As Democrats and Republicans duel over health care subsidies, the government’s closure has left many Long Island federal workers without pay — and diminished means to pay for essentials like food, experts say. Roughly 30,000 Long Islanders work for the federal government. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that yesterday, federal workers got a reprieve in the form of an emergency food distribution event from Long Island Cares/The Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank at the Center for Community Engagement in Hauppauge. More than 100 federal workers signed up to receive food like cereal, potatoes and cabbage. Some of the public servants who trickled in worked at the Social Security Administration. Others were members of the military, some wearing their uniforms.

Nearly all the families that preregistered for the event had never been to a food pantry before, Long Island Cares officials said.

“So many people are one crisis away from needing a food pantry, and we’re in a crisis right now,” said Katherine Fritz, president and CEO of Long Island Cares. Fritz added that the nonprofit decided to host the food distribution event for federal workers after hearing from local pantries about the need.

During the government shutdown, President Donald Trump’s administration has attempted to terminate government workers, a move that was temporarily halted by a federal judge.

At the same time, New York officials have warned that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, once called food stamps, might be postponed should the gridlock continue into November. SNAP is used by more than 160,000 Long Island residents.

“What we are expecting is a surge of food insecurity on Long Island,” Fritz said, later noting that food insecurity “doesn’t mean that people don’t have any food in the refrigerator.”

“It’s that they’re not sure if they could put a meal on their table tomorrow, or the next day or next week,” she said. “That’s what food insecurity means.”

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The Long Island Rail Road has taken several measures, including installing cameras near time clocks, to combat employee time abuse like that uncovered in an MTA watchdog investigation into a counterfeit employee ID card ring involving 36 workers, the railroad’s president said yesterday.

As first reported in Newsday, a report by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Inspector General’s Office — an independent oversight agency — accused three dozen LIRR workers, including seven supervisors, of buying a machine on Amazon and producing, distributing and using counterfeit employee ID cards. Employees swiped the cloned badges at time clocks at three LIRR facilities — in Ronkonkoma, Queens and Manhattan — to cover up for the absences of their co-workers, some of whom "would routinely leave LIRR property for up to two hours in the middle of their shifts for personal activities, including meals at home or workouts at the gym," according to the report from the office MTA Inspector General Daniel Cort.

In their report, investigators cited the "lack of adequate and effective supervision" as a contributing factor in the "culture of fraud and time abuse" among some LIRR employees.

Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that the latest scheme was hatched even after four LIRR workers were convicted of fraud for lying about overtime. This signals "a problem with the culture in the place," said Cameron Macdonald, general counsel for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative Albany think tank. "This isn’t just something on the edges ... This is another level of abuse and fraud on the public," Macdonald said. "It’s a shame that taxpayers and commuters should be expected to be paying for security cameras at time clocks in order for the MTA to police its workforce."

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Riverhead's Riley Avenue Elementary School hosted Rocket Drones yesterday, bringing an engaging presentation on the developing world of drone technology to young students. Emil Breitenbach Jr reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Rocket Drones is a nationwide, industry-owned drone education company that works with students in grades three through 12. Their programs are designed to equip children with the actual skills needed for the drone workplace, according to co-owner Brandon Turk. “We are hurting for properly trained pilots in the drone industry,” Turk explained. Jen Sauter, an educational technology coach with Eastern Suffolk BOCES, has been instrumental in implementing the drone educational programs for third and fourth graders in all of Riverhead’s elementary schools. “We’re preparing them for 21st century careers,” Sauter said, pointing out that the array of industries using drones is only becoming more expansive. The second half of the assembly included a drone demonstration and gave some fourth-grade students an opportunity to fly small drones around the gymnasium.

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Earlier this week, regulators in New York announced the largest recall of cannabis products in the state’s short history of legalization. Several days have passed. Yet there has been no official notice about how the recall affects more than $30 million worth of cannabis products that regulators said were slipped into dispensaries by companies without the proper licensing. The backdoor channel was made possible by illegal arrangements made with Omnium Health, in Hauppauge, Long Island, one of the state’s largest makers of cannabis goods.

Ashley Southall reports in THE NY TIMES that NYS regulators do not have a deadline to start the recall. But some experts in the cannabis industry say that officials are taking too long to take the action, which has stirred confusion in the industry, risked the safety of consumers and could renew doubts about legalization all together.

“The unknown of what’s coming out of Omnium is a headline or two away from causing a loss of consumer trust in this industry,” Mack Hueber, the president of the Empire Cannabis Manufacturers Alliance, a state trade association, told THE TIMES. “And if that happens, everything that New York has been building could go away very quickly.”

In a LinkedIn post, Felicia A.B. Reid, the acting executive director of the Office of Cannabis Managemen said the agency had carefully built its case against Omnium to avoid unintended consequences for consumers and dispensaries.

“O.C.M. does not take action against Omnium impulsively,” she said, adding that “to move without considering short- and long-term impact would be woefully shortsighted.”

State regulators said on Monday that Omnium had illegally rented out its licenses to out-of-state companies, allowing them to make their own products and sell them to dispensaries without proper authorization. Officials said the company had 24 hours to tell regulators what products had been made under its contracts with Stiiizy, Mfused, Grön and Liberty Leaf, all major companies in the cannabis industry based in Western states that worked with Omnium in New York.

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As access to fresh and safe drinking water has been at the forefront of North Forkers’ minds this year, the Orient Association is holding a Water Forum at Poquatuck Hall tomorrow, to give the community a chance to learn more about the state of groundwater here. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that Saturday’s events come on the heels of The Orient Association’s major new study on the water resources of the hamlet of Orient, released in June.

Orient’s households and farms currently rely on onsite wells for fresh water, but many property owners struggle with saltwater intrusion in their wells, and with chemical contamination due to PFAS.

The Orient Water Resources Study “details Orient’s hydrology, the interplay of water resources, the current balances and imbalances, trends for the future and a number of different options addressing current and future areas of concern,” according to the Orient Association.

The study, prepared by CDM/Smith, a global engineering firm with specific expertise regarding Long Island waters, draws from federal, state, county, and town research, as well as many stakeholders in Orient.

The Suffolk County Water Authority has also recently included a water main extension from East Marion to Orient in the environmental review for its planned North Fork Pipeline project.

For tomorrow's forum at at Poquatuck Hall, the Orient Association has assembled panels of regional experts to address the pressing issues concerning water, fresh and salt, facing Orient and the North Fork.

Three hourly sessions are scheduled from 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.: “Forever Chemicals and Other Contaminants in Orient’s Fresh Water”, “Sea Level Rise and Saltwater Intrusion in Orient’s Wells” and “Public Water, Does Orient Need It?”

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In Suffolk County, early voting for the 2025 General Election starts tomorrow through Sunday, November 2. You can cast your ballot at any of the designated early voting centers during this nine-day period.

The hours for early voting centers vary by day:

• Weekend days (October 25, 26, November 1, 2): 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Monday, October 27: 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
• Tuesday and Wednesday, October 28 & 29: 7 a.m. – 3 p.m.
• Thursday and Friday, October 30 & 31: 12 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Important information for voters

• You can vote at any early voting center in Suffolk County for the General Election. Visit the Suffolk County Board of Elections website for a list of locations when available.
• Voting during the early period means you cannot vote again on Election Day, November 4, 2025.
• If you have an Early Mail ballot, you cannot vote in person on a machine; you must use an affidavit ballot.
• The deadline to register to vote for the 2025 General Election is October 25, 2025.
• Check your voter registration status and find your polling site on the New York State voter lookup website.

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Taxpayers got taken for a ride by these LIRR fraudsters. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that three dozen Long Island Rail Road workers used a fake ID scheme to ditch work but still get paid — with one bozo boasting he was drinking margaritas poolside while on the clock, per a scathing report this week from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s watchdog agency which found “widespread culture of fraud and time abuse” in the car maintenance division at the LIRR’s Ronkonkoma, Richmond Hill and Manhattan West Side facilities. “These employees, including supervisors who should have been enforcing the rules, stole countless hours of paid time,” said MTA Inspector General Daniel Cort. “The investigation revealed a widespread lack of ethics and contempt for the timekeeping regulations in these LIRR facilities.”

The investigation didn’t specify the amount of work time stolen, but the reports suggest workers skipped out on potentially thousands of hours of work — and used the scheme to milk overtime. Stunningly, some employees were accused of possessing machines to make the fake cards, and some of the cloned cards were actually created in a locker room and inside personal cars on LIRR property. Workers sold the coveted cloned cards — many of which were stashed in unlocked lockers and even a refrigerator on LIRR property — for as much as $40.00, the report said.

The findings were referred to three district attorneys’ offices but no charges have been filed yet. Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the slackers due to the “lack of controls at the MTA facility, e.g., no cameras on the employee entrance-exit, no biometric checks, and inadequate records.” Cameron Macdonald, general counsel for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative Albany think tank said, "It’s a shame that taxpayers and commuters should be expected to be paying for security cameras at time clocks in order for the MTA to police its workforce."