Category 4: As many as 45 people are dead in five states in the wake of hurricane Helene that hit the Florida Gulf Coast overnight Thursday as a Category 4 storm with winds of 140 mph. The worst was in Georgia where 15 people died, including an emergency worker.

    Heavy rains, flooding and storm damage stretched from the Florida coast to the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee.

  Homes were reduced to rubble and houses floated off their foundations as cars washed away, commercial areas and homes were flooded. Boats were left in front of apartment buildings. Power was lost for 4.5 million or more customers and  the overall damage has been described as “catastrophic.”

BORDER POLITICKS: Vice President Kamala Harris on her first trip to the southern border as a presidential candidate yesterday proposed both immigration reform and some tougher restrictions on people who enter the country.

  Last night in Douglas, Arizona, Harris said that “Those who cross our borders unlawfully will be apprehended and removed and barred from re-entering for five years.” And she said, “We will pursue more severe criminal charges against repeat violators.” 

  It’s a shift for the front-woman of the Democratic party who’s been getting hammered by Donald Trump and the Republicans about the number of people crossing the border into the US. Harris promised to sign new legislation … if it passes … to impose order on the southern border. 

  Donald Trump dismissed Harris’s border trip as a political stunt, but it’s a political stunt for every politician who goes to be seen at the border.

THE WAR ROOM: Shortly after Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu finished addressing the UN general Assembly in New York a giant explosion rocked Beirut in what the Israeli military said was an attack meant to kill Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Hezbollah militant organization.

  Both Israel and Hezbollah confirm today that Nasrallah is dead.

  Netanyahu in New York had just said, “We will not accept a terror army perched on our northern border.”

  The bombing destroyed several buildings as Nasrallah was holding a meeting in an underground chamber, the Israeli military told the press. A Hezbollah statement today described Nasrallah as a “master of resistance” a “righteous servant,” and that he will be a great martyr.

  Israel in the past week has conducted thousands of strikes in Lebanon killing 600 or more people, many of them civilians and children.  The strikes continued today.

ENOUGH ABOUT YOU: Donald Trump appeared in the lobby of Trump Tower yesterday before a meeting with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and once again promised that he could have the Ukraine war resolved before he takes office on January 20^th if he is elected. “Nobody’s ever seen anything like this terrible situation,” Trump said in one of his standard superlatives. Wellll … maybe World War II.? But do go on …

  With Zelensky standing at his side, it was only moments before Trump was complaining about his first impeachment. “When they did the impeachment hoax, it was a hoax,” Trump said. “It was a Democrat hoax, which we won.”

  Trump in that impeachment was accused of threatening to withhold military aid to Ukraine in order to pressure Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden. Trump said Zelensky assured him “Trump did nothing wrong.”

  Then it was on to praising both Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin in a promise to personally end the Ukraine war. “We have a very good relationship,” Trump said about Zelensky “and I also have a very good relationship as you know with President Putin and I think if we win we’re gonna get it resolved, we can get it resolved very quickly.”

HIZ DIZZHONOR: Eric Adams yesterday became the first sitting New York City mayor to stand before a judge and say, “Not guilty.” Adams is accused of bribery, fraud, taking campaign money from a foreign source … in this case Turkey … and accepting $100,000 worth of graft. 

  Adams says he will not resign and reports say New York Gov. Kathy Hochul is considering using her power to remove him.

THE OBIT PAGE: Maggie Smith, the class act and actor of British stage and screen known most recently to American audiences as the sharp-tongued dowager countess on “Downton Abbey,” died yesterday in London at 89.

  “Dame Maggie” starred in the 1969 movie “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” about an independent teacher at a girls’ school in the 1930s who dared to have her own opinions — and a love life. That performance won her the Academy Award for best actress.

  She won a second Oscar for best supporting actress in the 1978 “California Suite” based on Neil Simon’s stage comedy. She played a British actress attending the Oscars with her bisexual husband.

  Smith also played Minerva McGonagall, the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry’s transfiguration teacher, in seven of the eight Harry Potter movies. 

THE SPIN RACK: Saturday Night Live opens its 50^th season tonight with Jean Smart hosting. Expect the presidential candidates to take a beating. — The Justice Department yesterday sued Alabama and its top election official, charging that a state program violated federal law by removing voters from its election rolls too close to the November election. — With authorities warning of foreign efforts to influence the election, the US has charged three Iranians with hacking into Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

BELOW THE FOLD:  Last night in Detroit the Chicago White Sox entered baseball history losing their 121st game of the season and breaking the 120-game record for most losses previously held by the 1962 New York Mets.

  During the season the Sox had losing streaks of 21 games, 14 games, and 12 games. They have been outscored by more than 300 runs.

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