Man assaults New York candidate

“I’m OK,” U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin said after a man, 43-year-old David Jakubonis, climbed onto a low stage and jabbed at him with an object Thursday night. Photos and videos taken of the assault showed the pointed object shaped like a cat’s head, likely a keychain meant to be worn on the knuckles for self-defense. Zeldin, the Republican nominee for the governor’s race in New York, was speaking to a Veterans of Foreign Wars post in the town of Perinton, near Rochester. A spokesman for Zeldin said Friday that the candidate had a minor scrape from the incident. There were no recent threats and Zeldin had private security at the event, with police arriving on the scene within minutes of the attack, the spokesman said. Jakubonis, an Army veteran, served in Iraq in 2009 as a medical laboratory technician.

Who is Lee Zeldin? He currently serves as an Army Reserve lieutenant colonel, and he’s represented eastern Long Island in Congress since 2015. He faces an uphill battle persuading independent voters—the largest faction of voters in the state—to vote for him. Zeldin is challenging incumbent Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul this November.

Dig deeper: Read Emily Belz’s report in WORLD Magazine about how veterans are trying to dodge despair after the military withdrawal from Afghanistan.