Two major law-enforcement unions — representing Nassau County police officers and New York City firefighters — have endorsed Long Island Democratic Rep. Tom Suozzi’s bid for re-election.

The Nassau County Police Benevolent Association and the NYC Uniformed Firefighters Association are both backing Suozzi.

Suozzi is preparing for a difficult rematch with Republican Mike LiPetri, whom he defeated by only 3 percentage points in 2024. The 3rd Congressional District includes parts of Nassau County, Queens and Suffolk County.

“We supported him two years ago, and he has been working hard to work with both sides of the aisle. He backs the blue and states all the time on the Congress floor that he absolutely rejects the defunding-the-police movement,” Nassau County PBA president Tom Shevlin said.

“We support candidates who are willing to support us, even if that means going against their own party,” Shevlin added.

Suozzi welcomed the endorsements as Republicans attempt to portray him as soft on crime and link him to the Democratic Party’s left wing.

“I am proud to once again have the endorsement of the Nassau County PBA. I have spent my career supporting law enforcement and making sure our officers have the resources they need to keep us safe,” Suozzi told The Post.

“As my opponent attacks and distorts my record, the men and women who protect us day and night know where I stand, and I am honored to have their trust and support.”

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Bobby Eustace, president of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, also praised Suozzi as a “common sense” congressman.

“In his over thirty years as a public servant, Tom Suozzi has continued to demonstrate that he sees beyond party lines and works across the aisle to do what’s best for his constituents,” Eustace said.

Republicans, meanwhile, have made Suozzi’s district a key target.

A Trump-aligned super PAC is spending nearly $8 million to support LiPetri, a former state assemblyman, in his effort to unseat Suozzi.

The No Going Back PAC has purchased $5.7 million worth of television advertising in recent weeks, along with another $2 million in mailers promoting LiPetri and attacking Suozzi.

Suozzi, a former Nassau County executive, is serving his second stint in Congress.

He left the seat to run for governor in 2022, but lost the Democratic primary to incumbent Gov. Kathy Hochul.

Suozzi returned to Congress in February 2024 after winning a special election triggered by the expulsion of serial liar and former Republican Rep. George Santos. He went on to narrowly defeat LiPetri in the November 2024 election.

Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman is the Republican candidate for governor expected to perform strongly at the top of the ticket against Hochul, a result that could benefit LiPetri.

U.S. Ambassador to South Africa L. Brent Bozell III has sharply criticized President Cyril Ramaphosa, telling News Media that South Africa’s leader “refuses to condemn an incitement to kill.”

Bozell made the remarks in an exclusive interview with News Media after being summoned to South Africa’s foreign ministry last week and accused of engaging in “undiplomatic conduct.”

The meeting marked the third diplomatic rebuke, known as a démarche, that Bozell has received from Pretoria during his nine months in the country. South Africa has objected to his public statements relaying President Donald Trump’s criticism of its policies and official positions. Bozell, a former Fox News contributor, founded the Media Research Center, the largest conservative media watchdog.

Bozell has repeatedly pressed South Africa to address concerns raised by Trump during a tense Oval Office meeting with Ramaphosa 16 months ago. Those concerns include alleged race-based discrimination, claims involving the murder and torture of farmers, proposals for uncompensated land seizures and calls for violence against minority communities.

According to Bozell, South Africa has disregarded three of the five specific demands outlined by the Trump administration.

Among the administration’s central demands is that Ramaphosa prevent people in South Africa from chanting, “Kill the Boer! Kill the farmer!” Merriam-Webster defines a Boer as a White South African of Dutch or Huguenot descent. Ramaphosa has said he cannot prohibit the slogan because South Africa’s supreme court has ruled that it is permitted.

“You’ve got a president of South Africa who refuses to condemn an incitement to kill,” Bozell told News Media.

He also accused the South African government of abandoning the Afrikaner rural community and requiring mining operations to participate in race-based programs. “We’re not going to allow your investments to go the way everyone else has been allowed to go,” he said, summarizing the government’s position.

“Those were three strikes and you’re out as far as we were concerned,” Bozell said.

“Ask 100% of the world if ‘kill the farmer, kill the Boer’ isn’t hate speech,” he continued. “If that isn’t hate speech, I don’t know what hate speech is: inciting people to commit murder.” Bozell rejected South Africa’s argument that the chant cannot be stopped because the court approved it, saying that in the United States, presidents routinely disagree with court decisions within the democratic system.

“To say, well, you can’t do it because the court said it’s not, you know, that’s poppycock,” Bozell said. “If President Ramaphosa wants to, he can do it. It’s just as simple as that.”

He emphasized the scale and nature of the demonstrations, asking, “How hard is it to say this chant, where some, where people do it, 50,000 people in the stadium jump up and down, pantomiming guns, shooting people, how hard is it to say, stop it?” Bozell called the alleged incitement to violence “awful.”

Analysts say South Africa is moving increasingly closer to Iran, Russia, China and Cuba. The African National Congress, or ANC, which leads the country’s so-called “government of national unity,” has also hosted the terrorist organization Hamas.

The shift has drawn close attention from the Trump administration. Trump recently met with Bozell again in Washington, and the ambassador said the president is “perhaps most of all” concerned that South Africa has been steadily abandoning its non-aligned position and moving closer to U.S. adversaries.

Speaking about South Africa, Bozell asked why some officials remain tied to the legacy of the Soviet Union and communism. “Why are they still working with Cuba?” he said.

Digging deeper, Bozell asked, “Why are they working with Iran and Hamas terror organizations? What’s Russia doing for them? What’s China doing for them? This is bad news when they’re going in that direction. What we’re saying is simply do what you’ve always done. Have a non-aligned with both sides. We’ll live with that.”

The ambassador stressed that the U.S. wants to make dynamic business with South Africa on mining, particularly on critical or rare earth minerals. He stated, “We’re not going to do what the Chinese do. They come in, they take the ore, they take it to China, they benefit [from] it and they make a pile of money. We’re saying to South Africa, we’ll come in, we’ll do the mining, we’ll do it right there in South Africa.”

He continued, “South Africa gets the money, not the Chinese. We bring in the technology that they could never have. We’ve created hundreds of thousands of jobs. We’re saying we could create more and more and more at a time when they desperately need it, but it will be good for us as well. This is the partnership we want.”

Elon Musk and his Starlink satellite internet company are one of many U.S. companies which want to enter South Africa. But in the telecommunications and mining fields, the government insists that 30% of foreign company ownership must be given to Black local entrepreneurs.

Bozell says this is problematical for the U.S. “There are literally billions of dollars from American firms and American government investments ready to go into mining, but it’s not going to go there so long as you have these race-based avenues they must go through. In telecom, Elon Musk has said he will put Starlink in 500 schools and pay for it in perpetuity if he’s allowed to go this way. And they said, ‘No, we want 30% of your company.’ So yeah, of course it’s hurting.”

On Friday, a senior official at South Africa’s Department of International Relations – the country’s foreign ministry – confirmed to News Media that they demarched Ambassador Bozell for a third time, adding, “This is a record. He was called in to explain his undiplomatic conduct. The issues related to the bilateral relations between the two countries are a subject of ongoing discussions. There is commitment from both sides to resolve the outstanding matters. South Africa values the relationship with the USA. It is a mutually beneficial partnership.”

Also, Friday, a State Department spokesperson told News Media, “We are not interested in diplomatic maneuvering, procedural delays or dialogue for dialogue’s sake. The ball is now squarely in the Government of South Africa’s court to outline the relationship it wants with the United States and respond accordingly to President Trump’s executive order.”

Still, Bozell looks to the future of the U.S.-South Africa relationship with guarded optimism. “Look, temperatures can go up, but I want their temperature to go down too. You know, we want this partnership. We want to figure this out. It’s good for South Africa. It’s good for the United States of America. Temperatures need to go down, and we got to figure it out.”

Carys Thurlby first experienced the pain as a teenager.

During high school exams, she recalls “chewing on” Tylenol as searing pain tore through her pelvis and radiated into her legs.

In the beginning, the episodes appeared only around her period. Gradually, however, the pain became a constant presence.

At 19, Carys was diagnosed with endometriosis — a chronic condition in which tissue resembling the uterine lining grows elsewhere in the body, most often in the pelvis, causing severe pain.

More than 6.5 million women in the US are affected by endometriosis. The condition can bring painful periods, pain during sex, exhaustion and difficulties conceiving.

Its causes remain unclear (see panel), and there is currently no cure.

It took another two decades for Carys, now 43, to find relief: a total hysterectomy.

Today, she says the invasive, irreversible and controversial procedure transformed both her life and her body for the better.

Before the surgery, Carys — a trainee educational psychologist from Worcester, England — says endometriosis dominated every part of her existence.

“Every day was about scraping through to survive,” Carys says.

“I didn’t have any hobbies and barely a social life.”

The pain forced her to take a year away from college. When she returned, the agony had intensified, disrupting her ambition to become a teacher.

“It would have been too much to be standing up teaching all day,” she says.

Endometriosis also made it difficult for Carys and her husband, David, to start a family.

After 12 years of trying, the couple eventually had two children through IVF: Laurence, now nine, and Merryn, now seven. The treatment cost the family around $60,000.

Alongside the pain and fertility struggles, the condition affected Carys’s weight by restricting her ability to exercise and shaping her eating habits.

At her heaviest, Carys, who is 5ft 6in, weighed 280lbs.

“I barely moved,” she says. “After a full day’s work, I was exhausted by the evening. I’d snack on sugary food because it made me feel better for a few minutes.

“Then I’d feel worse. It’s a cliche, but it was comfort eating — a vicious cycle. I hated my weight, but I was in too much pain to do anything about it.”

Over the years, Carys tried a series of endometriosis treatments. This included the birth control pill, which suppresses the female sex hormone estrogen. 

Studies show that the painful lesions triggered by endometriosis feed off estrogen, so reducing the amount in the body can ease symptoms.

When this failed, Carys had multiple rounds of surgery to remove the lesions. However, after several years the pain would return, which is a common experience for endometriosis patients. 

According to the charity Endometriosis UK, around half will find symptoms return within five years, as abnormal tissue grows back.

However, everything changed for Carys when, five years ago, her specialist asked if she would consider a hysterectomy.

The operation, which involves removing the uterus and sometimes also the cervix, fallopian tubes or ovaries, is most commonly offered to treat fibroids – noncancerous growths in the uterus – or cancer.

However, it is also used to treat severe endometriosis, as evidence suggests it can significantly ease painful symptoms. This is largely because a hysterectomy stops periods permanently, which are often a major trigger for endometriosis pain.

Surgery is generally considered a last resort. In part, this is because a hysterectomy is major and irreversible surgery. 

As with other major operations, there are also risks including bleeding, infection and, more rarely, damage to surrounding organs.

However, another reason hysterectomy is not routinely offered is because experts still debate how effective it is at relieving the pain of endometriosis. While some patients experience a dramatic improvement, others continue to suffer symptoms.

One factor may be whether the patient also has a closely linked condition called adenomyosis.

This is where tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows into its muscular wall, causing inflammation and often severe pain during periods.

Unlike endometriosis elsewhere in the body, adenomyosis is effectively cured by removing the uterus. This means women suffering from both conditions may be particularly likely to see their period-related pain improve after a hysterectomy.

Studies suggest that about 40 percent of endometriosis patients also have adenomyosis.

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American actress Gabrielle Union has also spoken publicly about suffering from adenomyosis, which she discovered after years of fertility problems and failed IVF treatments.

Union, best known for starring in Bring It On and Bad Boys II, has said she was repeatedly made to feel that her difficulties conceiving were the result of waiting too long to have children, before learning that she had adenomyosis. 

While removing the uterus will typically ease the pain caused by adenomyosis, it may not provide a long-term fix for endometriosis.

A major research review in 2021 concluded that, for endometriosis patients who have their uterus removed, the risk of symptoms returning was about 50 percent.

‘A hysterectomy can be helpful for managing pain triggered by adenomyosis, but it’s not a cure,’ says Dr Lucky Saraswat of the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

‘Endometriosis is, by definition, where this tissue grows outside of the uterus. So removing the organ won’t remove all the symptoms. Patients will often experience temporary relief but then the tissue will grow elsewhere and the pain will return.’

Instead, experts say removing the uterus and the ovaries offers a more definitive solution. This is because endometriosis lesions feed off estrogen, which is produced in the ovaries.

‘Removing the ovaries is crucial,’ says Dr Saraswat. ‘Do this and the endometriosis can go dormant and the risk of it returning is limited.’

However, the procedure triggers early menopause and infertility.

‘We wouldn’t ordinarily offer this to women in their 20s,’ says Dr Saraswat. ‘It’s not for anyone looking to have a family. And early menopause triggers a number of tough symptoms that most women want to avoid.’

However, for Carys, things were more complicated.

In her 30s, in a bid to end her pain, she opted to have her ovaries removed but not her uterus, a procedure known as an oophorectomy. It had not been a success and her painful symptoms had continued.

This meant that, while research suggests that removing the ovaries is more effective than removing the uterus, a hysterectomy was, as her specialist explained, Carys’s only remaining option.

‘It was pretty terrifying,’ she says. ‘I knew that this was it – if this didn’t work, I might be in pain for the rest of my life.’

The procedure was not easy for Carys either. She was in the hospital for five days, where she caught Covid, leaving her unwell.

But within four to six weeks, she began to notice something: she was no longer in pain all the time.

‘For the first time in my adult life, I could simply stand up,’ she says. ‘Before, the moment I walked into a room, I’d look for somewhere to sit. I couldn’t stand for too long.

‘Now I found myself on my feet more and more, without even thinking about it. People even told me they could see in my face that I wasn’t in as much discomfort.

‘Sometimes I do feel the occasional stabbing pain. But I can go days without noticing it. For the first time in years, the condition isn’t dictating everything.’

It was at this point that Carys began to think about her weight.

She had been well aware that she was obese. However, dealing with her pain had always been her main priority. And exercise had always seemed out of reach.

She considered weight-loss surgery – where a balloon is inserted into the stomach, restricting appetite. However, she decided against it, largely because she had been through so many operations by then.

‘I nearly let myself be talked into it,’ she says. ‘Then I thought, what am I doing?’

In September 2024, Carys began counting her calories, which helped her lose a small but noticeable amount of weight.

Buoyed by this success – and reveling in her lack of pain – Carys began doing dance exercise classes at her local gym.

Slowly, the exercise fueled the weight loss. And the weight loss fueled the exercise.

By August 2025, Carys was down to 196lbs. Then, out of nowhere, her dance classes were canceled.

On a whim, she downloaded Couch to 5K – a beginner running program designed to gradually build up to running three miles. At first, she could not run for more than a minute.

‘It was horrible,’ she says. ‘But when I finished I was so proud of myself that I did it again the next day. And the next.’

She finished the program in six weeks and continued to run.

In November, Carys completed her first 10K race and, in May, she completed a 34-mile ultramarathon over the Malvern Hills in England.

She is now training for the London Marathon next year.

Her target is to raise about $5,400 for Caudwell Children – a British charity that supports disabled and neurodivergent children.

Carys now weighs 133lbs, meaning she has more than halved her body weight since she had her hysterectomy, and says she never thought she would be so healthy – or pain-free.

‘I never imagined I would be able to walk long distances, never mind run,’ she says. ‘For so long, this pain dominated my life. It goes to show just how much you can achieve when you are pain-free.’

A long-planned birthday trip for two longtime friends turned devastating after a woman was allegedly pushed down a staircase outside a beachside bar in South Carolina, suffering injuries that later proved fatal.

Mary Lopez Hunt, 68, faces charges of voluntary manslaughter and assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, according to Colleton County court records.

Ruth Peterson described the night to Fox News Digital on Oct. 1, 2026, two days before the anniversary of her friend’s death.

Peterson said she had stepped away to retrieve their car while her friend, 62-year-old Minnesota resident Joyce Tomlinson, remained behind to pay their bill at Coot’s Bar & Grill on Edisto Island. It was around 11 p.m. on Oct. 3, 2025.

As Peterson reached the bottom of the stairs, she heard Tomlinson’s voice and turned to look back up, she recalled.

At the top of the staircase, Peterson saw Tomlinson — whom she described as quiet and kind — briefly speak with another woman standing behind her. Peterson said she could not make out the exchange.

“All of a sudden, Joyce turned to walk back down, and this woman charged toward her and pushed her with both hands. Joyce just went flying,” Peterson said through tears.

“She didn’t stumble down the stairs. She didn’t roll down them. She didn’t even make contact with the steps,” Peterson said.

Instead, Peterson said, Tomlinson fell headfirst onto a concrete slab.

Peterson ran to her friend and said she could not detect a pulse. Tomlinson was bleeding from her mouth and ears, she recalled.

“I knew it was serious.”

According to court records, Hunt told investigators that Tomlinson had acted belligerently and shouted at bartenders before being asked to leave. Hunt claimed Tomlinson fell down the stairs.

A heavily redacted police report states that officers arrived to find Tomlinson on the pavement at the base of the stairs.

Tomlinson was airlifted to a hospital, where she died slightly more than three weeks later.

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‘Itty-bitty, tiny woman’

Peterson remembered Tomlinson as an “itty-bitty, tiny” woman with a “meek and mild” nature. She said it was difficult to imagine that her friend, who worked as a legal aide helping people address financial problems, would have provoked a confrontation.

Peterson said she and Tomlinson had shared a friendship spanning five decades.

The two met as girls in Minnesota and spent their childhood roller-skating together. Later, after marrying and raising families, they watched their children grow up alongside one another. Even after moving to different places, they remained close.

For years, the friends talked about celebrating their 60th birthdays together, but other responsibilities repeatedly got in the way, Peterson said.

That changed in 2025, when Tomlinson called Peterson and said she planned to visit in October so they could finally mark the milestone together.

After checking into a rented condominium in Edisto Beach, South Carolina, the friends followed an employee’s recommendation and headed to Coot’s Bar & Grill, Peterson said.

They sat at the bar and each had two drinks, Peterson said. When a solo performer began playing music, the two women stood up and danced.

Then the bar became crowded, so they decided to leave and catch up at the condo, Peterson said.

Tomlinson went to pay the bill. Peterson went for the car.

“I left the bar and walked down the steps, the same steps that we came up [to go] in. I turned around to see how far behind me she was … and that’s when I saw her standing at the top of the steps.”

Moments later, her friend was unconscious. They never spoke again.

‘Loving mom,’ ‘trustworthy friend’

Tomlinson’s friends and family still are trying to piece together how the fight could turned violent so quickly, Peterson said.

At her funeral, friends and family remembered Tomlinson as “a loving mom” and “a trustworthy friend,” Peterson wrote in a eulogy read at the funeral. She wasn’t married but did leave behind a son.

“It’s just been very surreal,” Peterson said. “It’s very hard to believe that she’s gone and that somebody would do that to another person.”

Hunt was released on $100,000 bond for each of her charges. Later, bond was revoked and she was taken back into custody in the Colleton County Jail in Walterboro, South Carolina. It was not immediately clear why her bond was revoked.

Fox News Digital reached out to Coot’s Bar & Grill for comment. Hunt’s attorney could not be reached.

Japanese authorities have arrested a U.S. Marine stationed in Okinawa on suspicion of killing and robbing a 39-year-old woman at a hotel, prompting Tokyo to issue a formal protest to Washington.

Lance Cpl. Devin Jacob Ballard, 20, is accused of killing Anna Yagi at a hotel in Naha, Okinawa Prefecture’s capital, early Saturday and stealing her wallet and backpack, according to police.

Police said Ballard has rejected the allegations.

The Marine Corps said Ballard serves with the III Marine Expeditionary Force and is based at Marine Corps Air Station Futenma in Okinawa.

According to Stars and Stripes, citing Okinawa police, security video showed Yagi entering the hotel with Ballard. He was later seen leaving by himself, and a hotel employee discovered Yagi unresponsive after she did not check out.

Authorities later found Ballard in Okinawa City and took him into custody, the outlet reported.

News Media has contacted the Okinawa Prefectural Police seeking further details.

The Marine Corps said it was working with Japanese investigators and confirmed that Ballard remained in Japanese custody.

“The Marine Corps takes these allegations very seriously and expects every Marine to adhere to the highest standards of behavior,” the service said in a statement obtained by Reuters.

The arrest drew an immediate response from Japan’s senior leadership. Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi expressed sympathy for Yagi’s relatives and said Japan had delivered a “strong protest” to the United States.

“The occurrence of such an extremely brutal and heinous incident is a matter of profound regret,” Takaichi said in an English translation of her statement, which was originally issued in Japanese.

Foreign Minister Toshimitsu Motegi separately summoned U.S. Ambassador George Glass. He called on the United States to fully assist the investigation, strengthen discipline among American military personnel and take steps to prevent similar cases.

Glass conveyed regret over the woman’s death and promised that the United States would cooperate with Japanese authorities.

The investigation unfolds amid decades of friction over the substantial U.S. military presence on Okinawa.

Most of the approximately 18,000 U.S. Marines serving in Japan are stationed on Okinawa. Local opposition has periodically intensified over crimes involving American service members, aircraft accidents and ongoing noise from military facilities.

Okinawa is also central to the U.S.-Japan alliance because of its strategic position in the western Pacific, close to Taiwan, as concerns grow over China’s military activity in the region.