trump on Tuesday said the US will be both “feared” and “respected” on the world stage as critical components for Virginia-class submarines will be built in Baltimore.

By JOSH CHRISTENSON

WASHINGTON — President Trump announced Tuesday that the federal government and Anduril Industries are investing a total of \$6.6 billion to build critical components for Virginia-class submarines in Baltimore, a joint effort meant to boost US maritime dominance.

The shipyard, known as Arsenal-2, will be supported by \$3.7 billion in capital from California-based Anduril and another \$2.9 billion from a contract between the company and the Navy.

The facility will be constructed at Sparrows Point, site of a shipyard and a former Bethlehem Steel plant, to produce torpedo tubes and eventually ship sections — including bows and sterns, among other components, an industry official said.

Trump said in a speech later near the project site at Tradepoint Atlantic that the effort will make the US both “feared” and “respected” on the world stage.

---

'Building future'

“We will build the future of America’s Navy right here in Baltimore. And it will be a future of peace through strength,” the president added. “We have never been a stronger country than we are right now.”

Trump also gave a shout-out in his remarks to Baltimore Ravens cornerback Marlon Humphrey as well as teammates Tyler Loop, Ryan Eckley and Nicholas Moore.

More than 3,100 new permanent jobs will also be created as a result, which prompted Maryland Gov. Wes Moore to tout the new Anduril facility — despite claiming he was uninvited from the ceremony Tuesday afternoon.

Trump thanked “Deal Team Six” at the Pentagon for finalizing the contract with Anduril, run by engineering wunderkind Palmer Luckey, who recently got appointed to a Department of War panel on the future of the military dubbed “Project Meridian.”

“This delivers on President Trump’s promise to bolster America’s defense industrial base while revitalizing our manufacturing industry, creating over 13,000 direct and indirect jobs and driving \$2 billion in annual economic output,” said White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly.

Dumping on upstate Dem

An upstate GOP candidate looking to succeed outgoing Rep. Elise Stefanik is accusing his opponent of illegally dumping dead cattle and debris.

Anthony Constantino called his Dem opponent, Blake Gendebien, a “snob” with an “abusive anti-American temperament” over allegations being levied by an anonymous former employee that the St. Lawrence County dairy farmer illegally dumped tires and dead cattle near a watershed.

“Mr. Gendebien is regularly dumping garbage into a local waterway. This is a violation of multiple state and federal laws,” Constantino claimed at a press conference Monday, before showing aerial photos of tires and other debris snapped by private investigators near Gendebien's Ogdensburg farm.

In a statement, Gendebien accused Constantino of being a “weirdo drone stalking my home and business because he doesn’t know how farming works.”

A DEC spokesperson said its officers visited the Democrat's farm on Sept. 3 and did not find a violation. Vaughn Golden

Bruce vows to

By REUVEN FENTON and HALEY BROWN

GOP gubernatorial hopeful Bruce Blakeman vowed Tuesday to end New York's sanctuary state policies on his first day in office — as Rep. Mike Lawler unleashed a profanity-laced attack on Gov. Hochul.

The Republicans gathered in Chappaqua alongside the family of Sheridan Gorman — the 18-year-old Loyola University student gunned down by an illegal migrant — to demand law enforcement cooperation with ICE after two previously deported men were arrested in separate Hudson Valley cases.

"The insanity is over, we're putting New Yorkers first," Blakeman declared. "On Jan. 1, as governor, I will sign an executive order, New York state is no longer a sanctuary state."

The Nassau County executive slammed Hochul for blocking local police and sheriffs from working with federal immigration agents.

"One of the toughest days of my being county executive was the day that I had to tell our police and our sheriffs that they could no longer cooperate with ICE because of Kathy Hochul," he said.

---

Local 'creeps'

Lawler brought up Juan Guambana, 50, of Ossining, who is accused of standing on the roof of a woman's Chappaqua home with his pants down, recording her through her bathroom window.

Detectives arrested Guambana on Oct. 1 and charged him with six felony counts of unlawful surveillance, according to a report.

Guambana had been deported in 2020 but came back in 2021, Lawler said.

Lawler also pointed to Putnam County, where Diego Rodriguez-Ordonez, 24, was arrested twice in 18 hours on Sept. 29.

Rodriguez-Ordonez, of Brewster, was picked up after he allegedly robbed a Kent gas station and assaulted a clerk who tried to stop him, according to the Putnam County Sheriff's office.

He was later released and that night, arrested again after he was accused of forcibly touching a woman aboard a Metro-North train at Southeast station, cops said.

Lawler said Rodriguez-Ordonez was deported before in 2018 and has eight criminal convictions.

Lawler said a Department of Homeland Security tally showed New York has released nearly 7,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records despite ICE requests to hold them.

"In what f--king world does anybody think that that's acceptable?" Lawler ranted.

“We’re going to be back here, because Kathy Hochul’s too f--king stupid to figure this out,” he added.

---

Sheriffs sued

The Republicans demanded an end to New York's restrictions on local law enforcement partnerships with ICE.

Hochul's Local Cops, Local Crimes Act, which took effect in August, banned formal agreements allowing local officers to

nix NY's sanctuary policies

SPEAKING OUT: Tom and Jessica Gorman (left), parents of Sheridan Gorman, join Rep. Mike Lawler (far left) and Bruce Blakeman (near left) Tuesday to advocate for law enforcement cooperating with ICE.

PUTTING W MANY MORE END TO 'INSANITY'

carry out immigration enforcement duties for ICE.

Fifteen New York sheriffs sued over the law, arguing it interferes with their authority to make public safety decisions.

Hochul has said the state will still help ICE pursue illegal immigrants accused of violent or serious crimes.

The Post reached out to the governor's office for comment.

Tom and Jessica Gorman — the parents of Sheridan, who was shot dead while walking with friends in Chicago — attended the Chappaqua press conference on Tuesday.

But Jessica said she would rather be home grieving than campaigning.

"I'd rather be in a corner in my house eating a cheeseburger and listening to Adele and crying," she said. "But no, I'm here. I'm here because I care about your kids."

rfenton@nypost.com

AOC: Win by Sayed can vault lefty pols

“Squad” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez privately gushed that if Michigan Senate hopeful Dr. Abdul El-Sayed wins his race, the floodgates will be open for lefties in contests across the country.

“What we do is that we break open the entire political calculus in America — period,” Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) said at a fundraiser for El-Sayed on Monday, multiple outlets reported. “Because if you can win, if Abdul can win in Michigan, anybody can win anywhere.”

The democratic socialist's darling's private remarks come as she is mulling her 2028 move and whether she should run for the White House, Senate or House again.

"We are in a long-term — I'm being very open right now, right? — about our generational project that we have ahead of us," the Bronx and Queens rep added. "Generational. We are here to break the map.

“We are up against not just an ascendant and fascist right wing in this country,” she later said. “But we are also up against people with extremely small imaginations about what is possible in America.”

Ocasio-Cortez had endorsed El-Sayed during his bruising primary contest against Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) and has carefully worked to elevate hardcore lefties in their primaries without alienating the establishment too much.

Currently, she is polling fourth among the top speculated 2028 Democratic presidential contenders, behind former Vice President Kamala Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, according to the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls.

Ryan King

'Gang rape' apology.

Frat bro to accuser: 'Sorry for backlash'

By ANTHONY BLAIR and ELLA MORRISON

A Cornell University fraternity brother accused of gang-raping a student apologized to the alleged victim over the “backlash” she was receiving, according to a newly obtained phone call.

Winston Lee, one of the seven members of Chi Phi named in last month's lawsuit, allegedly snorted ketamine off the body of the Jane Doe who filed the suit.

When Doe called him, roughly three weeks after the reported incident in October 2024, Lee seemed apologetic at first.

RALLYING CRY: Demonstrators protest Monday at Cornell University's Ithaca campus in support of the Jane Doe who accused seven fraternity brothers, including Winston Lee (top left) of gang rape.

“I’m so sorry about all like the backlash you’re getting from this,” Lee said in the call dated Nov. 7, 2024, audio of which was obtained by ABC News.

---

Defensive

Jane Doe tells him she “was completely and totally intoxicated and then given multiple sedatives,” before “upwards of eight to 10 men” came into the room at the frat house.

“This is classified as a gang rape,” Doe tells Lee.

Lee was one of the brothers who posted a message in a fraternity

Snapchat group chat on the night of the alleged incident, after another student, Jonathan Newell, reportedly wrote that there was “free p--sy” in one of the rooms.

But Lee told Doe he was unaware of what was happening when he entered the room.

“There was nothing to say that … anything was happening in that room or anything,” he said in the call.

On the same day she called Lee, Doe also phoned Matthew Ingalls, another of the seven Chi Phi fraternity brothers she names in her lawsuit.

The following day, Nov. 8, she went to the Cornell campus police and reported that she had been raped.

Lee was suspended from Cornell for two years following the incident, but, along with the other six frat brothers, faced no criminal charges. Two students, Ingalls and Newell, were expelled.

Details of an attorney for Lee were not immediately available.

Meanwhile, Cornell hired former US Acting Attorney General Sally Yates to lead an internal investigation into the university's response to sexual assault — as well as its handling of the “Cornell 7” gang-rape allegations.

Bar denies serving underage 'vic'

The Ithaca bar accused of serving booze to the woman in the explosive “Cornell 7” case “to the point of visible intoxication” before she was allegedly gang raped has denied giving her any alcohol.

Moonies Bar and Night-club insisted it never “unlawfully sold . . . alcoholic beverages to any person under the legal drinking age," according to court documents obtained by TMZ.

Doe claimed in her September suit that Moonies staff overserved her on the night in 2024 when seven fraternity brothers allegedly gave her more booze and drugs and raped her.

The drinks she had at Moonies in part “resulted in Plaintiff being sexually assaulted and raped," her lawsuit charges.

The former student was 20 years old at the time but said she was served despite having been marked as underage at the door.

Doe had previously consumed vodka at her sorority house — “10 shots,” she said in a phone call after the alleged assault. Yet Moonies served her even though she was drunk, she claims.

Moonies denies it sold alcohol to “any visibly intoxicated person.”

The Tompkins County district attorney originally decided not to pursue charges against the brothers because Doe had said she consumed alcohol and drugs willingly before the incident.

But Cornell's investigation later determined that she had become so intoxicated from the liquor, marijuana and ketamine that the brothers gave her at the house that she lost all ability to consent. Her suit makes similar claims.

Alex Oliveira

MATTHEW INGALLS

"Jane sodomized me."

Brother 'survived' sexual assault

The frat brother at the center of the “Cornell 7” gangrape allegations claimed to campus officials that the accuser “sodomized” him — and complained nobody cared he was a sex-assault “survivor,” an explosive new report says.

Matthew Ingalls' stunning assertions came as separate documents showed the fraternity scrambled to control the story out of fear that "the reputation of all involved and the frat would be ruined" — and tried to frame the alleged rape as a "consensual orgy," ABC News reported.

Ingalls — the Chi Phi brother who the accuser said sparked her alleged 2024 gang rape — wrote to campus officials in a seething email that the Ivy League school was guilty of “gender discrimination” and “entrapment” as it conducted its investigation into him and six of his fraternity brothers over the alleged horror.

“You received information that I was sodomized by her while I was incapacitated back in November, and you never once thought to alert me of my rights under these procedures as a survivor of this assault?” Ingalls said in the February 2025 missive to Cornell’s Title IX office and obtained by ABC.

"The very fact that I had to bring this to your attention now in February confirms my worst fears: that this process is rolled [sic] with gender discrimination," he said. Alex Oliveira

Gala anniversary of America's news leader

YOUNG BLOODS: Then-Mayor Rudy Giuliani (far left), who helped get Fox News on New York City cable systems and start its long run to preeminence, was the channel's first interviewee on Oct. 7, 1996. Handsome young Fox News legend Sean Hannity was also on air on opening day, while FNC stalwart Bret Baier began his stellar Fox stint in 1998.

'Kil' thrill of making SPRY FOX TURNS 30

Brian Kilmeade struck out a lot trying to make it as a news anchor before becoming one of the most beloved faces on Fox News.

The veteran host is now celebrating an epic 30 years at the network.

“I got thousands of rejection letters . . . I kept a lot of them,” Kilmeade, 62, told The Post, recalling his time as just another 30-something trying to catch his break in the 1990s.

"Some people look at my tape and say, ‘One thing I know for sure is I’m never hiring that guy,’” quipped Kilmeade — known for his self-deprecating humor on “Fox & Friends” in the morning.

The Long Islander never gave up. His big break finally came when a startup called Fox News took a chance on him.

Kilmeade is celebrating his 30th year with a nod to America's 250th birthday.

His book “Uniting the States: Six Crucial Moments That Forged the American Miracle” hits shelves on Oct. 13.

Alex Mitchell

FOX News Channel is 30 years young today, and America — and the world — will never be the same.

The 24-hour news platform founded by Rupert Murdoch clobbers its rivals in the ratings and helps set the daily agenda in corridors of power from City Hall to Washington, DC, to the Kremlin.

Of course, Fox News' contribution can hardly be measured only in audience size. It's not merely the most influential conservative major televised news organization, but a vibrant, colorful and often controversial foil to the liberal and leftist voices that dominate broadcast and cable news.

Fox News routinely scoops its competitors on subjects they prefer to ignore. While the two major competing news networks, CNN and MS NOW (formerly MSNBC), were buying into the woke worldview of Democratic Party elected officials and even pandered to proponents of trans athletes on women's sports teams, FNC took its brave, solitary path in exposing corruption in the Obama and

LEGENDS: Rupert Murdoch announces the founding of Fox News in 1996. Current CEO Suzanne Scott, who arrived at Fox in 1996, has been inducted into the Broadcasting + Cable Hall of Fame.

Biden administrations.

It routinely calls out the policies of blue-state mayors in Chicago and Portland who brought ruin to their cities strewn with homeless drug addicts and street criminals.

---

'Lab leak' leader

Alone among televised media, Fox News Channel's reporters and commentators shed doubt on the widely believed animal-spillover theory of

COVID-19. They gave well-earned airtime to Wuhan lab-leak proponents and stood their ground when assailed by The New York Times and the rest of the mediasphere.

For sure, FNC stands vindicated now that scientists and even some competing media accept the pandemic likely began with a lab leak.

Not only news coverage, but popular programs such as “The Five,” “Hannity” and “Gutfeld!” are must-views in homes, airport lounges and hotel lobbies from coast to coast.

The channel today reaches more than 60 million US homes and is seen in 90 countries. But nobody could guess what clout Fox News would eventually have on Oct. 7, 1996, when its first day of programming reached a paltry 10 million US homes and under 500,000 in the Big Apple.

Skeptics said it wouldn't last and would end up as a footnote to News Corp's history — or even embarrassingly flop like Ford Motor Company's Edsel.

When Fox News opened its studio at 1211 Sixth Ave. with a party under a tent in October 1996, I, too, wondered if they knew what they were doing.

After all, The New York Post — housed in the same Midtown building — was a stone's throw from its 200th anniversary. Would Fox News Channel ever claim such a milestone?

But last week, Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott was inducted at the Ziegfeld Ballroom into the Broadcasting + Cable Hall of Fame. With reason: FNC's ratings have grown steadily under her leadership since 2018, and today whips its cable competition by 2-1 in viewership. If history's any guide, Fox News Channel can look forward to 30 more years. Or — who knows? — 200 more.

NJ exec bloodbath

Wife, daughter & self shot dead

---

By PATRICK REILLY

A New Jersey insurance executive fatally shot his wife and daughter before turning the gun on himself inside of their mansion, county officials said Tuesday.

David Grodnick, 61, his wife Lora Grodnick, 62, and daughter, Sloane Grodnick, 24, were each found with gunshot wounds to the head in the Montgomery Township home on Oct. 2, according to the Somerset County Prosecutor's Office.

Investigators determined Lora and Sloane's deaths to be homicides and David's a suicide.

It was not immediately clear how long the three had been dead.

Cops were first called to a home on Wild Azalea Lane at about 2:59 p.m. on Oct. 1, after receiving a request for a welfare check on the residents, according to the prosecutor's office.

Officers were unable to locate the occupants and an investigation began into their whereabouts.

They gained entry to the home just before 6 p.m. the next day and discovered the three bodies.

---

Gun still in hand

Lora and Sloane were found in separate bedrooms, and David was found elsewhere in the home with a gun still in his hand, prosecutors said.

All three were declared dead at the home, which is valued by Zillow at \$1.75 million, by medical personnel from Robert Wood

Johnson University Hospital in Somerset.

"The investigation, which remains ongoing, has yielded that the homicide deaths of both Lora and Sloane Grodnick were an isolated incident and there are no threats to the public from this tragic occurrence," Somerset County Prosecutor's Office said in Tuesday's release.

David Grodnick was a senior vice president and underwriting counsel for Land Services USA, a Philadelphia-based insurance agency working on commercial real estate transactions across the country, according to the Montgomery News.

He had a degree in business administration from the University of Miami and a bachelor's degree in English from McDaniel College, where he played lacrosse, the outlet reported.

Sloane Grodnick graduated from The Hun School, a ritzy private boarding school in Princeton, before graduating from the Savannah College of Art and Design, according to the Montgomery News.

She had been pursuing a master's degree at the Rhode Island School of Design.

The family had moved to Montgomery Township from Princeton and were mem-

bers of the exclusive Bedens Brook Country Club in Skillman as well as TPC Jasna Polana, a premier private club in Princeton.

VSCO/Sloane Grodnick; Sea Island Photography; Aristide Economopoulos

HORROR: Insurance exec David Grodnick fatally shot his wife, Lora, and daughter, Sloane (inset) at their Montgomery Township home (top left) before killing himself, officials revealed on Tuesday.

Saudis may face 9/11 \$lap

A federal appeals court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether Saudi Arabia can escape a lawsuit alleging that it aided the 9/11 hijackers — as relatives of New Yorkers killed in the attacks intently watch on.

More than 25 years after the deadly terror attacks, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan is considering a lower court judge's bombshell August 2025 ruling leaving Riyadh potentially on the hook for damages in the long-delayed civil case.

Appeals court judges Guido Calabresi, William Nardini and Eunice Lee will hear from lawyers for both Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 victims' families.

The families have dug up “reasonable evidence” that the Saudi government — which continues to deny playing any role in the attacks on 9/11 — ran a support network for the hijackers, US District Court Judge George Daniels found.

A potential juror could make “a reasonable inference” that Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi national who helped secure California lodging for two American Airlines Flight 77 hijackers, had coordinated with the Saudi government, the judge ruled. Ben Kochman

Fire stalls Venez. oil

Venezuela's Cardon refinery, the country's second-largest with a 310,000-barrel-per-day capacity, was halted due to a fire at one of its processing units, eight sources with knowledge of the matter said Tuesday.

Fires, power interruptions and outages are common at facilities operated by state-run oil company PDVSA, and can affect supply of essential fuels for the domestic market, like gasoline and diesel.

The fire started at a gas line that connects the refinery's diesel hydrotreater, forcing the entire facility's shutdown, two of the sources said. Reuters

Leading lady Jessica Biel left her “Today” show appearance Tuesday morning silky smooth in an ivory Self-Portrait silk top and matching trousers. The actress, 44, stars in “Matchbox: The Movie” — an action comedy about the classic toy cars premiering Friday on AppleTV.

Bakker sis died 1 week before him

Scandal-ridden televangelist Jim Bakker mourned the death of his sister just a week before his own passing at the age of 86.

Donna Puckett, 91, died in Hollister, Mo., on Sept. 29, leaving Bakker and his second wife, Lori, "heartbroken," an obituary revealed.

Her cause of death is unclear.

“Donna was loved by so many people, and she loved her friends very much,” Bakker wrote on Facebook, announcing the death of his “precious” sister.

“Throughout the years, she served alongside me in ministry and touched the lives of more people than we will ever know.

“So many of you have special memories with Donna, moments you shared together, and stories she told that will never be forgotten.”

“She loved my children deeply, and our entire family loved her and cared for her in a very special way.”

Bakker, who rose to prominence after launching the Christian TV show “The PTL Club,” paid tribute to how Puckett — who worked in the accounting department for his Praise the Lord Ministries — “loved Jesus with all her heart and she faithfully served the Lord for so many years.”

"My heart hurts today, but I am thankful for every memory, every prayer, every song, every laugh, and every moment God gave us together," he wrote.

Bakker died on Monday, his wife said. Chris Bradford

HRS. FOR THE FLEE TRAIN MTA ‘unsafe’ when?

By REDA WIGLE

In the city that never sleeps, how late is too late to ride the subway and feel safe?

That was the question posed by Becca on her Tik-Tok video, becsandthecity, saying that while midnight feels like fair game to her, others felt differently.

Predictably, people had thoughts.

"As long as I'm sober enough to fight," one commenter said.

Another cautious rider said her latest ride time is 3 p.m.

“I fear the cutoff for a woman alone is 11 pm-6 am,” shared another.

Others echoed her stance on riding solo.

"If I'm with a group, 24/7. If I'm alone, 11 pm."

RAILLY SPLIT: TikToker Becca says on certain routes she'll ride the subway until midnight while other riders shared their own safety views.

“4 a.m.- 5 a.m. subways build character,” added another.

Others argued the train is a safer bet than a ride-share.

“If you don’t ride the subway whenever you need to, you’re not a real New Yorker,” said a rank puller.

“Midnight, but my rule is if the platform is empty after 11 pm, I’m not taking it,” strategized another.

---

Subway assault up

Others suggested the best defense is offense.

“A true New Yorker I’ll go at any time because I’m not scared; I’ll show the crazies I’m crazy so they leave me alone,” admitted one rider.

“I ride at any time; I just sit in the middle car with the person who operates the doors,” said another

One New York native eloquently distilled her own subway experience and her advice for others.

“Born and raised here. As a woman, I don’t take the train by myself past 11 pm. I’m taking an

Uber no matter the price. Anything can happen at any time, but you have fewer people to help you if something happens late at night," she reasoned.

"People say New Yorkers won't help you, but that's absolutely not true. I'm not even cautious about the crazy people . . . what I want to avoid is the men who can't take no for an answer . . . They get emboldened when there's no one around."

Through August, felony assaults on the subway are up 10% from last year, to 435 — a total that's 84% higher than the comparable figure from 2019.

Becca said she would never take the J train, a choice a chorus of commenters agreed with and seemingly for good reason.

Last week, an “emotionally disturbed” person repeatedly stabbed construction worker Mesias Lojano as the train both were riding neared Woodhaven Boulevard. Lojano, 59, was the subway system’s sixth murder victim of the year.

Socialite unleashes 'pet' project

Ian Mohr

imohr@nypost.com

WOOF. José Castelo Branco, the gender-fluid socialite whose taut face bears a striking resemblance to Kris Jenner, raised looser eyebrows at elite members-only club Maxime's costume party over the weekend. And not merely because he arrived leading a “human dog” around on a leash.

Branco, 63 — who identifies as “he” and wears women’s clothes and makeup — is on trial in Portugal for alleged domestic violence against his estranged wife, diamond heiress Betty Grafstein, 97.

A guest at the 1930s-themed bash told us that seeing Branco and his costumed companion was “weird as f--k.”

“[Branco] was greeting people at the front with a leashed human dressed as a dog,” the source said. “A large white, curly short-haired dog. They were kneeling on a dog bed. [The person was] fully covered — you couldn’t see their face.” Like a mascot head? “Yes.”

Page Six reported that Branco was arrested and thrown in jail in Portugal in May 2024 after Grafstein, who was in a wheelchair, went to the hospital, alleging Branco pushed her.

According to local reports, Grafstein, who married Branco in 1996, was in the hospital for 45 days with injuries to her forearm, bruising and a fractured pelvis.

The trial against Branco for domestic violence started in June and reconvened after a summer break Sept. 22.

Grafstein testified on Sept. 29 by video link from the US in Portugal's Cascais Court, alleging Branco “assaulted me so many times.”

The alleged assaults also included punching, pushing and strangulation.

Branco previously denied the allegations. He has not admitted anything in court.

Oli Coleman

ocoleman@nypost.com

Mara Siegler

msiegler@nypost.com

Carlos Greer

cgreer@nypost.com

Martha Williams

mwilliams@nypost.com

He told us he cannot comment on the case because it is ongoing but said: “My silence is bold.”

Grafstein's lawyer Alexandre Guerreiro told us they will be in court today for divorce proceedings.

---

Family torn a-Part'

NEW court papers may offer clues about the battle engulfing Dolly Parton's estate, writes PageSix.com's Leah Bitsky. After Parton's death, her manager Danny Nozell fired and took out a restraining order against her nephew and head of security, Bryan Seaver. Papers filed by Nozell yesterday suggest Seaver felt Nozell was trying to sideline him. In the filing, Seaver wrote an email days before Parton died, saying: "Your contract security company you've hired in spite of me and Dolly's request for service at [Parton's] hotel has completely f--ked up and let an employee be assaulted." We contacted Seaver.

---

Upholding 'Dig' nity

“DIGGER” director Alejandro González Iñárritu admitted his Tom Cruise-led movie “is not perfect” after it received scathing reviews and had a disastrous opening weekend. “I think definitely it’s an uncommon film. It’s a provoking film,” Iñárritu (above) told the New York Times Monday. He said he likes “taking risks” but noted, “There’s people that want more certainty in the storytelling, and that’s OK too. This is not like an ice cream.” The film, which came out Friday, earned just \$8 million domestically in its opening weekend.

TheStewartofNY/GC Images

Spanish singer Rosalía swanned to chilly Soho but didn't pack enough feathers to keep her warm yesterday.

---

Court: Post no bills

THE billionaire embroiled in New Jersey's biggest divorce case won his bid yesterday to keep the worth of his company's assets secret from the public. John Overdeck asked a judge to kick the public out of a

Newark courtroom during ewark courtroom during testimony about the assets of his \$80 billion hedge fund Two Sigma. Family court Judge Bruce Buechler ruled testimony that could reveal company secrets should happen behind closed doors,

reports The Post's Priscilla DeGregory. Overdeck's estranged wife, Laura, wants 35% of his third of the company.

---

New aria of study

WHAT mitre been! Honoring Met Opera musical director Yannick Nézet-Séguin at the Denyce Graves Foundation gala, his boss, Peter Gelb, said as a kid, Yannick “wanted to be the pope” one day. “We’re very glad he ultimately changed his mind and found religion in opera,” he said. “In any case, the Met has far better acoustics than the Vatican.”

---

Inflating hearts

JESSICA Simpson has gone public with musician Thomas Eisenhood months after sparking romance rumors. The pair were spotted together for the first time at Balloon Fiesta Park in Albuquerque, NM, Sunday. In photos obtained by TMZ, Simpson (above) and Eisenhood walked through the park around 7:30 a.m. and took selfies with hot air balloons. Eyewitnesses said they offered to take photos for other parkgoers, too. At one point, Eisenhood wrapped his arm around her shoulders and she rested her head on him, per a source. In April, TMZ reported Simpson had struck up a romance with Eisenhood, her first known relationship since she split from her husband, Eric Johnson, in January 2025.

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Comics beg for Sirius cash

AFTER comics launched a heartfelt campaign to restore a vital piece of the standup economy, its targets, Sebastian Maniscalco and SiriusXM, seem largely unmoved. In April, the famed comic took over the satellite radio network's Raw Comedy channel, which had

featuring their work on air. But ever since, it has featured household-name comics, largely cutting the touring folks out. Comics including Michelle Wolf, Margaret Cho and Patton Oswalt took part in a campaign Monday on behalf of their lesser-known colleagues. They begged Maniscalco to put the rank and file back on air. When we reached out to Maniscalco's rep for comment, they referred us to Sirius, whose statement didn't suggest a rush to return to its role as a benefactor to comedy's middle class. "SiriusXM works together with our creative partners to program the best possible experience for our listeners," SiriusXM said, adding that Maniscalco's channel introduced a "regularly evolving programming mix" and that "SiriusXM continues to invest in comedians more than any other audio platform."

‘TEA’-SPILLING THRILL

‘TEA ‘VRT awards keeping it real

By SAMANTHA NUNGESSER

We came, we saw, we spilled tea.

Page Six's second-annual "Virtual Reali-Tea" Awards, sponsored by Tri-State Cadillac, CoverGirl, Philo and Kahlúa, took over the Edison Ballroom on Tuesday night, bringing together some of the most celebrated reality-TV stars for a fabulous night of food, drinks and iconic moments in the making.

RDS

VIRTUAL REALI-TEA 26

Hosted by “VRT” stars Danny Murphy and Evan Real, the fan-voted celebration kicked off with a star-studded red carpet and cocktail hour, with more than 60 of TV’s finest from “The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives,” “Summer House,” “The Real Housewives,” “Selling Sunset,” and more showing off their glitzy outfits for cameras and chatting with a slew of reporters along the way.

The ceremony opened with Musician of the Year nominee Scheana Shay bringing a “Vander-

pump Rules" classic to the stage with an unforgettable performance of "Good as Gold."

“Real Housewives of Salt Lake City” star Whitney Rose presented the first award of the night, revealing “Next Gen NYC” fan favorite Ariana Biermann as this year’s Breakout Star.

---

Lots of 'H'wives'

“Summer House” veteran Kyle Cooke was named Hot-Tea of the Year, while “RHOSLC” star Meredith Marks won Style Icon of the Year and “Real Housewives of New Jersey” trio Teresa Giudice, Melissa Gorga and Dolores Catania took home the award for Best Return to Screen.

Gregory Pace/Shutterstock; Invision/AP

'GOLDEN' GIRLS: "The Golden Life" castmates (from left) Sonja Morgan, Kelly Killoren Bensimon, Ramona Singer, LuAnn de Lesseps and Dorinda Medley bring glamour to Page Six's 2026 "Virtual Reali-Tea" Awards on Tuesday, while guest Hilaria Baldwin (right) puts her best foot forward.

Giudice joked she had a speech prepared, but had “too much to drink." After Catania and Gorga spoke, Giudice said they "love, love, love" Murphy and Real.

While Ciara Miller was busy dancing her heart out to "Mariah Carey Night" on "Dancing with

the Stars," Murray and Real were there to accept the award for Best Reunion Performance on her behalf.

And the “Summer House” love didn’t stop there, because Lindsay Hubbard and her daughter, Gemma, won Best Dynamic Duo.

As guests sipped their espresso martinis, the official cocktail of the 2026 VRT Awards, Murphy and Real kept the energy high throughout the show, mingling with the starry crowd and stopping to spill the tea with glamorous guests including Hilaria Baldwin.

Bravo even unveiled a first look at “Southern Charm” Season 12 with an exclusive clip that showed Best Dynamic Duo nominees Salley Carson and Austen Kroll seemingly trying to define their relationship after the latter “wined and dined" another woman. Yikes!

But one of the best moments of the night came when E!'s “The Golden Life” cast — which includes “Real Housewives of New York City” legends Luann de Lesseps, Sonja Morgan, Dorinda Medley and Kelly Killoren Bensimon — reunited on stage to accept the coveted Golden Kettle Award, presented by Tri-State Cadillac.

During the acceptance speech, Morgan said “thank you New York Post for fact checking . . . unlike my costars.”

---

Afterparty hardy

De Lesseps was later named Musician of the Year, before closing out the show with a performance of her hit song “Chic C’est La Vie.” She also announced her new single, “To All The Boys,” will drop Oct. 16.

“Secret Lives of Mormon Wives” personality Layla Taylor and girlfriend Kelsie Chesser made their red carpet debut.

The couple was pictured arm-in-arm with Taylor wearing an asymmetrical floral corset dress with a pleated skirt and light blue strappy heels. Chesser sported a navy blue suit and black shoes accessorized with a simple gold necklace.

The reality star, 25, came out as bisexual in June, revealing that she was dating a woman — without disclosing Chesser's identity.

The fun kept going well into the night with the VIP after-party, deejayed by Cooke himself.

A slew of reality TV's finest let loose on the dance floor while sampling nonalcoholic cranberry cosmos and pineapple palomas from Mingle Mocktails.

They ensured they stayed looking glam throughout the night thanks to the CoverGirl beauty bar, which provided makeup touch-ups whenever needed.

Following hours of celebrating and spilling the (hot) tea, the stars returned to their accommodations at trendy NYC hotels including the Moxy Hotel Chelsea, Virgin Hotel and Park Terrace Hotel, where laid down surely to dream about all the fun that was had at the VRT Awards.

snungesser@nypost.com

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How to relaunch your happy days

I don't know Peter Wainberg. I only know that his p.r. elf Jesse Nash sends out elevators full of stuff hourly.

But this is interesting so I share it. Wainberg is a heart and health specialist.

Happiness, health, love? Wainberg's asking: What do you really want? Everybody wants something.

So, Lesson One: Forget what annoys you. Got it? Like to know what really really creeps under your hairpiece.

Yeah, we know would be nice if your pesty neighbor could move. We got it.

But basically what would make you happy happy really happy to do?

Get out of bed — for WHAT?! To do WHAT?! To experience WHAT?

He asks: What is your unspoken desire? The down deep kind that survives inconvenience. We're talking "Focus." Give it attention. Wait not for some emergency room. Want to schlep around hiking? Lose weight? Gain weight? Find a lover? Buy fake hair? Lose that lover? Borrow someone else's lover? Dump enemies? Make money? What is it?!

If it's just a restaurant table by the window — shove it. Understand we're now talking about your life.

Wainberg: Make plans. Change choices. Something you ignored yesterday — consider today. Want to walk? So — walk. Tennis? So get a racquet.

Everyone wants something. Smaller behind. Larger home. Whatever.

Decide what you want. Note opportunities. Plan. Make choices. Give your brain a shopping list. Walk where you choose. Play rugby. Read Cindy Adams' column. (No, this I personally added.)

He says to sit by a window, think, write it down. Don't know what you want — don't be surprised by what you get. Can be what annoys you, disappoints you, wants your cousin to shut up.

“I want to be happy,” they might say. Yeah, we all do. But beside your current desire to lie on a couch and dream, what would you really like?

If you sleep through all this — it's your life going by. Life has a way of choosing you. Don't wait for a hospital to tell you. Write it down — might be something only you can recognize. Find the desire. Give it a destination. Take the first step.

And stop cluttering up my inbox.

Latin loses Mass appeal in NJ

Holy Trinity Catholic Church

A few weeks ago, the Archbishop of Newark suspended the Latin Mass that was being celebrated weekly at Holy Trinity in Hackensack.

NEWARK'S Archbishop Cardinal Tobin has suspended a large traditional Latin Mass in his diocese.

Holy Trinity of Hackensack hosted a weekly Tridentine Mass — according to the 1962 missal — with a traditionalist choir that sang all parts of the Mass. Father John Perricone, a Catholic theologian who appears on podcasts and YouTube channels, was the officiant.

Cardinal Tobin, who suspended it leaving about 150 families in spiritual limbo, once said: “I understand why people feel banished from the church.”

But, says one theologian: “It’s the cardinal doing the banishing.”

---

God bless us

NOTE: Dickens' “A Christmas Carol” wouldn't work today. Tiny Tim would have major medical coverage and Scrooge would be a candidate for the Conservative Party. Forget the government having a deficit. It's called Being On The Take.

BUT be happy happy that soon cometh Halloween, Thanksgiving, crappy candy, Christmas and Return the Gifts Day. If you're hunting for those Three Wise Men — look under the tinsel.

NOT only in New York, kids, not only in New York.

Cheers on abort pill toss

A pro-life group is applauding plans by Gov. Hochul's administration to destroy about 150,000 abortion pills that cost \$112,000.

Hochul's team bought in 2023 the stockpile of misoprostol, part of a two-drug abortion regimen, but the state Department of Health is now set to destroy it because the pills have expired.

There was enough for about 12,500 doses, the New York Public News Network first reported.

“It’s a great victory for the pro-life movement,” said Shawn Carney, CEO and president of 40 Days for Life.

Carney noted the Hochul administration had no choice but to destroy the pills.

"I think that the state government and the governors, particularly the Democrats, have spent way too much time trying to promote themselves as abortion pill superstars," he said.

Hochul's team hadn't dipped into the stockpile and there are no plans to replenish it, according to the Health Department.

"At a time when access to reproductive healthcare was under threat by the federal government, Gov. Hochul took action to ensure New Yorkers would not be left without options," Hochul spokesperson Nicolette Simmonds told The Post. Ryan King

Pedo sold plutonium

A convicted Massachusetts pedophile admitted to illegally importing radioactive materials from Russia and selling them across the US, according to authorities.

Jacob D. Miller, 44, pleaded guilty to importing dangerous plutonium from Russia and mailing it to his home in South Hadley for his business called Collect The Periodic Table, the US Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts announced Monday.

Miller sold plutonium to roughly 67 customers between Dec. 30, 2020, and March 31, 2025 — even shipping it by mail, prosecutors said. Zoe Hussain

NEARLY DEPARTED

'Funeral' for a party. gal who's still alive

By ELLA MORRISON

A Georgia widow who “refuses to miss anything” held her own funeral last weekend and scores of guests paid their respects to a cardboard cutout of the 80-year-old.

Shelvy Neal came up with the idea after laying her husband to rest in March, she told WMAZ.

“I said, ‘You know, I’d love to be at my own funeral,’” Neal recalled telling her daughter.

“Well, why can’t you?” her daughter questioned.

Neal and her family then set out to begin planning her own memorial service that doubled as her 80th birthday bash which they called “FOMO funeral” — for fear of missing out.

“It’s gonna be about celebrating Christ and my life, 80 years of my life,” Neal said before her own funeral. “It’s been a good one.”

The “FOMO funeral” was held on Sunday at a property in Macon that Neal and her late husband owned for 25 years before selling it to a funeral home in 2020.

---

It's a 'FOMO' bash

But the sale came with a catch — two funerals, one for each of them. Around 100 people paid their respects to the cutout of Neal lying inside a coffin while the still-living Neal wore a sash that read, “Back by popular demand.”

There was also a decorated cake that featured a stairway seemingly

LIVING IT UP: Georgia good-time lady Shelvy Neal joins pals for a fake funeral as her 80th birthday party, complete with cardboard-cutout corpse and a cake with the Pearly Gates (inset).

leading up to the gates of heaven that read, “She refuses to miss anything . . . especially her own funeral.” Guests were also invited up to an open microphone to share fond memories of Neal, who was prepared for whatever they might say.

"If they want to, they can say bad things," Neal said before the funeral. "But I'm gonna be there and I might cut the mic."

"I'm gonna control my own fu-"

neral," she quipped.

Neal indeed took control of her own funeral, making the flowers herself and was the guest speaker.

"I think it will be easier on my family to do something like this, but also, you know, funeral is F-U-N," Neal said.

“And I like fun,” she added.

But when the time comes to actually say goodbye, Neal said it will be a simple graveside service instead of a traditional funeral.

Kat and AOC don’t ‘sea’ eye to eye

Gov. Hochul appeared with US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez at an event in Hopewell Junction Wednesday — but distanced herself from the lefty darling's supporters recently singing “from the river to the sea.”

AOC had been greeted by a crowd of hundreds with the controversial rallying cry — which critics say is a call to eradicate Israel and its people — during a campaign event in Ithaca last week, but Hochul called the slogan “antisemitic.”

“That does not represent the values of the Democratic Party,” Hochul said after the event with Ocasio-Cortez that was billed as a roundtable to discuss the governor’s recent moratorium on data centers.

Ocasio-Cortez's event in Ithaca, home to Cornell University, had been billed as trying to boost turnout in

Democratic strongholds ahead of the midterms.

But despite the remarks, Hochul told reporters she's “aligned” with Ocasio-Cortez on “fighting for affordability” and “standing up to the excesses and the abuse of the Trump administration.” She said she’s talking with AOC, a potential 2028 Senate or presidential candidate, about appearing together again at a campaign event before Election Day.

"When we do it together, always divide and conquer, it's all for the greater good," Hochul said.

Vaughn Golden

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It's horse sense for Islanders

They're finally in the home stretch.

It's been a massive few weeks in Nassau with the reopening of Belmont Park racetrack galloping in a new day for the Islanders' home at adjacent UBS Arena, as collaborative ideas are turning the connected properties into a true entertainment complex — most notably in the hopes of an outdoor hockey game on the spacious infield.

"The NHL has talked about it as well," said Isles director of business operations Kelly Cheeseman. "I think we'd love to see that."

The track, which will be fully operational months before June's Belmont Stakes, is already luring hockey fans.

Several folks in Islanders jerseys paid a modest \$10 to see afternoon races before trotting a few steps away for the team's 6-0 home-opener win over the Devils on Saturday night. Alex Mitchell

NY'S BUY-GONE DAYS

USA TODAY Network via Reuters

By EMILY FU

In Manhattan, a \$1 million condo counts as “entry level” — and developers are building dramatically fewer of them.

The supply of the city's most affordable new-development condos is projected to plunge $74\%$ through 2029 compared with the past decade, according to a new report from Corcoran Sunshine Marketing Group obtained by The Post.

PRICED OUT: Manhattan developers plan to build 74% fewer for-sale apartments in the most affordable, though hardly cheap, price range.

Corcoran defines the entry-level tier as new condos priced below \$1,800 per square foot. For a roughly 500- to 1,000-square-foot apartment, that translates to a purchase price of around \$900,000 to \$1.8 million — hardly bargain territory for most Americans.

Yet even homes in that price bracket are increasingly scarce.

Fewer \$1M 'entry level' condos to hit market

Just 172 entry-level units are in the Core Manhattan pipeline for 2026 through 2029, or about 43 a year. Over the past decade, an average of 165 such units came to market annually.

That amounts to a 74% collapse in

---

More rentals

rise 88% from its 10-year annual average, while ultra-luxury supply above \$5,000 per square foot is expected to soar 285%.

"The cost of doing business has gotten much higher across the board for developers," Corcoran Sunshine president Kelly Kennedy Mack told The Post. "Construction and especially labor costs have skyrocketed in recent years, and desirable development parcels are getting fewer and farther between and more expensive in the city."

what developers consider the low-est rung of the new-condo market.

Developers are instead concentrating on more expensive homes.

Nearly half of the roughly 5,900 condos in the Core Manhattan pipeline are expected to fall into

At the opposite end, the super-luxury supply — \$3,400 to \$5,000 per square foot — is projected to the “mid-market” category, priced between \$1,800 and \$2,400 per square foot. Just 3% are classified as entry level.

The city is still adding tens of thousands of homes, but an increasing share of them will be rentals rather than properties New Yorkers can buy.

Rental-to-condo conversions are expected to make up just 4% of the pipeline over the next several years. And around 71% of Core Manhattan's coming rental pipeline consists of office-to-apartment conversions — nearly 13,000 units, compared with 5,250 units from ground-up construction.

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Trans actor Page Don't act like 'Juno' what's up

LATE last month, NYU Hospital joined Mount Sinai, agreeing to end gender care for minors under pressure from the Trump administration.

It was good news, but don't tell that to wacky trans actor Elliot Page, who joined protesters outside the hospital and declared the outcome was the result of “bigoted politics.”

“Is this the kind of country we want to live in?” asked Page in an

Instagram video from the scene. That's an excellent question.

Why yes, El-

liot. I do want to live in this kind of country.

I want to live in a country that puts firm safeguards in place for vulnerable, gender-confused children.

blockers in 2024 after the Cass Review found that clinical guidelines were built on shaky evidence.

Like many activists, Page tries to make it sound gentle and kind by referring to it as “gender affirming care.” But there is nothing gentle or healthy about pumping minors full of puberty blockers, cross sex hormones or cutting off healthy body parts.

These medications can lead to sterilization,

the loss of sex-

ual function and

many other

complications.

Young people

simply aren't capable of consenting nor even comprehending such a life altering decision at that tender age.

PITCH AND MOAN: “Juno” star Elliot Page protests hospitals pulling back on trans care for minors and makes a melodramatic plea.

I want to live in a country that thinks twice about indulging the whims of a minor swept up in a mental health crisis — and promised by activists that their life will be perfect if only they can change everything about themself.

We do not let children lead, just as we do not let them drive, vote, drink alcohol, or get tattoos. We protect them.

---

Consequences

“Juno” star Page can carry on and pretend that the United States is some sort of big, bad, mean outlier in the rest of the Western world when it comes to treating children with gender dysmorphia.

But it's just another bad performance.

We lagged behind many European countries that pumped the brakes on medicalizing distressed children. That includes the United Kingdom, which banned puberty

Still, Page insists that it is “necessary, backed by science, and supported by every major credible medical association.”

Except the American Society of Plastic Surgeons has recommended delaying such surgeries for minors. And now that the fever surrounding child transition has broken, many healthcare professionals continue to echo similar conclusions to the Cass Review.

It's experimental treatment.

---

No going back

Before people started coming to their senses and whistleblowers emerged, the medical industry switched to affirming any adolescent experiencing discomfort. Even if they also had a long list of comorbidities that clearly suggested a whole host of other problems.

If a kid said were the opposite gender, then well, shucks, they were.

Parents who objected were told they were child abusers and some states allowed schools to keep children's social transitions a secret from meddling parents.

The whole chapter was a trav-esty. But Page thinks the real reckoning has yet to come.

"One day, many will look back on all of this and say, ‘We should have known better.’ But we do know better, right now, that denying this care hurts children and leads to increased depression and worse," the 39-year-old said.

We are already looking back and witnessing a parade of detransitioners come forward with tales of horror because we allowed a medical industry to run roughshod over vulnerable children. They continue to live with the physical consequences every day and lawsuits have been filed.

In January, a New York jury awarded detransitioner Fox Varian \$2 million after a doctor cut off her breasts at age 16.

“Kids’ lives are on the line,” said

Page, summoning the manipulative language of the peak woke era that forced many parents to go along with deranged doctor recommendations and allow their children to medically transition.

However people are no longer swayed by it.

---

Adults choose

Page came out as transgender at the age of 33. The “Juno” star was able to go through puberty and then make the decision as a full-fledged adult.

If someone grows up and still feels that they will benefit from transitioning, that is a completely different story.

Distressed children should be given psychological care and the time to figure themselves out.

They don't need people like Page convincing them that they need drugs and harmful surgeries to become a complete and happy person.

Dems double talking

WASHINGTON — Democratic candidates in competitive House races are bank-rolling ads claiming they are champions of fairness and willing to buck their party to protect girls sports — despite voting records showing they’ve either supported transgender rights or kept quiet on the issue.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who is currently polling neck-and-neck with GOP opponent Derek Merrin, declared in a recent ad: "I voted with Republicans to keep transgender ideology out of our schools because parents know what's best for their kids. And boys should not play in girls sports."

But Kaptur's voting record in the House shows the opposite. Last year, the Ohio Democrat opposed — along with 205 other members of her caucus — the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act, which bans schools from letting biological males compete in female sports.

Rep. Don Davis (D-NC), who is also in a tough re-election race, voted “present” on the same legislation but states in a campaign ad that “there should always be a safe and fair space for women and girls in sports.” Josh Christenson

Zo's \$8.9M for gender

The Mamdani administration is entering into two contracts totaling \$8.9 million to provide “gender-affirming” reassignment care to transgender patients under the age of 18. The move backs a policy the federal Department of Justice has challenged as illegal.

The city Department of Health identified two vendors — Callen-Lorde and Nonprofit Organization for Philanthropic Initiatives — to provide the services in contracts that run from 2027-29.

Critics called it an attempt to circumvent the federal ban on gender-care services for minors. Carl Campanile

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Tate had 'animal porn' pix

Indecent kid images also found: docs

By ALEX DIAZ

MIAMI — Andrew Tate kept “extreme” bestiality porn, including images that showed a person having sex with a horse and an eel, according to documents released by prosecutors in the UK.

British authorities made the revolting claims as part of their request for the US to extradite controversial “manosphere” influencers Tate, 39, and his brother Tristan, 38, to the UK to face rape and sex trafficking charges there.

The image was found on a laptop in Andrew Tate's possession on or before July 18, 2015, and "portrayed, in an explicit and realistic way, a person performing an act of intercourse with a live animal, namely an eel," docs filed in federal court in Miami on Monday and obtained by The Post claimed.

It was “grossly offensive, disgusting or otherwise of an obscene character and a reasonable person looking at the image would think that any such person or animal was real,” the docs added.

Another image allegedly found on the same laptop on or before

July 18, 2015, showed someone “performing an act of intercourse” with a horse, they claimed.

Former kickboxing champion Andrew Tate is also accused of taking part in a “sexualized” video with an underage girl who is believed to have been 17 at the time, according to the docs.

BACKGROUND

The girl could allegedly be seen in the video “wearing lingerie and holding what appears to be a championship belt,” per the docs.

“During the footage, the child is shown kissing Andrew Tate’s neck and remaining in close physical contact with him,” prosecutors wrote.

---

'Underage'

CUFFED: Andrew Tate (above) was arrested in July after prosecutors in the UK hit him and his brother with new charges.

“An adult female subsequently joins them on the bed and engages in intimate physical contact initially with Andrew Tate.”

Prosecutors claim that WhatsApp messages from January 2015 show that Tate, who was 28 at the time, was aware that the girl was underage.

He allegedly wrote to her, “I could get in legal trouble cause ur 17,” and later told his brother Tristan, “She doednt (sic) look 17 at least."

Tate allegedly had 66 indecent images of a child deemed “Category A,” the highest risk level under UK law, docs alleged. He also had 26 lower-level images found on a Samsung phone and a laptop taken from Tate’s UK home in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, after he was arrested in July 2015.

Andrew and Tristan were again arrested in July this year outside a bare-knuckle boxing match in Miami after prosecutors in the UK hit them with new charges and requested their extradition.

Between the two, they are facing nearly 60 counts in Britain for alleged offenses that took place between 2010-17, in addition to criminal investigations in

Romania and the US.

The dual US-UK citizens are currently locked up in federal detention in Miami while they fight extradition.

US Magistrate Lauren Louis ruled last month that the brothers should remain behind bars during what could be a months-long court battle.

The Tate brothers deny all claims against them.

Their lawyer, Joe McBride, wrote on X Monday after the documents were filed that the US Government does not know the identity of any of their accusers.

“No American court should be asked to surrender a person to a foreign country on the word of secret accusers,” he said.

Dems defy judge

BICHOTTE-HERMELYN

Ex-Brooklyn party boss.

The old guard of the Brooklyn Democrats defied a court order not to install their new leader, who has been accused of deed theft and palled around with a judge who was forced to resign after being slapped with criminal charges, The Post has learned.

Brooklyn Democratic Party brass celebrated late Sunday night after the handpicked successor of outgoing chairwoman Rodneyse Bichotte-Hermelyn, Assembly member Nikki Lucas, was voted in as the next chair.

That's despite Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Lisa Lewis' order pausing a vote on the position, spurring a flurry of legal filings by a rival group of Democrats.

The judge is expected to rule in the coming weeks on whether the crowning of Lucas as Bichotte-Hermelyn's successor will stand.

The Post uncovered that Lucas is one of eight people named in a 2021 deed theft suit, and was repped by former Judge Ed King, who was charged by the feds with escrow fraud.

Matthew Fischetti,

Peter Senzamici

and Craig McCarthy

Sicko lawyer hit with 7th sex rap

RYAN HEMPHILL "Used shock collars."

A sick S&M-obsessed lawyer tortured a woman for seven hours in his Midtown apartment while carrying out a laundry list of sexual perversions, prosecutors said Tuesday, revealing his confirmed victim count reached seven women.

Ryan Hemphill, 44 — currently locked up on Rikers Island on a 116-count indictment for allegedly sexually assaulting half a dozen women with cattle prods, shock collars and waterboarding between October 2024 and March 2025 — was hit with new charges in Manhattan Supreme Court after another woman bravely came forward to report the abuse, according to prosecutors.

His latest victim arrived at his Midtown apartment in the spring of 2024 expecting money in exchange for sex after meeting him on the SugarDaddy dating app, but Hemphill “was planning something else entirely,” Assistant District Attorney Mirah Curzer said, while describing the sickening alleged rape and abuse.

"He threatened her with a knife to keep her from resisting, tied her to his bed . . . burned her with a hot object. He forced her to wear an electric shock collar on her neck."

The perv seemed unfazed by the new charges, chipperly telling a Post photographer in court, “nice to see you again.” Steven Vago

Threat forces B-1 move

The threat of a possible Iranian drone attack triggered the US to remove a fleet of American B-1 bombers from a UK air base over the weekend, according to reports.

The plot was cooked up by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and aimed to destroy US aircraft and kill American service members stationed at RAF Fairfield, about 90 miles west of London, The Wall Street Journal and New York Times reported Monday.

The potential attack was described by US officials as “complex, multipronged.”

Some officials suspect it was inspired by drone strikes Ukraine launched from inside Russian territory last year targeting air bases and Moscow's nuclear-capable bombers.

The June 2025 strikes saw Ukraine launch explosives-laden drones hidden in sheds that were being hauled by semi-trucks.

Five bases in five different regions of Russia were hit as part of the operation.

The redeployment of the 12 B-1 Air Force bombers back to the US came days after an alleged terrorist plot targeting RAF Fairfield was foiled by British authorities. Five men were arrested. Victor Nava

---

Near miss, then crash

In a crash captured on dashcam video, a wrong-way driver narrowly missed one vehicle, but slammed into another in Manhattan early Tuesday.

Footage obtained by The Post shows flames rising after the massive head-on collision on the Henry Hudson Parkway near Exit 13 and West 158th Street in Washington Heights at around 1:30 a.m.

The wrong-way motorist was lying on the ground later, while the other driver remained trapped inside their vehicle, according to the witness who provided the footage. Patrick Reilly and Amanda Woods

Ladies who launch & network

NEXT CHAPTER: Empty-nester moms are gathering (like here at an UES dinner) to talk about their shared experiences and help find ways to reinvent themselves.

By MARISSA MATOZZO

Uptown women can turn anything into a business opportunity — even their kids leaving home.

When former Vogue exec Donna Korren, 61, watched her youngest daughter fly the coop for college, she realized it was a “perfect storm” of heartbreak and opportunity.

The moment moms finally regain their house and time, and suddenly ask, "Now what?"

For Korren, who works in luxury-brand strategy, the answer was simple: Start a social network for mothers who successfully launched their kids into elite colleges but forgot, at least for a while, to launch themselves.

She calls her business “Empty Quester.”

"I've always disliked the phrase 'empty nester' because it rings of lack," Korren, who lives in Manhattan, told The Post. "It describes the end of a period in a parent's life with nothing more than vacancy."

To fill the void, she charges the club's paid members a relatively low fee of \$240 a year — less than the cost of a night out in a tony neighborhood — to organize two online group chats a month and occasional in-person ladies' nights.

According to data, there may not be as many empty nesters as there used to be.

Nearly 33% of US adults under 35 still live with their parents, according to a 2025 survey. But that means 66% of grown kids have left the nest — leaving moms especially vulnerable to feeling lonely and even somewhat useless.

---

Same-age pals

Gwen Mitrano, 53, who sold her Connecticut home after her daughters left for college and moved back to Manhattan, joined Empty Quester last year.

“Initially, the most surprising thing was how quiet our home was,” Mitrano said. “I kept expecting the front door to swing open to see my daughters and their friends coming and going.”

And while she loved some of the perks of sudden solitude — “It’s really nice not hearing the question, ‘What’s for dinner?’” — she wanted to rebuild her social life, and redefine who she was beyond motherhood.

Mitrano tried stitch nights, oil painting, meditation and silk painting classes, but often found herself surrounded by people decades younger.

"The company was great, but by the time you're 50, there's a comfortable shorthand that comes with hanging out with people your own age," she said.

Beyond the in-person gatherings, Korren says Empty Quester members also get access to two virtual, expert-led Zoom meetups each month, plus Substack chats with fellow “questers.”

At one recent beauty event, members mingled, laughed and tried free skincare products — all carefully chosen by Korren in her growing role as a mid-life brand whisperer.

Other gatherings have included drinks, meals and panel discussions on life beyond daily parenting.

Some moms, like Mahwish Syed, 53, who has a teen son still living at home, are even getting a jump early on figuring out what to do in their empty-nester years.

Syed, who runs an interior decorating firm in the East Village, told The Post she was “thirsty for that human connection and that level of sisterhood.”

She added: “At this stage of life, you identify as a mom, but you’re so much more than that. How do you actualize those parts of yourself that may have been put on hold?"

NYC-based psychotherapist Jordan Conrad says that struggle can be a “bigger identity shift than many people expect.”

Once the day-to-day structure of being a mother disappears, women can suddenly find themselves having to rebuild not only their routines, but their sense of who they are outside of parenthood.

---

NYC aids relaunch

“It can feel that your entire social life was simply a byproduct of your child’s life, and now you need to learn how to be around people again,” she said.

The therapist says the city is an ideal place to practice social skills and form connections as an empty nester.

"As centuries of people have found out, New York City is the ideal city to reinvent yourself," Conrad said.

"There is no shortage of stimulation and, if you allow yourself to feel excited by those possibilities and expose yourself to novel experiences, it can have a significant effect on your brain."

Sally Brompton Daily Horoscope

---

LIBRA (Sept. 24-Oct. 23)

It may be that you are set in your ways and reluctant to change what you see as a winning formula but what occurs today will encourage you to be a bit more adventurous. The only way an old problem can be resolved is by adopting new methods.

---

m SCORPIO (Oct. 24-Nov. 22)

It's not often that you let your passions get out of hand but the planets warn there is now a serious danger of that occurring. Promise yourself here and now that whatever provocations you face over the next 24 hours you won't overreact.

---

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 23 - Dec. 21)

You don't need to shout to get your message across, but you probably will. If nothing else, you want to make sure friends and family members cannot pretend to have missed what you were telling them. They may not want to hear but that is irrelevant.

---

DISCOVER MORE ABOUT YOURSELF AND WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS AT SALLYBROMPTON.COM

---

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22 - Jan. 20)

Try not to be too judgmental of someone who does not possess either your strength of character or your sense of purpose. Not everyone in this world sees as clearly as you, and that's why you have a responsibility to help those less intellectually endowed.

---

AQUARIUS (Jan. 21 - Feb. 19)

Your ruling planet Uranus makes a helpful link to energy planet Mars today, so if there is something special you would like to do, now is the time to get busy. It may not be plain sailing all the way, but you'll get there in the end.

---

PISCES (Feb. 20-Mar. 20)

Don't worry if your plans are disrupted today because it won't damage your long-term prospects. If you have to back off and let your rivals make the running, you can easily close the gap before the end of the week. It's a minor delay, nothing more.

---

ARIES (March 21-April 20)

Everything will turn out for the best over the next few days, so stop worrying and start looking round for ways to have fun. The universe doesn't want you to feel sad or scared, the universe wants you to be happy. But only you can make it happen.

---

TAURUS (April 21-May 21)

If other people want to waste their time and money on stuff they will get tired of very quickly, that's up to them, but you have a higher plan in mind. Over the next 24 hours, give yourself permission to work on what truly inspires you.

---

GEMINI (May 22-June 21)

With changes planet Uranus lodged in your sign, each new day seems to bring an unexpected development. What occurs today may not be to your liking but if you are smart you will find ways to work with it. Change always brings new opportunities.

---

CANCER (June 22-July 23)

Ambitious Mars links with upheavals planet Uranus today, so be ready to act if something out of the ordinary takes place. Whatever that something happens to be, it has the potential to change your life for the better, so embrace it.

---

LEO (July 24-Aug. 23)

Your imagination is such a powerful force that what you focus on today is more than likely to become your reality tomorrow. For that reason alone, you need to be in control of your thoughts and, even more importantly, your emotions.

---

m VIRGO (Aug. 24-Sept. 23)

You need to take a more structured approach to what you are working on. Some of your colleagues may complain that you never stray far from the rule book but that will work for you, and against them, over the next few days.

---

BIRTHDAY WEDNESDAY

A dynamic Mars-Uranus link on your birthday this year will encourage you to do things you would not usually dare dream about. Ignore those who say you are aiming too high and risking too much

and go all out to make your mark on the world.

Post Weather Report

---

Almanac

YESTERDAY'S CONDITIONS AT CENTRAL PARK THROUGH 6PM

Temperature

High: 60, Low: 48, Mean: 54

Departure from Normal

Yesterday: -8 degrees

Precipitation

Yesterday: 0.00", Month: 0.15",

Year: 36.81", Normal year to date: 38.04"

Heating Degree days yesterday .....11

Total for the month (normal).....21 (26)

Total since July 1 (normal).....52 (57)

Last season to date.....11

Wind Chill (at noon yest.) .....55

UV Index (for Wed.) .....4 (Moderate)

Humidity (at noon) .....43%

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Power, politics, and the stories behind the headlines.

POD

FORCE

ONE WITH

MIRANDA

DEVINE

NEW EPISODE OUT NOW

FOUNDER OF VALUETAINMENT MEDIA,

PATRICK BET-DAVID

---

<< INSIDE Students get a jump on college with AP classes, p.48 Catholic Schools Open House

LEAP OF FAITH

Why Catholic schools are worth a look for all — and what to ask at the open house

By PERRI ORMONT BLUMBERG

N New York, some children have essentially been on a private-school track since preschool," Lindsay Tanne Howe

— founder of LogicPrep, a college advising and academic tutoring consultancy in Greenwich, Conn. — said. By the time families reach high school, she thinks there can be “a little disillusionment with that process” and a desire to step outside of the conventional path.

Enter Catholic schools, which can feel more down-to-earth and very grounded in values and community, said Howe. "Many offer strong academics, serious athletics and expansive extra-curricular opportunities, but also a clear sense of what they stand for and the kind of young people they hope to develop," she added, noting

See SCHOOLS on Page 38

• OPEN HOUSE DIRECTORY •

---

CARDINAL HAYES HIGH SCHOOL

ACADEMY OF THE HOLY ANGELS

holyangels.org

CARDINAL HAYES HIGH SCHOOL

cardinalhayes.org

DOMINICAN ACADEMY

dominicanacademy.org

FORDHAM PREPARATORY SCHOOL

fordhamprep.org

HOLY CROSS HIGH SCHOOL

holycrosshs.org

IONA PREPARATORY

ionaprep.org

LA SALLE ACADEMY

lasalleacademy.org

MONSIGNOR MCCLANCY MEMORIAL HIGH SCHOOL

msgrmcclancy.org

MOUNT ST. MICHAEL ACADEMY

mtstmichael.org

NEW WORLD PREPARATORY CHARTER SCHOOL

newworldprep.org

ST. ANTHONY'S HIGH SCHOOL

stanthonyshs.org

ST. EDMUND PREPARATORY HIGH SCHOOL

stedmundprep.org

ST. FRANCIS PREPARATORY SCHOOL

sfponline.org

ST. JOHN'S PREPARATORY SCHOOL

stjohnsprepschool.org

ST. RAYMOND HIGH SCHOOL FOR BOYS

straymondhighschool.org

ST. STEPHEN OF HUNGARY SCHOOL

saintstephenschool.org

ST. VINCENT FERRER HIGH SCHOOL

saintvincentferrer.com

THE EPIPHANY SCHOOL

theepiphanyschool.org

XAVIER HIGH SCHOOL

xavierhs.org

ZETA CHARTER SCHOOLS

zetaschools.org

---

OPEN HOUSE 2026

EDUCATING YOUNG MEN SINCE 1848

La Salle Academy offers a rigorous college-preparatory education rooted in Catholic values, forming young men of intellect, character, and leadership.

---

Why LA SALLE Academy?

175+ Years

Over 175 years of educational excellence

Top Academics

Challenging academic programs

preparing students for top colleges

---

Faith & Leadership

Faith-centered environment focused on service, discipline, and leadership

Lifelong Brotherhood

Brotherhood and community that lasts a lifetime

---

Sports & Activities

Competitive athletics, clubs, and extracurricular opportunities

Dedicated Faculty

Dedicated faculty committed to student success

---

Why Visit Our Open House?

• Tour our historic campus and classrooms

\- Meet passionate educators and administrators

• Explore academic, athletic, and extracurricular programs

• Hear from current students, parents, and alumni

• Experience the strength of the La Salle brotherhood

ALL PROSPECTIVE STUDENTS AND FAMILIES ARE WARMLY INVITED!

Admissions@LaSalleAcademy.org

www.LaSalleAcademy.org

SATURDAY

OCTOBER 24, 2026

10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

44 EAST 2ND STREET, NEW YORK, NY 10003

New York Post, Wednesday, October 7, 2026 nypost.com

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OPEN HOUSE

Adobe Stock

At an open house, you can see how students and teachers interact.

INSIDE STORY

From SCHOOLS on Page 35

that this combination of rigor, community and values can be very appealing.

Of course, the value proposition isn't always immediate, especially for those outside of the Catholic community. Nearly every non-Catholic family that Cindy Chanin works with naturally “starts out a little unsure about the religious side of a Catholic school.”

“What surprises them is how much these schools offer every student, whatever their faith,” Chanin, the founder and CEO of Rainbow EDU Consulting & Tutoring, who is based in Manhattan and Los Angeles, said.

Per Chanin, what families tend to love most about Catholic schools is how well their child is known. With roughly 11 students for every teacher in Catholic schools nationally, your child gets close attention, whether the teacher is noticing that your kid has checked out or is ready to be challenged far beyond their grade level.

“Many also appreciate the choice of an all-girls, all-boys or coed setting, and an emphasis on service and community that parents value whether or not they're Catholic," she added.

Families who are not Catholic may be surprised by how broadly applicable the underlying tenets of this religious education can be, said Jake Williams, co-founder of Ivy Brothers, a global educational consulting and college admissions firm.

“Accountability, reflection, service to others and responsibility to the community are not exclusively Catholic principles,” Williams, who is based in Manhattan, said. Still, he stressed that Catholic schools are not interchangeable and prospective parents should be mindful that their academic intensity, approach to faith, available resources and overall cultures can differ considerably.

“Families should evaluate the individual school rather than relying on assumptions about the category,” Williams noted.

That's why experts agree actually attending an open house is essential.

“You can’t tell a school’s personality from a web page!” according to Chad Dorman, founder of School Fit Advisors, in Stamford, Conn., who says that an open house will give you a glimpse into the school's character.

“You’ll almost immediately see how students and teachers interact with each other as well as get a good understanding of the environment,” and if it’s welcoming or cold, he added. Dorman always tells families to talk to current students if they can on these visits, as they can be “the purest spokespeople” for the institution.

Pay close attention to the students leading tours, Williams echoed. “Do they speak naturally and enthusiastically, or does everything sound rehearsed? Can they describe a teacher who has supported them? When they discuss a difficult class or challenging moment, do they know where they would go for help?”

As Howe advised, aim to go beyond the official tour. “Ask the student tour guide what they love and what they would change. Look at the kids sitting in the library. Read the student newspaper,” she suggested.

For non-Catholic families, Chanin said it's important to ask directly how that will influence your child day to day. She recommends asking questions like, "How often do students attend Mass, and what does participation look like for a child who isn't Catholic?" and, "What does religious education involve at each grade level? For younger children, what happens during the year their classmates prepare for First Communion?"

It's a red flag if administrators dodge your questions or give rehearsed speeches with no further elaboration. “Schools that welcome students of every background are glad to answer these questions openly, and their answers will help you picture whether your child would feel at home there,” she said.

Another pro tip: Ask whether the school can connect you with a non-Catholic family currently enrolled, Chanin added, because “hearing about their experience firsthand” is often the most helpful conversation of all.

Take, for example, the case study Williams provides of a family whose child was academically ambitious but somewhat reserved. The parents initially assumed that a secular independent school would be the best fit, and they worried that a Catholic school might feel overly rigid or unwelcoming because the family was not Catholic. “The open house changed their perspective,” Williams said.

Not only did the family receive direct, reassuring answers about how non-Catholic students participated in the school's religious life, but teachers explained how they supported students outside class, and the student guides spoke candidly about balancing demanding courses with athletics, clubs and service.

As for the college admissions front, Howe said parents should inquire as to how early college counseling begins, how much individual attention students re-

ceive and what support systems are in place when a student struggles academically or socially.

Along those lines, Williams noted that families should ask for context rather than being dazzled by a list of university logos. How many students applied to those institutions? Were they recruited athletes, legacy applicants or otherwise unusually situated? More importantly, how does the school support the full range of students — not only its most visible success stories?

Like all things in life, timing is everything. Like all things for New Yorkers and their bedroom community brethren, starting sooner than you think is necessary. For the Catholic high school search Chanin recommends beginning in the spring of seventh grade, “because the following fall fills up quickly with open houses, entrance exams and application deadlines.”

Entrance exams, you say? That's right: "Most Catholic high schools in New York City and Long Island use a single entrance exam, the Test for Admission Into Catholic High Schools, and this year's registration closes Oct. 28 with the test given in early November," Chanin said. "Because the registration fee sends scores to just three high schools, those choices deserve real thought, which is one more reason to visit early and narrow the list," she added.

Chanin further advised parents not to rule a school out based on the tuition listed online, since many offer financial aid, scholarships and sibling discounts you'll only learn about by asking.

Whatever you do, let your child be a part of the search from the outset. “Parents can compare reputations and course catalogs for hours, but it’s usually the student who walks out of an open house and says, ‘I could see myself there,’” she said. “That moment tells you more than any ranking.”

Students at Catholic schools can form relationships that last a lifetime.

OPEN HOUSE

Sunday, October 18, 2026 | 12:30 pm - 4:30 pm

26-20 Francis Lewis Blvd, Flushing, NY 11358

Come Experience Our New

Arts, Technology

& Athletics Center

RESERVE YOUR SPOT TODAY

holycrosshs.org

---

FOUNDED IN 1897, DOMINICAN ACADEMY IS THE PREMIER ALL-HONORS CATHOLIC SCHOOL FOR GIRLS IN NEW YORK STATE.

\- Located in an historic mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, D.A. is easily accessible by the 4/5/6, E, F, and N/Q/R trains.

\- A diverse community of 222 students join us from all over New York City, Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester, and abroad.

\- D.A. stands alone as the only all-honors high school for girls in New York, offering over 25 electives and 13 Advanced Placement Courses.

\- We are proud of our 100% graduation rate with each graduating class earning an average of \$25 million in college merit scholarships and grants.

\- Our unique Service Learning Program encourages students to engage in service and to understand the role of Faith in their lives.

• Over 35 clubs, including Campus Ministry, the Shakespeare Club, Ecology Club, Literary Journal, Mock Trial, and Pre-Med Society

\- Our expanded sports program includes the following varsity sports: basketball, cross country, soccer, softball, swimming, indoor and outdoor track, tennis, and volleyball.

\- We offer a well-rounded Performing Arts curriculum with required Drama, Music, and Dance classes.

---

THERE'S A PLACE FOR YOU AT OUR OPEN HOUSE

Saturday, October 17, 2026 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM

Wednesday, October 21, 2026 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM

www.DominicanAcademy.org | 44 East 68th Street New York, NY 10065 | 212-744-0195 | admissions@dominicanacademy.org

Monsignor McClancy

Memorial High School

2026 Fall Pre-Register

Open House Today!

Saturday, October 10th

9:00 A.M. - 12:00 P.M.

1:00 P.M. - 4:00 P.M.

MOUNT ST. MICHAEL ACADEMY ALL BOYS | GRADES 6-12 OPEN HOUSE

• 22-Acre Campus and Sports Complex

\- Newly Renovated STEM Labs

• Biomedical and Engineering tracks

\- Robotics and Gaming

\- \$2.3 Million awarded in scholarships annually to qualified Mount students.

\- Class of 2026 was awarded \$20+ Million in scholarships and merit awards and gained admission to over 500 prestigious colleges and universities across the county.

Scholarships and Financial Aid Available

Private Bus service throughout the Bronx, Manhattan, Mount Vernon and Yonkers

SCHEDULE A SPEND-A-DAY

and EXPERIENCE

THE MOUNT for yourself

TACHS CODE 114

REGISTER TODAY!!

Mount Saint Michael Academy

4300 Murdock Avenue | Bronx, NY 10466

www.mtstmichael.org

f 📷 X in 📷

WEDNESDAY

OCTOBER 14th

4PM-7PM

SATURDAY

OCTOBER 17th

11AM-2PM

For more information, contact: Thomas Fraher, Director of Admissions thomas.fraher@mtstmichael.org 718-515-6400 Ext.228

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OPEN HOUSE

LESSONS IN LIFE

These alums credit their classrooms with an enduring outlook on the world

By PERRI ORMONT

BLUMBERG

C

ATHOLIC schools

preach kindness,

faithfulness, devotion and service to

others in the classroom. These three

inspirational alumni prove they were listening.

---

Patrick Dowdell, Xavier HS

Patrick Dowdell '01 and his brother, James Dowdell '02, tragically lost their father, FDNY Lt. Kevin Dow-

dell, in the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. At the time, Patrick was a freshman at Iona College.

"Those first days were a blur of disbelief and uncertainty. I knew my father had gone to work, but I still held onto hope that somehow he would come home," he recalled. "I remember the way my community showed up for us, and the strength my mother showed us."

Patrick recounts going with James “to Ground Zero because there was nowhere else we wanted to be,” working alongside members of their dad’s firehouse, Rescue 4, searching and helping with the recovery effort. Kevin Dowdell was never found.

The experience redirected the course of Patrick's life. His father had encouraged him to attend West Point, and the two had been working on his application the weekend before 9/11.

"After he was killed, transferring to West Point became even more of a calling,” Patrick said. “It was something we had started together, and completing it felt like a way to honor him and carry forward the values he had instilled in me.”

He transferred to West Point the following academic year and later served as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Patrick said his father's life reflected the same ideals he later saw in military service, including courage, discipline and responsibility

for others. "He taught

me that when you have the ability to help, you don't sit on the sidelines, you show up."

This aligns with what Patrick learned during his time at Xavier HS, particularly being a “man for others,” said Patrick, who

Patrick will always remember the moment when he walked out of St. Patrick's Cathedral after graduating and seeing the Atlas statue holding the world on his shoulders, an image that will forever represent “the idea that you can accomplish anything if you put your mind to it and are willing to put in the hard work.”

Both brothers remain committed to keeping their father's story alive through their work with the 9/11 Memorial & Museum and are

is now a regional sales director in Queens. “Our education, talents and opportunities are not only for personal achievement, they create a responsibility to serve, lead and help others when you can.”

Courtesy Dowdell family

Cifarelli, the CEO of ANC, a sports entertainment agency, in Purchase, NY, said the friendships he forged at Iona Prep in New Rochelle, NY, are some of his closest.

“Those friendships also led me to the most important person in my life. I met my wife through the circle of friends I built at Iona Prep, so in a very real way, the

Patrick Dowdell, whose firefighter father died on 9/11, volunteered at Ground Zero.

---

Jerome N. Cifarelli, Iona Preparatory Upper School

"Iona taught me how to treat people," said Cifarelli '06. "It didn't matter where you came from or what your background was; everyone was part of the same brotherhood."

Kaelin Harriott, Cristo Rey Brooklyn HS

Harriott, '25, entered high school with the dream of becoming a doctor. At Cristo Rey Brooklyn, she actually began working toward that dream before graduating.

“Once a Gael, always a Gael,” he said.

featured in the museum's 25th anniversary exhibit, “In Their Honor: 25 Years of 9/11-Inspired Service.”

sported Iona Prep's maroon and gold colors playing hockey and golf. Now, he applies the lessons from the field and the classroom to his high-octane career.

were instilled in him at the school: embrace challenges and find solutions, value results and go the extra mile, and communicate directly.

Through giving back to the community as a guest lecturer, consultant and benefactor, Cifarelli hopes that the next generation of alums sees that the commitment, grit and character they're building now will carry them far.

One day, during her second year working at Brooklyn Methodist, she called a patient in with a customary smile on her

Originally, the company was his father's, but Cifarelli expanded it and started his own company, C10 Me-

40-Under-40 list in 2025, Cifarelli

school shaped not just who I am but the family I have today," said Cifarelli.

KAELIN HARRIOTT

Through the school's Corporate Work Study Program, Harriott, who is now a member of the class of 2029 at University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., worked at New York-Presbyterian Brooklyn Methodist Hospital. There, she impressed her supervisors so much, she took on increased responsibilities like helping with patient intake and shadowing neurologists and cardiologists on their rounds.

Decades before he was inducted into the Iona Preparatory Hall of Fame last spring, or was named to the Sports Business Journal's

“In dark times, she taught me that I can do all of the things that I put my mind to,” said Harriott. “I hope to continuously live the ever-evolving life that she so kindly pushed me toward.”

dia, in 2021. His new venture was so successful that it soon acquired ANC.

face. As she sat the patient down, they said “you seem like this was made for you.” In that interaction, everything clicked for the aspiring physician: “I truly felt like the career path I was on was made for me,” said Harriott, who hopes to one day become a neurosurgeon.

Of course, she still had to keep up with all her traditional high school obligations, something she did exemplarily, making the honor roll every semester and serving as volleyball team captain her senior year.

One name will forever come to mind for Harriott: Dee-Ana Mitchell, her volleyball coach for three of the four years of her high school career.

Courtesy Iona Preparatory School

When Cifarelli speaks to Iona Prep students as a guest lecturer, he stresses that “leadership isn’t about a title.” Instead, he maintains that the values he built his company on are ones that

IONA PREPARED FOR HIGH EXPECTATIONS.

GET AN EARLY START ON EXCELLENCE.

You want more for your son—more brotherhood, more inspiration, more opportunity. From pre-kindergarten through high school, give him an education that sets higher expectations. INVEST in your son, INSPIRE his learning, and IGNITE his future with a seamless transition from Lower to Upper School—a trusted springboard to college and beyond. Our graduates earn academic scholarships and athletic commitments at rates 4× and 2× the national average, respectively.

OPEN HOUSE

Upper School | Grades 9-12

Sun, Oct. 18, 12-3 pm

Thu, Oct. 22, 6-8 pm

Lower School | Grades PK-8

Wed, Oct. 21, 6-8 pm

SCAN THE QR CODE TO RSVP NOW TO ONE OF OUR UPCOMING OPEN HOUSE EVENTS.

Schedule your Parent Tour today!

Gael-for-a-Day student experiences start in October.

For more information, email Admissions@lonaPrep.org or call (914) 600-6154.

#IONAPREPared f X @ in ▶

Open House Sat. Oct. 17

9:00am-12:00pm

SAINT ANTHONY'S HIGH SCHOOL

FRANCISCAN BROTHERS

275 WOLF HILL ROAD • SOUTH HUNTINGTON, NEW YORK 11747

631.271.2020 EXT. 226 • WWW.STANTHONYSHS.ORG

ADMISSIONS@STANTHONYSHS.ORG • @STANTHONYSHS

CELEBRATING 93 YEARS OF FRANCISCAN ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE ON LONG ISLAND FOR STUDENTS IN GRADES 9-12

COME SEE EPIPHANY!

Value centered education for Age 2 - Grade 8 that inspires academic success!

90% NYS TEST PROFICIENCY

ELA and Math, 4 Years in a Row!

SMALL CLASSES

Assistant Teachers through Grade 4

60+ AFTER SCHOOL ACTIVITIES & SPORTS Something for Every Student!

---

Open House Dates 2027-2028 ADMISSION

212-473-4128

Age 2 - PreK: EARLY CHILDHOOD

November 12th at 6:00 PM

152 East 29th Street, NYC 10016

Grades 4-8: UPPER SCHOOL

November 19th at 6:00 PM

141 East 28 $^{th}$ Street, NYC 10016

www.theepiphanyschool.org/admissions

Grades K-3: LOWER SCHOOL

November 5th at 6:00 PM

234 East 22 $^{nd}$ Street, NYC 10010

Age 2 - Grade 8: ALL GRADES

December 2nd at 6:00 PM

Zoom presentation about the full Epiphany School experience!

FORDHAM PREPARATORY SCHOOL

Faith · Scholarship · Service theepiphanyschool

Tour the school

Meet teachers & parents.

Learn about programs.

Ask questions.

The PREP for your FUTURE

---

FALL OPEN HOUSE

Thursday, October 15th | 6PM

Saturday, October 31st | 11AM

Go to fordhamprep.org/visit to apply

CARDINAL HAYES HIGH SCHOOL

Celebrating 85 $^{th}$ Years of Faith, Brotherhood, and Excellence

---

Fall Open Houses

Join us for an evening of faith, academics, and community!

Thursday, October 15, 2026

Thursday, October 29, 2026

Time: 6:00–8:00 PM

---

JOIN US FOR:

Guided tours

√ Meet Faculty & Students

√ Academic & Athletic Programs

√ Clubs & Extracurricular activites

√ Admissions & financial aid information

Refreshments

Contact the Admissions Team:

(718) 292-6100 x192

admissions@cardinalhayes.org

www.cardinalhayes.org

Rooted in Faith. Committed to Excellence. Prepared for The Future.

ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE

FAITH & CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

COMPETITIVE ATHLETICS

ST. EDMUND

PREP

CREATIVITY & INNOVATION

COMPASSIONATE, SERVANT LEADERSHIP

OPEN HOUSES

Guided Tours for 6th, 7th, and 8th Grade Families

Saturday, October 24, 2026

10:00am - 12:00pm

Thursday, November 5, 2026

6:30pm - 8:30pm

Plan your visit at stedmundprep.org/openhouse

SCAN ME!

2474 Ocean Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11229 📋 admissions@stedmundprep.org 🌐 www.stedmundprep.org 📍 718-743-6100

ST. JOHN'S PREPARATORY

DISCOVER THE

St. John's Prep DIFFERENCE

FAITH SCHOLARSHIP SERVICE LEADERSHIP

SCHOLARSHIP EXAM

SATURDAY,

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9:00 AM

OPEN

HOUSE

SATURDAY,

OCTOBER 17TH

— 11:00 AM - 3:30 PM —

St. John's PREPARATORY SCHOOL

Discover Our Exceptional Academic Programs

AND OUR

EXCLUSIVE

BACCALAUREATE PROGRAM

with St. John's University

Open House

Saturday, October 17 | 11am- 3pm

Find Your Place.

Discover Your Future.

saintvincentferrer.com

212-535-4680

ST. RAYMOND HIGH SCHOOL FOR BOYS

OPEN HOUSE SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18, 2026 11 AM - 2 PM

NEW ATHLETIC FITNESS CENTER

NEW ESPORTS CENTER

College Preparatory Curriculum

Honors Program

100% College Acceptances

Individualized Course of Study

Advanced Placement Courses

State of the Art Technology

Three New Modern Science Labs

Advanced Computer Lab

for Technology Courses

College Counseling

Championship Athletic Teams

Intramural Sports

Extracurricular Clubs & Activities

Community Service Program

St. Raymond Cadet Core Leadership

Development Program

Indoor Batting Cages

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CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OPEN HOUSE

Courtesy Iona Prep

Courtesy Clyde Cole, Principal & CAO

Courtesy Immaculate Heart Academy

ADVANCED LEVEL LEARNING

Catholic

schools

are going

all-in on

AP classes

By PERRI ORMONT

BLUMBERG

W

ANT your child to quote Virgil's Aeneid for eternity, or be called

a calculus whiz by future cubicle mates? Acing an AP exam can be their ticket. (I'm still quoting "Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit" nearly 20 years later.)

For tristate parents seeking a rigorous AP education, Catholic schools have emerged as a strong selection, with students securing many of those coveted 4s and 5s. Here's a lay of the land at six Catholic high schools in and around NYC.

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Cristo Rey Brooklyn HS, East Flatbush

By the time students graduate from Cristo Rey Brooklyn, they will all have taken at least four AP courses — that's the equivalent of an entire college semester. (Parents footing the bill, take note.) In 2025, Cristo Rey Brooklyn was placed on the 2025 AP Silver Honor Roll by the College

Board, and this academic year eight AP courses are on offer, including four debuts for the school: AP English literature and composition, AP seminar (for grade 12 theology), AP African American studies and AP Spanish language and culture.

Teacher and history department chair Tyanna Harris has taught AP human geography for years at CRB and is teaching AP African American studies for the first time this year.

"Offering AP African

American studies for the first time is amazing because it combines a topic of great interest for our student population with the rigors of a college course," said Harris.

This year, one of her students will be senior Donovan Ortega, who is also taking calculus AB, English literature and seminar.

“Taking four college [level] courses at the same time in my final year of high school means I will be as prepared as possible for my next step,” said Ortega. “With my CRB work study job, my role as manager of the soccer team and these challenging classes, I am really developing my organizational skills.”

At Immaculate Heart Academy (clockwise from left), almost all students take at least one AP course. Iona Prep AP students boast impressive scores, while Cristo Rey Brooklyn made the 2025 AP Silver Honor Roll.

Iona Preparatory Upper School, New Rochelle, NY

In Westchester, Iona Prep, which runs from PK-12, is welcoming three new classes to its upper school's college-preparatory curriculum for the current school year: AP African American studies, AP business with personal finance and AP precalculus.

This takes the school's AP program up to 21 courses, at an institution in which $90\%$ of its 2026 AP scores were 3 or higher, and more than $65\%$ were 4 or higher. Students also improved their performance in 10 of the 17 AP subjects tested last spring.

Principal Anthony Casella says the school isn't simply throwing more AP classes at students and hoping for the best.

For example, “in mathematics, our department chair, Patricia Muldoon, introduced additional full-length, timed AP practice opportunities on weekends so students could experience the pace and endurance required on the actual exam,” said Casella, noting the science department had previously used a similar approach.

Immaculate Heart Academy, Washington, NJ

Over in Bergen County, the AP menu at the all-girls

See CLASSES on Page 52

Monday, November 2

Tuesday, November 17

Friday, December 11

Friday, January 29

Pre-registration required,

scan for more info!

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SF

Saturday, October 17 $^{th}$ 11 AM - 3 PM

Registration Required.

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ST. FRANCIS PREPARATORY SCHOOL

6100 Francis Lewis Blvd. Fresh Meadows, NY 11365 • (718) 423-8810 www.SFPonline.org

#SFP4ever in f

RANKED

#1 CATHOLIC SCHOOL

IN BERGEN COUNTY

ACADEMY

of the

HOLY ANGELS

#1 ALL-GIRLS SCHOOL

IN BERGEN COUNTY

FOUNDED 1879

Open House | Wednesday, November 18th | 5:30 - 7PM

Demarest, NJ | (201)768-7822 | holyangels.org/visit

---

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK DIRECTORY

INTERESTED IN ADMISSION AS A 9TH GRADER OR TRANSFER STUDENT? CONTACT MADELEINE METZLER, DIR. OF ADMISSIONS, AT 212.744.0195, EXT. 131 OR ADMISSIONS@DOMINICANACADEMY.ORG

Dominican Academy

Catholic College Preparatory School for Girls

\- During this global health crisis, D.A. remains committed to excellence in education and the safety of all members of our community. Students always receive live instruction 5 days a week as part of our Distance Learning Program or Hybrid Learning Model.

\- Located in an historic mansion on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, D.A. is easily accessible by the 4/5/6, E. F. and N/Q/R trains.

DOMINICAN ACADEMY HAS BEEN RECOGNIZED TWICE AS A BLUE RIBBON SCHOOL OF EXCELLENCE BY THE U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND IS RANKED THE #3 CATHOLIC GIRLS HIGH SCHOOL IN NEW YORK FOR 2020-2021!

• A diverse community of 250 students come from all 5 boroughs of New York City, Connecticut, Long Island, New Jersey, Westchester, and abroad.

• D.A. stands alone as the only all-honors high school for girls in New York, offering 20+ electives and 15+ Advanced Placement courses.

• We are proud of our 100% graduation rate, with graduates in our Class of 2020 averaging over \$395,000 each in merit scholarships and grants.

\- Student-Faculty ratio of 8:1, with $90\%$ of faculty holding at least one advanced degree

• Our unique Service Learning Program encourages students to engage in service and to understand the role of Faith in their lives.
• $30+$ clubs and 8 Varsity teams: Basketball, Cross Country, Soccer, Softball, Swimming, Indoor and Outdoor Track, and Volleyball.
• A well-rounded Performing Arts curriculum with required Drama, Music, and Dance classes

• 100% Graduation & College Acceptance Rates
• 50+ Clubs & Activities and 30+ Sport Teams
• \$40+ million earned in college scholarships by class of 2020
• 20+ AP and College Level Courses

---

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK DIRECTORY

Believe.

Immaculate Conception School

718.585.4843

ST

ATHANASIUS

SCHOOL

718.542.5161

MT. CARMEL-HOLY ROSARY SCHOOL

212.876.7555

At Partnership Schools, we believe all children are made for excellence. We believe each young person is a gift. And we take pride in our approach to unlocking the gifts God has given them.

St. Mark

THE

EVANGELIST

SCHOOL

212.283.4848

Partnership Schools www.partnershipnyc.org/believe

SCB ST. CHARLES BORROMEO

212.368.6666

OLQA Our Lady Queen of Angels School 212.722.9277

NEW YORK POST

CATHOLIC SCHOOLS WEEK DIRECTORY JANUARY 28, 2027

Zeta

CHARTER

SCHOOLS

Excellent Education.

---

Outstanding Results.

Zeta Charter Schools offer a world-class public education for students across New York City. From pre-K through high school, students are challenged to excel, supported by caring adults, and inspired to discover who they can become. In joyful classrooms and state-of-the-art facilities, students build confidence and skills through rigorous academics and expert-led Specialty programs.

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CATHOLIC SCHOOLS OPEN HOUSE

Courtesy Christina Buehler

Courtesy La Salle Academy

Students at La Salle Academy excel at AP calculus.

HEAD START

---

From CLASSES on Page 48

Immaculate Heart Academy is impressive, with 27 courses ranging from art history and economics to English literature and composition and studio art.

Even better, students are taking advantage of the offerings, with 91% of seniors enrolled in at least one AP course this school year. For the 2025-2026 school year, of 610 total AP exams taken in 23 subject areas, 86% of the scores were 3 or higher.

"Our inspiring students continue to reach new heights, as witnessed by members of the class of

2026 who received more than \$50 million in scholarship awards and are now attending some of the most prestigious colleges in the nation," said AnneMarie Vaughn, director of communications and marketing.

---

St. Anthony's HS, South Huntington, NY

St. Anthony's HS on Long Island offers a whopping 32 AP courses, with its coed students able to begin college-level classes as early as freshman year.

Its newest AP course, introduced this school year, is AP physics C: electricity & magnetism, which came about after student Alexandra St. George, class of '27, rallied classmates and teamed up with a physics teacher to convince administrators to bring the class to fruition.

Other recent additions to the AP roster include African American studies and AP seminar and AP research (two yearlong, interdisciplinary courses that make up the AP capstone diploma program), introduced in 2025 and 2023, respectively.

Overall, academic dean Paul Washington is thrilled with the evolution of AP coursework.

At St. Anthony's, students can start AP classes as freshmen.

“Many of our faculty at St. Anthony’s come from a generation where AP exams were reserved strictly for the ‘ultra-elite,’ often limited to a single section per subject with intense barriers to entry,” reflected Washington. “It is incredibly gratifying to see how much that landscape has shifted — both in the expansion of our AP offerings and in the growing percentage of our student body motivated to take on college-level work.”

---

La Salle Academy, East Village

“Five 5s. One 4. Six students. That’s what our AP calculus class did last year — and I think it tells you something very special about what is happening at La Salle Academy in Manhattan,” said Candace D. Hammonds, president of the all-boys school in the East Village.

Along with AP calculus, students have access to five more AP courses for 2026–2027: AP Spanish, AP English, AP US history, AP government and politics and AP environmental science.

Yvette Masullo, who teaches AP calculus, felt particularly proud of this achievement, especially having taught several of the young men for three of their four years at La Salle. "The scores speak volumes, but I'm most proud of the work the students put in to earn them," she said.

Joseph Mantilla, class of 2026, praised Masullo for making sure the AP calculus class was not just learning the material, but practicing it and understanding it.

"In the end, all of that work paid off — I earned a

5 on the AP exam, and I feel much more prepared for the kind of work I'll see in college," added Mantilla, now a freshman at City College of New York.

---

Xavier HS, Union Square

For those joining the “Sons of Xavier” cohort, the all-boys high school offers 19 AP classes at its Union Square campus.

The institution has also partnered with the Arrupe Virtual Learning Institute to provide several senior electives, including AP macroeconomics, AP microeconomics and AP psychology.

Mary-Grace Gannon, the AP English language and composition teacher, is helping students build confidence as readers, thinkers and writers daily.

“Reading their work as budding writers learning to leave the student voice and style behind and step into writing like the writers they want to be — that’s the joy of teaching English,” said Gannon.

One of Gannon's former students, Michael Kom-mey, class of '27, previously believed a completed version of his work was also a complete expression of an idea, before “Ms. Gannon put me back on the page again and again.”

Each time she did this, Kommey discovered ideas or aspects of those ideas that he had previously overlooked.

“Initially it was uncomfortable for me to revise; however, it is in that uncomfortable area of the revision process that I became a better writer,” he added.

That said, the school hasn't lost sight of the overarching goal of a high school education. “We want our students to leave Xavier well prepared academically, but also ready for the independence that comes next,” said Edward Young, the interim headmaster. “College admission certainly matters. What they are prepared to do once they get there, though, and the kind of person they are becoming, matters even more.”

Courtesy Xavier High School

Xavier HS offers a choice of 19 AP classes.

AECISCHOOLS.ORG

TWO HIGH SCHOOLS ACCEPTING APPLICATIONS FOR

FALL 2021! APPLY NOW!

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74 W. 124th Street

HVA East

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HVA is a tuition-free K-12 charter school with no fee to apply.

HARLEM VILLAGE ACADEMIES

Don't Miss the New York Post's Charter Schools Directory

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Coming March 25, 2027!

To advertise your school, please contact DAVID ROSENTHAL at drosenthal@nypost.com

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Accepting Applications (K Through 8th grade) for 2027-2028 School Year

Aceptando Aplicaciones(K asta 8)

para el ano escolar 2027-2028

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Apply Now!

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Extended School Day

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Guidance Counselor for Each Grade

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Sirviendo a la costa de Staten Island

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Programa de computadoras uno a uno

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Cursos Regentes de Estudiantes por docente

Programas Athleticos, Programas extracurriculares

XAVIER

---

OPEN HOUSE

Saturday, October 17, 2026 • 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

Young men in sixth, seventh, and eighth grades and their families are invited to explore our campus and meet members of the Xavier community.

Register at xavierhs.org/admissions/inquire or by scanning the QR code below.

POSTOPINION

NYC AI over-byte

Council's tech crusade is absurd

Getty Images

Bot time: Ex-Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon at City Hall.

IF artificial intelligence really threatens to wipe out humanity, is the New York City Council going to be what saves us?

On Monday, Jacob Coxon, the former Anthropic researcher, continued his alarmism tour — minus the Harry Potter glasses — before a rare “Committee of the Whole” at City Hall, warning that AI could escape human control and kill us all. He ended his evening at the “Daily Show” with Jon Stewart, as one does.

“We do not know how to control any AI system yet,” Coxon told the council. “We don’t understand its drives or why it does the things it does.

“We’re approaching the point at which the AI systems will be capable of improving themselves,” he added. “On the current path, I think it is more likely than not that humanity loses control to these AIs and it could end in human extinction.”

The event was organized by Speaker Julie Menin, who said representatives from Google, OpenAI and Anthropic agreed to participate only after the council threatened subpoenas.

For starters, I have serious

questions about Coxon's "Chicken Little" tour writ large — not least how a 27-year-old with almost no social media presence managed to post AI "could kill us all by the end of the decade" and have it reach more than 170 million views.

New reports suggest a firm with ties to prominent AI doomers were booking interviews for him, which would explain how he managed to do interviews with the most prominent and prestigious outlets and prime-time shows.

But put all that aside. Even if you agree with Coxon about reining in artificial intelligence, it's quite a leap from believing AI needs safeguards to believing those safeguards should be designed by New York's City Hall — by officials who still haven't figured out how to get children reading at grade level or keep people from being stabbed on the subway.

Yet Menin has said she wants to be the first in the nation to introduce serious restrictions — and that she will set the lead for

Washington to follow. Not sure how she can do better than the likes of David Sacks and Marc Andreessen advising President Trump on these matters, but here we are.

As part of her effort, the council is considering a slate of 10 bills that would stop the Great

Catastrophe of AI.

The proposals range from holding chatbot providers liable for injuries they cause even when they take every reasonable precaution, to rewarding people who report AI violations with a share of the proceeds recovered — up to half if the city authorizes them to pursue enforcement. In another proposal, City Hall would dictate hourly reminders that a chatbot isn't human.

While you'd be hard pressed to show how these laws benefit anyone except perhaps the City Council's budget, they would indeed harm innovation.

Technology companies have been vocal that a patchwork of AI laws across myriad states and countries are particularly burdensome for startups that can't afford massive compliance departments. That's why Trump's executive order to make AI policy a national issue has been so popular with those in tech.

New York is already expensive and heavily regulated. Why give an ambitious entrepreneur one more reason to launch somewhere else? The largest companies can hire more lawyers but smaller competitors often cannot.

New York would also risk losing the massive real estate footprint these companies are bringing to the city — which conveniently has arrived as many other tech companies have been reducing their presence. Anthropic alone leased the entire 466,000-square-foot building at 330 Hudson St., while Ramp expanded to nearly 300,000 square feet and Harvey AI recently doubled its space to 185,000 square feet.

AI companies leased about 1.7 million square feet in Manhattan in the first half of 2026, according to CompStak and Savills research, and their share of new leasing has jumped from less than 1% in 2020 to nearly 10% — precisely the kind of business the commercial real estate sector needs.

All this makes clear that, contrary to what politicians like Menin think, the better part of valor when it comes to AI regulation is restraint. Don't make it even harder for AI companies to benefit New York.

And if you can't keep the streets clean, why should anyone trust you to design guardrails for some of the most advanced technology ever built? For now, start with the garbage.

Imoynihan@nypost.com

THE WEEK'S BEST OF The Babylon Bee

Headlines from America's satirical news source, babylonbee.com

'BOOOOO!' Shouts Tucker Carlson At The TV As He Watches Indiana Jones Defeat The Nazis

“They both want the same thing! They both want the grail!” Carlson said, laughing uncontrollably. “They should be working together!”

Authorities Now Believe FlyDubai Copilot Radicalized By Watching Ms. Rachel Videos

“This is why stopping terrorism has become so much harder in the modern age. No longer are these extremists traveling to Afghanistan and becoming indoctrinated in person. Today, all they need is a Netflix subscription and the ability to sit through thirty minutes of Ms. Rachel.”

Letitia James

Indicts

Trump In

Cornell Case

“Though he was not present at the time of the incident, has no connection to Cornell University, and was not named by any-

one involved, I'm absolutely sure he's the one behind all of it. Justice will be served. As long as it's against Trump."

Prison officials, who ordered the medical interventions that are keeping her alive, are baffled as to how they could execute the vulnerable death row inmate now.

America's oldest continuously published daily newspaper

Celebrating Terror

It's nightmarishly grotesque, and horribly revealing, that crowds will gather in New York and other cities on the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 atrocities to celebrate the mass slaughter of Israelis by the “Islamic Resistance Movement,” aka Hamas.

Not to protest Israel's actions before, during or since the Gaza war, but to cheer the 6,000 or so who invaded the Jewish state to kill, rape and kidnap civilian kibbutzim and dance-festival ravers — and filmed it all to share with their victims' families and the world.

Why else gather on this day, the high mark for the terrorists and their cause? The organizers, including the “youth section” of Mayor Mamdani’s beloved Democratic Socialists of America, say it’s because the date “marks three years since resistance against imperialism changed the fate of our world forever.”

Yet the “resistance” that day was purely a matter of terrorizing innocents, and Hamas’ least-shameful actions since amount to nothing but losing to the Israeli forces that moved into Gaza to recover the hostages and smash the terror infrastructure.

The only imperialism to be set back here is the one run out of Tehran, whose pawns in Gaza and Lebanon have been eviscerated and its catspaw in Syria removed entirely. But the rally-goers mourn all that; it's the Jew-killing they dig on.

In a sane city these death cultists would face condemnation from even center-left Democrats, the ones who used to retain a shred of principle and pretense of respectability. But they flushed away those last scraps of decency as the party's hard left won some primaries.

Hence the insistence, against all evidence, on “genocide.” Western elites laud and applaud “NAZA” — a sham documentary that smears the IDF’s conduct of the war — oblivious to the multiple vigorous, scrupulous debunkings of its anonymous, unsourced and fact-free claims.

The party elite is embracing Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Senate candidate who adamantly refuses to denounce Hamas or the Iranian regime's slaughter of tens of thousands of democratic protesters. To “combat antisemitism,” Mamdani is funneling public money to the pro-Hamas Council on American-Islamic Relations. Yes, the mayor condemns Oct. 7 as a “war crime” — yet that’s still pro-Hamas spin: The attacks breached the peace and caused the ensuing war.

It's simply a celebration of terror on New York's streets on Wednesday — and anyone who tries to explain away that obvious truth is siding with the genocidal butchers. Opposing the death cult is a pretty simple test of conscience; sad to see how many fail it.

Gavin's Self-Damning Smear

California Democrats just hit a damning new low, bewailing how President Trump supposedly invited Iran to nuke Los Angeles and San Diego.

As LA Mayor Karen Bass and others chimed in, Gov. Gavin Newsom posted: "The President is advocating for an attack on 10+ million U.S. residents in two of America's largest cities."

He added: “This is not normal. None of this is” — when in fact it’s an all too normal case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

The president didn't even make some tasteless joke — it's a straight-up smear.

Here's what Trump said at Monday night's Nebraska rally: "You want to see a tremendous victory [in Iran], because it verifies all the things we did."

And the gas-price rise “is just artificial, it’s a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That's — this is a very small price to pay, and it's gonna be over with very soon."

Sloppy, maybe, as he spoke off the cuff, jut no way was he inviting Iran to attack those cities, nor even joking about it.

He was arguing that the spike in gas prices is a small price to pay against the terrible cost of Iran being able to nuke a US city.

Newsom chose to just make things up — because Democrats (and the media) are still so Trump-deranged that lies work.

Don't engage the argument, just twist it into a smear of the guy making it: That's how the country can expect Dems to use whatever power they win next month.

Brad the Heroic ... Micro-Manager

Ever the pandering pol, Manhattan Borough President Brad Hoylman-Sigal demands a “beloved” cineplex be saved.

He's the latest local elected to come out against NYU Langone Health's plan to acquire the massive Second Avenue site, which also holds a Fairway supermarket.

that YIMBYs supposedly support.

One-time “Yes, in my back yard” crusader Hoylman-Sigal vowed to “not approve any prospective rezoning of the Kips Bay AMC 15 site without the inclusion of a cinema.”

The nabe's future, he insists, “must include a movie theater and grocery store.” But, apparently, no hospital. Or the new housing

"Of all the public benefits you could demand and you picked . . . a movie theater ???" tweeted one wag.

It's a cynical power play: Hoylman is abusing his powers to shake down NYU Langone and the landlord and pander to NIMBY locals terrified of a little extra traffic from a world-class medical center.

Or put it another way: Brad's happy to blow up hundreds of jobs and desperately needed apartments just to keep popcorn popping. This is what happens when theater kids win public office.

letters@nypost.com

Terrorist-Loving Teacher: Kick Him Out of Class

THE ISSUE: NYC public-school teacher Damien Neva praising a Hamas Oct. 7 leader in a Signal group chat.

\- How Damien Neva was approved to teach in PS77 raises serious questions (“Devil in the classroom,” Oct. 5).

The Department of Education and the school's principal failed to assess his suitability to teach impressionable kids in public school.

Did he plan to teach both sides of the Gaza and Hamas tragedy? Did he have a lesson plan? Did he have suitable references?

Anyone who praises a cruel terrorist like Yahya al-Sinwar could never conduct a fair and objective discussion with students about differing points of view.

---

Mel Young West Dover, Vt.

\- Paging Education Secretary Linda McMahon — isn't it your job to fix this mess?

If she was hired to clean up and root out all the extremism being taught in schools across the United States, then she's AWOL. Nothing is ever done to correct this kind of stuff. Can someone alert the Education

Department to please fix our schools?

And here's a thought: Could the voters stop voting for the people who allow this to continue? Sara Gershon Syosset

\- So much for New York City schools teaching kids “reading, ’riting and ’rithmetic.”

With radical teachers like Damien Neva and his ilk, today's curriculum is more about “rioting, resistance and racism.”

Thomas De Julio

Delray Beach, Fla.

\- This slimeball misanthrope found a spot in New York City's educational system. Duh! I'm sure there are many more just like him because we know the stench of his behavior and those in the universities are quite common.

This Neva character has the audacity to laud a guy who would behead him in a New York second.

As for his tenure as a teacher that we as taxpayers pay for, it's time to send this fetid cretin packing. Students need fundamentals, not hateful rhetoric from some loser.

Kevin Judge

Naples, Fla.

●Lessons that should be learned: Hamas sympathizers should not be piloting planes, nor should they be teaching our children. The consequences could lead to death, something terrorists specialize in. Donathan Salkaln

in. Donathan Salkaln

Manhattan

● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●

Truly Twisted Turn to Pike Case

THE ISSUE: Murderer Christa Pike receiving lifesaving care after surviving two failed execution attempts.

\- Because her execution failed, Christa Pike was severely injured and is now in the hospital in intensive care, hanging on by a thread for dear life (“Take her off death row: att’y,” Oct. 6).

Instead of bringing this chilling episode to an overdue end by medicating her and permitting her to die a comfortable death, doctors are doing their best to save her.

I imagine Tennessee wants her saved so that it can kill her properly. Is this a great country or what? Bob Heier

Bob Heier

Estero, Fla.

\- A Tennessee inmate was hospitalized after a botched execution and is now being widely portrayed sympathetically. This is cruel and unusual punishment to the victim's family, who anguish endlessly while the killer is portrayed as a victim.

If the death penalty were eliminated, states could quit wasting taxpayers' time and money. Killers would not be guaranteed costly protection and privileges for decades; they would be thrown into the general prison population and live the rest of their lives in fear of psychos worse than they are.

Clyde Waltermate

Raytown, Mo.

\- This is the Democrats' twisted beliefs in action: A botched abortion? Leave the baby on a table to die. A botched execution? Rush to save the murderer's life.

K.J. Jones, Bear, Del.

E-MAIL: letters@nypost.com or WRITE to The Editor, The New York Post, 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036. Include name, address and daytime phone number. No unverifiable letters will be published. The Post reserves the right to edit all letters.

The New York Post is published by N.Y.P. Holdings Inc., 1211 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10036. Lachlan Murdoch, Chair; Rupert Murdoch, Chairman Emeritus; Sean M. Giancola, Publisher; Keith Poole, Editor-in-Chief; Stephen Lynch, Print EIC; Mark Cunningham, Editorial Page Editor.

Killing's Never Pretty

AFTER Tennessee unsuccessfully tried to execute Christa Pike last week, an ambulance whisked her to a Nashville hospital, where the condemned murderer became a patient in urgent need of lifesaving care. Should Pike recover from two botched administrations of pentobarbital, which left her unconscious and unable to breathe on her own, she might travel that road in reverse after she is well enough to be killed.

The bizarre episode illustrates the perverse consequences of trying to disguise the brutal reality of capital punishment by dressing it in medical garb. Although most Americans say murderers like Pike should be executed, the method they prefer suggests they're squeamish about admitting what that entails.

Last year, Gallup put support for the death penalty at 52%, 28 percentage points lower than the peak recorded in 1994. According to several surveys, Americans overwhelmingly view lethal injection, first adopted by Oklahoma in 1977, as “the most humane” method of execution, preferring it to firing squads, hanging, the electric chair and the gas chamber.

The Supreme Court embraced that view in 2008, when it upheld Kentucky's three-drug execution method, which critics portrayed as iffy and needlessly complicated. At that point, three dozen states had adopted lethal injection, which Chief Justice John Roberts portrayed as the result of “an earnest desire to provide for a progressively more humane manner of death.”

As Roberts saw it, lethal injection was “more humane” than “the firing squad, hanging, the electric chair and the gas chamber.” But while lethal injection might look less ugly than those older methods, appearances can be deceptive.

As Fordham University law professor Deborah Denno noted a few months before that decision, execution methods that are less painful to watch may not be less painful to experience. “To me,” she told The New York Times, “the firing squad is the most humane,” although it is “perceived to be the most brutal.”

Since then, most death-penalty

states have shifted to a single-drug protocol, typically involving a lethal dose of pentobarbital. But as the attempted execution of Pike shows, that change has not eliminated the challenge of finding a usable vein and making sure the drug enters the bloodstream rather than surrounding tissue — a task that can be complicated by preexisting medical conditions.

Pike's aborted lethal injection was the second such failure in Tennessee this year, and it prompted Gov. Bill Lee to suspend executions until he can clarify exactly what went wrong. But last week's "tragedy" (as Lee described it) was just the latest example of a problem that goes back more than 40 years: prolonged lethal injections featuring disturbing signs of the needless suffering that the method is supposed to avoid.

Lethal injection drugs, which are difficult to source because pharmaceutical companies are loath to supply them, also have proven to be exorbitantly expensive, costing as much as \$300,000 for each dose of pentobarbital. And since the drug degrades relatively quickly, much of that money may be wasted when pentobarbital goes unused for longer than its 90-day shelf life.

Largely for those reasons, legislators are reconsidering the virtues of firing squads, which five states now allow in at least some circumstances. Condemned killers also see an advantage — last year in South Carolina, three prisoners chose the firing squad over lethal injection.

It's not hard to see why: Reviewing cases from 1890 through 2010, the Death Penalty Information Center found that lethal injection had the highest rate of botched executions, about $7\%$ , compared to $5\%$ for lethal gas, $3\%$ for hanging and $2\%$ for electrocution. The rate for firing squads was $0\%$ .

Such evidence underlines a point that states overlooked in their rush to embrace lethal injection: Prettifying executions does not necessarily make them quicker or more reliable. The quest for “more humane” execution methods, ostensibly an effort to minimize the discomfort of condemned criminals, actually aims to relieve the public’s discomfort with killing people in cold blood.

Cheers for Oct. 7: Now We Know

THE attacks of Oct. 7, 2023, unfurled 5,678 miles from America's shores; they impacted just a handful of American citizens. Yet they may prove to be, in retrospect, one of the more significant events in our nation's recent history: That's the day when many Americans woke up and realized, to our absolute horror, that we were living in a very different country than the one we had imagined.

Before Israelis could even bury their 1,200 dead or attempt to rescue 240 hostages, thousands of our fellow Americans took to the streets — not to mourn the victims, but to cheer for their executioners. On college campuses, students gleefully waved the banners of Hamas and Hezbollah and took pleasure in pummeling and harassing their Jewish classmates.

In print and on the air, pundits indulged in preposterous conspiracy theo-

In place a lot of the stars, patents and

ries. And if we sought escape, we

too often found our favorite actors

or rock stars wallowing in bloodlust

— sporting, for example, a red-

hand pin to honor a Palestinian

mob that lynched two Israelis in

Ramallah in 2000.

Daily life began to feel like that terrifying scene, early on in every zombie movie, when the folks who used to be friends and neighbors are infected by some brain-rotting virus that turns them all into ghouls. It was a tough reckoning.

In the three years since, as Americans of good will have tried to make sense of the torrent of Jew hatred suddenly flowing around us, we've had to grapple with two devastating truths. The first was that there was nothing sudden or spontaneous about this explosion of hate.

Our institutions of higher education, we now realized, spent the last three decades doing away with the dispassionate analysis of observable reality — the better to engage in-

---

LIEL LEIBOVITZ

It's the same logic terrorists have applied from time immemorial.

And it's been frightening to find out how many of our fellow citizens, on the left and on the right alike, could regard this profoundly un-American attitude as politically advantageous and culturally chic. They've been lending their support to candidates like Zohran Mamdani and Abdul el-Sayed, even as these politicians dial up the hateful rhetoric and vow to stand with, not against, the violent thugs.

But we've learned something else these past three years as well: We learned, as if we needed another reminder, that this great and godly nation will not be easily overwhelmed by bullies.

For every Hamas-loving moron on campus, we saw scores of fami-

"This great and godly nation will not be easily overwhelmed by bullies."

stead in advocacy on behalf of murderous regimes, groups and ideologies. This wasn't merely disheartening: It meant that America's next generation of leaders had been indoctrinated with rank bigotry, and that the inflamed ideology of those classrooms had already seeped into newsrooms, boardrooms and everywhere else in public life.

The second and more disturbing truth had to do with the precise nature of this inflamed ideology. The hordes marching, posting, podcasting and protesting on behalf of “Palestine,” we came to realize, did so not because they hated Israel or even because they hated Jews: Their real target was America.

That's why the goons repeatedly seek to disrupt all-American occasions like the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade or the Rockefeller Center Christmas-tree lighting ceremony; why they block roads, clog up airports and interrupt major-league baseball games. Their end goal has nothing to do with Benjamin Netanyahu or the IDF.

They want for a cowering America, a dispirited America, a downtrodden America that will give in to whatever these bullies may demand.

lies pledging not to send their children and their disposable income to universities that do little but poison young, fine minds with anti-Western dross.

We saw audiences walk away en masse from entertainers who indulged the Palestine nonsense — which is why Ed Sheeran, to name but one recent example, is now selling his concert tickets for pennies on the dollar.

We saw a presidential administration rise up and take action, getting serious about everything from holding universities accountable to deporting foreign nationals who come here merely to spread hate.

When future historians study these last few years, then, the story they're likely to tell is not one of moral decline but of American resilience and rebirth. Oct. 7, 2023, they will likely find, was the day we woke up from decades of insidious indoctrination, fought back to remake our institutions and recapture our culture, and recommitted to telling ourselves the only story that matters: the story of American greatness.

Liel Leibovitz is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

10/7

RACK 4

The Post Puzzle Page

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SCRABBLE G $_{2}$ R $_{1}$ A $_{1}$ M $_{3}$ S $_{1}$

Hasbro and its logo, SCRABBLE®, associated logo, the design of the distinctive SCRABBLE brand game board, and the distinctive letter tile designs are trademarks of Hasbro in the United States and Canada. ©2026 Hasbro. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

A1 E1 U1 L1 G2 F4 P3 1st Letter Triple

□ □ □ □ □ □ □

A1 I1 U1 T1 F4 L1 N1

□ □ □ □ □ □ □

A1 E1 O1 G2 L1 V4 T1 Double Word Score

PAR SCORE 150-160

BEST SCORE 212 | SCRABBLE | GRAMS. | SOLUTION | $P_3$ | $A_1$ | $G_2$ | $E_1$ | $F_4$ | $U_1$ | $L_1$ | RACK 1 = 69 | $A_1$ | $N_1$ | $T_1$ | $I_1$ | $F_4$ | $L_1$ | $U_1$ | RACK 2 = 60 | $V_4$ | $O_1$ | $L_1$ | $T_1$ | $A_1$ | $G_2$ | $E_1$ | RACK 3 = 72 | $C_3$ | $E_1$ | $L_1$ | $E_1$ | $R_1$ | $Y_4$ | RACK 4 = 11 | PAR SCORE 150-160 | TOTAL 212 | RACK 1

RACK 2

FOUR RACK TOTAL

TIME LIMIT: 20 MIN

Directions: Make a 2 to 7 letter word from the letters in each row. Add points of each word using scoring directions at right. 7 Letter words get 50 point bonus. "Blank" used as any letter have no point value. All the words are in the Official SCRABBLE players Dictionary, 4th Edition.

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Bridge

East dealer

N-S vulnerable

NORTH

♠ K 9

♡ 9 8 5 4

◇ A Q 10 9 5

♣ K 7

WEST

♠ 8 4 3 2

he K 3

◇ 7 3 2

♣ 9 6 5 2

EAST

♠ Q J 10 7 5

he 7

◇ K 8 4

♣ A Q J 8

SOUTH

♠ A 6

♡ A Q J 10 6 2

◇ J 6

♣ 10 4 3

East South West North

1 ♠ 2 ♥ Pass 4 ♥

All Pass

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Opening lead - ♠ 8

©2026 Tribune Content Agency, LLC

“Cheer up,” Cy told Louie. “Things always get worse before they fall apart completely.”

Unlucky Louie is beset with misfortune — the kind of fortune, he says, that never misses. When I watched today's deal in my club's penny game, Louie played at four hearts. Cy the Cynic was West and led a spade.

Sure enough, Cy shifted to a club, and East took the ace and jack and led a second spade. Louie won and drew the missing trump, but East's king of diamonds won the setting trick.

Louie won in dummy and let the nine of trumps ride. He grimaced when Cy produced the king.

As usual, Louie brought misfortune on himself. Since East surely has the ace of clubs, Louie doesn't want West to get in for a club shift. Louie should take his ace of trumps at Trick Two — he doesn't mind if East wins a trump trick — then finesse in diamonds.

East wins and leads another spade, and Louie wins and runs the diamonds. He discards two clubs before West can ruff and lead a club.

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Word Force

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TURBULENT

From the word or phrase above, form AT LEAST 10 five-letter words, without using more than one form of the same word. For example, drink or drank (not both).

ANSWERS IN TOMORROW'S POST

Yesterday's word:

FOOTRACE | FOOTRAGE | actor | craft | forte | afoot | crate | orate | afore | facet | react | after | farce | trace | cater | force | ---

Wonderword

How to play: All the words listed below appear in the puzzle -- horizontally, vertically, diagonally, even backward. Find them and Circle their letters only. Do not circle the word. The leftover letters spell the Wonderword. | RUMBLE BOXING | Solution: 5 letters | U | E | T | S | I | L | Y | A | L | P | U | N | C | H | R | I | P | C | H | T | G | N | E | R | T | S | S | R | Y | E | S | N | P | N | R | I | S | W | E | A | T | E | T | $\textcircled{S}$ | W | T | T | T | E | A | H | N | S | E | A | M | I | $\textcircled{M}$ | H | O | H | R | N | E | R | R | I | S | M | I | S | $\textcircled{Y}$ | R | O | P | G | E | C | I | R | C | U | I | T | N | $\textcircled{G}$ | E | O | R | L | I | N | O | L | R | V | U | D | E | R | S | H | E | T | Y | L | D | I | E | A | S | A | T | N | I | U | R | T | S | O | K | Y | X | N | T | S | N | L | S | E | I | C | U | S | M | S | E | D | U | I | I | S | T | J | P | H | C | T | I | E | E | F | D | O | H | A | A | E | S | A | O | C | N | O | T | V | I | K | G | B | N | R | N | S | F | B | D | A | P | R | O | G | I | C | C | F | I | T | N | E | S | S | M | O | I | L | H | S | E | I | R | O | L | A | C | M | U | S | I | C | G | T | T | U | O | K | R | O | W | S | P | L | E | G | S | © 2026 Andrews McMeet Syndication www.wonderword.com

Body, Calories, Circuit, Classes, Coach, Endurance, Energy, Exercise, Fight, Fitness, Focus, Gloves, Gyms, High-intensity, Inspire, Instructor, Interval, Jabs, Kick, Legs, Lights, Mats, Mind, Music, Playlist, Plyometrics, Power, Pump, Punch, Resistance, Shorts, Strength, Studio, Sweat, Timer, Training, Trendy, Uppercuts, Weights, Workout

Yesterday's Answer: Grooming

For WONDERWORD apps, books & more, visit Wonderword.com, or call 1-855-232-2367.

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POST SUDOKU

To solve a Su Doku, you must put a number from 1 to 9, in each empty box.

Each number must appear once in each horizontal row, as well as in each vertical column and in each of the 3-by-3 grids. Impossible? Not once you get the hang of it. Tips and in depth strategies at

---

www.SudokuWiki.org

NYPOST.COM/GAMES

Solutions on Page 64

© Syndicated Puzzles

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Quick Crossword

1 Built (on)

6 Many an A-lister

11 Swing's path

14 Cartoon canine who speaks with an "R" consonant mutation

15 Level

16 "Argo" org.

17 Ruin the Olympic Games?

19 Every last bit

20 Tammy Duckworth's title, briefly

21 Merry-go-round music

22 Bas—

24 Like many dirt roads

26 Home of Hawaii's Merrie Mon-arch Festival

27 Destroy casual chitchat?

32 Tennis great Andre

35 Georgia airport code

36 "If you ask me ..."

37 Massage

38 Super vision?

39 Polite title

40 A in geometry

42 French wine classification

43 Annette of "Virgin River"

46 Wreak havoc on origami supplies?

49 Forever and ever

50 Repeat for emphasis

54 "Who \_!"

57 Burlesque bit

58 Light touch

59 Sometimes called, for short

60 Lay waste to a dairy product?

63 Virginia Woolf's " \_ Dalloway"

64 " \_ mañana"

65 A-list

66 Light touch

67 Elizabeth who plays the Scarlet Witch

68 Trig ratios

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Down

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Very Easy #7,424 | 9 | 8 | 5 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 4 | 6 | 9 | 3 | 5 | 3 | 9 | 5 | 8 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 3 | ---

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68

1 Common voice for an opera villain

2 Colorado town near Snowmass

3 Curling piece

4 “\_\_tu”: Verdi aria

5 Brunei money

6 Orchard fruit

7 Congeal

8 Viscous goo

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Difficult #7,214 | 2 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 6 | 1 | 4 | 7 | 5 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 7 | 4 | 7 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 7 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 5 | 8 | 7 | 3 | 9 Having one's day in court?

10 Deal in, as vintage clothing

11 Breakfast bowl berry

12 Annoy but good

13 Baby camel

18 Africa-to-Asia land bridge

23 Trickster in Norse mythology

25 Jr. officers

26 URL starter

28 Invites to one's apartment, say

29 Childish comeback

30 Get just right

31 Giant oceanic surface current

32 Part of UAE

33 Hindu mentor

34 Lie for, say

38 Goes astray

41 Las Vegas WNBA team

42 Primary

43 \_\_nerve

44 Shows signs of growth?

45 Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby

47 Top dog

48 Three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Troy

51 Saved on supper, perhaps

PREVIOUS PUZZLE ANSWER

(C) 2026 Tribune Media Services

52 Sample size?

53 Stage combat props

54 Not quite dry

55 Sticky pod

56 From Perth to Sydney

57 Make full

61 Curvy letter

62 Yale grad

Business

BUSINESS BRIEFS

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AI boosts marts

The tech-heavy Nasdaq and the broad S&P 500 closed at record highs as AI bets regained upward momentum and oil prices leveled off. It was the S&P's 28th record close in 2026 and the first since August. Treasury yields retreated from multiyear highs.

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Uber expands

Uber agreed to buy catering platform ez-Cater for \$2.3 billion, expanding its food-delivery business into workplace meals and larger group orders. ezCater has a network of more than 140,000 US restaurants.

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Emmys moving

Amazon's Prime Video will be the new home for the Emmy Awards starting in 2027. Prime Video will carry the show for six years and will have global rights.

---

Spirits high

Sales in Constellation's beer business, which includes Corona and Modelo, rose $5\%$ in the fiscal second quarter, while its wine and spirits business saw a $17\%$ increase.

---

Housing alarm

The number of homes that went under contract in September dropped 8.5% from the year prior to 227,569, Zillow said — the sharpest yearly decrease since September 2023.

Sources: Reuters, Dow Jones, AP

BULLY FOR NY

Wall Street on course for \$90B year: state comp

By JAMES FRANEY,

VAUGHN GOLDEN and

CRAIG MCCARTHY

The AI revolution and a boost in dealmaking will provide big bucks for both the Big Apple & Albany, prompting government watchdogs to warn that tax hikes could kill the goose that laid the golden egg by driving away job-generating companies and wealthy Wall Streeters.

Wall Street is on track for a record-shattering \$90 billion year, New York State Comptroller Thomas Di-Napoli's office said Tuesday, undermining lefty calls for tax hikes.

The securities industry posted \$45.9 billion in profits in the first half of this year, up 51.3% from the same time frame in 2025, according to a report from the Empire State's official bean counter.

The figure puts Wall Streeters on a pace to rake in \$90 billion by New Year's Eve, the comptroller forecast — up nearly 40% from 2025's total profits of \$65.1 billion.

Andrew Rein, president of the nonpartisan Citizens Budget Commission, warned against calls from progressive lawmakers to hike corporate and millionaire taxes in light of the tax windfall to come.

“We already collect more taxes per capita than anybody else in the country,” he told The Post.

---

Salaries up 11.1%

"The real key for us is how we spend that money better and deliver better services. Since we are the top taxers, we should be delivering the highest quality services, and that's not the case at this point."

Wall Street is building on a steady boom from 2025. According to the state data, the average Wall Street salary in the city soared 11.1% to \$561,770 last year.

DiNapoli expected Wall Street's bonus pool to go up, after economic uncertainty prompted some analysts last year to predict the opposite.

Wall Street's momentum in the first six months of 2026 has been driven by the artificial intelligence boom and a surge in global deal-making.

Dealmakers have been exceptionally busy. Underwriting revenues skyrocketed 68% in the first half of 2026, while global mergers and acquisitions hit \$2.8 trillion, marking the highest half-year total on record, according to DiNapoli.

State and local governments are reaping the rewards of the windfall.

The industry injected \$7.8 billion into New York City's budget during the 2026 fiscal year, a 15.8% increase. It also pumped \$26.3 billion into state coffers, jumping 28.5%.

The sector now accounts for roughly $19\%$ of the city's entire economic output.

Raising taxes threatens to further erode the city's corporate base, Rein said.

"The reality is, it risks our competitiveness," he said. "The concept that everyone's going to flee or that no one's ever going to flee — it's a false question … let's use our money wisely, and not risk being less attractive to individuals and businesses that we need to pay taxes and employ people."

Likewise, pro-business politicos believe Albany shouldn't celebrate by doling out blank checks for new initiatives, as dozens of municipalities face massive budget woes, including NYC, which is staring down a \$7.25 billion shortfall next year.

"It was a battle every year with the Legislature and the local governments who wanted the state to be everyone's fairy godmother, but keeping the 2% spending cap allowed us to rebuild our aging infrastructure, put money away in good times to prepare for the bad and actually give some money back to taxpayers," said Rich Azzopardi, a former aide to ex-Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

“Using one-shots to plug holes or create new programs without ongoing funding sources is a recipe for insolvency.”

Red-dye diesel won't solve gas pains

President Trump's executive order allowing a more widespread use of tax-exempt red-dye diesel is meant to lower the cost burden on Americans — but it may not help prices at the pump much, according to experts.

The special fuel has the same exact chemical composition as diesel fuel, but it's dyed red to denote its tax-exempt status and is typically meant only for off-road farming equipment like tractors.

Long-haul drivers could save a substantial amount of money using the cheaper fuel, potentially passing those savings along to groceries — but there are several roadblocks standing in the way.

Patrick De Haan, head of petroleum analysis at Gas-

Buddy, estimated that few truckers — perhaps just one in 100 — will actually be able to take advantage of the tax-exempt fuel because it's not usually available at gas stations.

“Also, most consumers don’t know that the red-dye diesel is exactly the same as ultra-low sulfur diesel with an added dye. So adoption becomes more challenging," Ramanan Krishnamoorti, vice president for energy and innovation at the University of Houston, told The Post. Taylor Herzlich

Post's publisher is leaving

New York Post Media Group CEO and publisher Sean Giancola announced Tuesday that he is stepping down after more than a decade at the storied tabloid.

Giancola (right), who served in the chief executive role for over seven years, will stay on through early next year to help ensure a smooth transition as the company conducts a search for a new CEO.

“Leading the New York Post Media Group has been an immense privilege," Giancola said in a statement.

“I am incredibly proud of the work that’s been accomplished over the last seven-and-a-half years, from expanding our iconic brand into a truly national publication, to innovating across digital platforms and to bringing the Post’s world-class reporting to more readers than ever before.”

Giancola led the launch of the California Post this year, bringing the brand's telltale punchy headlines and no-holds-barred journalism to the Golden State.

“Sean has been a savvy steward of the Post during a period of profound media upheaval, and his transformative leadership helped the Post turn profitable for the first time in decades,” Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp, The Post’s parent company, said in a statement.

Taylor Herzlich

Good 'news' on CNN

New owner Ellison: ‘Independence’ assured

Steven Hirsch for NY Post; AFP via Getty Images

By ALEXANDRA STEIGRAD and TAYLOR HERZLICH

Skydance CEO David Ellison reassured nervous news anchor Anderson Cooper that CNN will retain its editorial independence in the wake of the blockbuster Paramount-Warner Bros. Discovery merger.

Cooper interviewed Ellison and his new co-CEO Ynon Kreiz about life under the newborn media behemoth at an LA town hall in front of CNN staff.

“I want to start with a smaller part of this company, but it’s going to cause you headaches: news,” Cooper shakily said to laughter, according to leaked audio of the sit-down. “Asking for a friend — or frenemies, I’m not sure.”

Cooper went on to lay out criticism from some observers, who have slammed CBS News editor-in-chief Bari Weiss'

Here's the s'Coop'

Skydance owner David Ellison (right), whose company just acquired CNN, assured veteran anchor Anderson Cooper (below) that bosses will not interfere.

handling of the network — which was already owned by Paramount before the merger — along with the Ellison family's Trump ties and War Secretary Pete Hegseth's recent call for the exec to overhaul CNN.

“Are there changes you want to see in coverage at CNN, are there lessons you do or don’t want to apply from CBS News?” Cooper asked.

“I believe deeply in journalism,” Ellison replied.

“In the world we live in today, having truth-based, fact-based, bipartisan news that informs the public has never been more important.”

The exec added that both CBS News and CNN's work is “vital to democracy” and that he supports it — while planning “to scale and transition the business digitally.”

Earlier Tuesday, Ellison and Kreiz reportedly gestured at layoffs in a memo to employees.

“Integrating two companies will bring change, including difficult decisions that affect our workforce,” they wrote, according to Variety, though they did not detail any such plans at the town hall.

"As it relates to editorial, we believe in complete and total editorial independence," Ellison said during the sit-down.

“We trust Mark, we trust the team,” he added, referring to CNN boss Mark Thompson, who will continue to lead the network.

“You’re pledging to not interfere with news coverage of CNN?” Cooper interrupted.

“Correct,” Ellison said.

Court hints at 401(OK) | US trade deficit grows

The Supreme Court appears to be leaning toward a ruling that could smooth private equity's path into Americans' 401(k) retirement accounts.

The nation's highest court on Tuesday heard arguments in a case, Anderson v. Intel, over when an employee can sue an employer for putting risky or unwise investments into the company retirement plan.

The plaintiff, á former Intel employee, accused the company of violating its fiduciary duty by including private equity and hedge funds in its defined-contribution retirement plan, and alleged these investments performed worse than standard equity funds would have.

Justices Samuel Alito, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Elena Kagan were among the justices who expressed puzzlement at aspects of the plaintiff's argument. Dow Jones

The US trade deficit widened in August to its biggest in more than a year, with the US buying more products like crude oil, gold and semiconductors from abroad.

The trade gap in goods and services widened by 14% in August from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted number of roughly \$106 billion, the Commerce Department said Tuesday.

That marked the highest level since March 2025, when companies were racing to import goods early in President Trump's second term to get ahead of tariffs.

The data-center boom has been a major driver of the trade deficit this year, with imports of semiconductors, computers and computer accessories up a total of \$234 billion in the first eight months of this year, compared with the same period last year. Dow Jones

Magic Kingdom tix ri\$e

Disney on Tuesday raised the price of admission to “the happiest place on Earth” — with a primo Disney World ticket hitting a painful new high — though the cheapest tickets remained unchanged.

At Disney World, an annual “Incredi-Pass,” went up \$120 to \$1,749. A top-tier day pass rose \$10 to \$229, with access to fast “lightning lanes” going up \$50 to \$499.

Still, execs insisted the company is sensitive to families' budgets as they face stubborn inflation and other economic challenges.

"Our goal is to put guests at the center of our decision making, and that starts by listening to them," Thomas Mazloum, chairman of Disney Experiences, told CNN.

“That matters more now when families are watching every dollar, and we see it in the choices they make every day — in how they plan, in how far ahead,” he added.

The cheapest Disney World tickets was unchanged, at around \$120 for a day at Animal Kingdom.

The base ticket price at Disneyland held at \$104.

A peak travel-season ticket for someone hoping to go to multiple parks in 2027 will cost \$300 at Disney World.

Overall park attendance was up 3% in the spring, according to Disney.

Emily Lang

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Disney bid to halt FCC

A lawyer for Disney urged a federal judge on Tuesday to block the Federal Communications Commission's early review of licenses for its eight company-owned ABC TV stations, saying President Trump's administration is seeking to censor and punish the company for airing content it doesn't like.

A ruling wasn't expected until at least mid-October.

The government challenged the network's First Amendment arguments — and said ABC had failed to show it suffered irreparable harm. Wires

JAMIE DIMON

Problems with Mythos.

AI model 'raising risks'

JPMorganChase CEO Jamie Dimon said the release of Anthropic's Mythos model raised the stakes of cybersecurity risks across the globe.

Cyber risks “went up 10-fold after Mythos,” Dimon told Bloomberg TV on Tuesday. “AI created vulnerabilities that we didn’t know about.”

The Trump administration warned bank executives about the risks posed by Mythos. Anthropic's model excels at finding software vulnerabilities and hasn't been released broadly to the public.

Dimon said he believes AI will have huge positive impacts. "The downside is obviously what you read about with the agents and Mythos and all these things that can cause trouble," Dimon said. "I'm not going to get hysterical over 'Is it existential or not?' What we're doing is rolling up our sleeves and going to work to fix it."

Anthropic called on the industry to slow down development of advanced models. Dow Jones

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