The U.S. Department of Education has launched an investigation into the Connetquot school district for "actively taking steps to erase its Native American mascot and imagery," the federal agency announced yesterday. Darwin Yanes reports in NEWSDAY that the Connetquot School District, whose nickname is the Thunderbirds, has fought a state mandate banning such imagery in public schools. But in a letter to the community in June, Connetquot schools Superintendent Joseph T. Centamore said the district was "exploring options for an alternative mascot name that remains relatable to our community, such as 'Thunder,' while maintaining imagery that feels familiar to our history, including the lightning bolt and eagle-like bird."

The federal Education Department's Office of Civil Rights determined in May that the state's ban violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination in federally funded education programs on the basis of race, color, or national origin.

"The Department of Education has been clear with the state of New York: It is neither legal nor right to prohibit Native American mascots and logos while celebrating European and other cultural imagery in schools," U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon said in a news release Tuesday. "New York’s patronizing attitude toward Native Americans must end. We will continue to support the Native American community and ensure their heritage is equally protected under the law."

New York State Education Department spokesman J.P. O'Hare said in a statement to Newsday: "All but one school district in New York — Massapequa — has either complied with or is actively working to comply with the state’s regulations regarding the use of Indigenous mascots ... Like the previous 'investigation' involving the state Education Department, we anticipate that the U.S. Department of Education will ignore the law — including the unsuccessful lawsuits filed by Long Island school districts — in favor of its predetermined outcome."

The New York State Board of Regents in 2023 banned the use of Native American mascots, team names and logos in public schools. Local Native American groups have said the school districts' mascots and imagery promote "a stereotypical image" of their community and damage Indigenous children's self-esteem.

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Federal immigration agents were seen outside a house on Scuttlhole Road in Bridgehampton yesterday, where they took one person into custody, local officials confirmed. As reported on 27east.com, several agents from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, a division of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and possibly other law enforcement agencies were recorded on video by passersby gathered outside a house on Scuttlehole Road before sunrise on Tuesday. Southampton Town Police Chief James Kiernan said that his department was asked to send officers to the scene to keep traffic on the roadway flowing safely during the morning rush hour since the agents conducting the raid came in at least a half-dozen vehicles that had nowhere to stop but on the road shoulder. Chief Kiernan said the ICE agents had a warrant for the arrest of a person believed to be in the Bridgehampton house, but he did not know who the person was.

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A new bottle-guzzling sculpture was unveiled yesterday in downtown Riverhead, near the River and Roots Community Garden and playground adjacent to the intersection of West Main Street and Griffing Avenue in Riverhead. The four-foot by seven-foot receptacle is made of mesh wire and recycled materials.

This is Riverhead Town’s second “litter critter”; a similarly eye-catching fish-shaped receptacle has been helping curb litter at Iron Pier Beach in Northville since last year.

Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the bee was designed and built by local sculptor Clayton Orehek and funded by the North Fork Environmental Council, a local environmental advocacy group. The organization raised about $4,500 for the project, NFEC Riverhead Vice President Lisa Gavales said.

“We’re hoping that children and adults alike will go to it, and the big bee will be the buzz of the town,” Gavales said.

Next to the sculpture is a QR code that links to an NFEC webpage with information about the importance of bees to the environment.

The sculpture “should help people have an understanding of the importance of the environment, keeping litter out of the waterways, as well as off the streets,” Orehek added.

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New York public school summer programs are carrying on after the Trump administration refused to hand over more than $6 billion for education programming, slated for such purposes as summer enrichment, adult literacy and after-school projects, state officials said last week.

Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the NYS Department of Education said in a July 2 memo that the summer programming would not be affected by the funding freeze and could continue as arranged.

Despite the continuance of certain summer programs, some within the Long Island education community are advising school districts move with caution in their budgeting for the upcoming year and to contact their congressional representatives about the need for funding.

Long Island school districts get an average of 5% to 10% of their budgets from federal funding per Bob Vecchio, executive director at the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association.

At the Hampton Bays schools, summer school and programming began this week as usual, according to Superintendent Lars Clemensen.

But he tells NEWSDAY that worry about funding freezes remains because schools use the congressionally appropriated funding to make "commitments to kids and families and staff" for programming to meet their districts' goals.

In the meantime, Clemensen, a past president of the New York State Council of School Superintendents, counsels that school districts who use this funding should be more conservative with how they spend, given the funding uncertainties of the freeze and recent passage of the "big, beautiful" budget bill.

"But I think what we're learning in 2025 is that we have to proceed with caution ... in all these respects," said Clemensen.

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More than 200 years after he was freed, Elymus Reeve’s story is finally being told in Mattituck through a new historical roadside marker.

The marker stands at the south side of Main Road at the intersection with Mill Lane, not far from the plot of land overlooking Marratooka Pond where Reeve, a former slave, farmed and raised his family. Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that it’s the first historical marker honoring Black history and acknowledging slavery’s role in Southold, and part of a broader effort by a group of area historians to remember enslaved people on the North Fork.

Southold historians and town officials dedicated the sign yesterday, hailing the commemoration as a more complete retelling of local history, which often focuses on European settlers starting in 1640. “A lot of times, history is written just around those lives,” said Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski.

Krupski said Reeve’s is an “extraordinary American story” worth remembering.

Reeve was born into slavery in Cutchogue in 1783 and freed in 1813 — 14 years before it was outlawed in New York State, according to Southold Town Historian Amy Folk. His former enslaver, Elizabeth Reeve, left Elymus an acre of land and he inherited another 3½ acres from his father, Reuben.

Reeve and his wife, Hagar, had eight or nine children, Folk said. The couple are both interred at the Old Burying Ground in Cutchogue, where Reeve’s headstone is inscribed with a Bible verse that reads: “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”

Two of their daughters, Miriam and Parthenia, are also buried there. Their graves were unearthed during a Boy Scout’s Eagle project in 2018.

Town Councilman Brian Mealy, who made history in 2021 as the first Black person elected to the town board, said the marker is an overdue step to recognizing the contributions people of color have had in Southold.

North Fork Project, has spent four years researching slavery on the North Fork, poring over town records, wills, store ledgers, newspapers and town and church documents.

Through those records, the group has named more than 350 former slaves on the North Fork between the 1600s and 1827.

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It’s fire and ICE in one Suffolk County community. Brandon Cruz reports in THE NY POST that tensions are burning in Brentwood after ICE agents were spotted using the local firehouse parking lot as a makeshift base of operations just weeks after the county doubled down on its anti-sanctuary stance.

Unmarked ICE vehicles and agents were confirmed to be operating out of the lot, according to several Long Island officials representing the immigrant-heavy community where more than 70% of residents are Latino.

“In a town built and protected by a Latino majority, ICE was shockingly allowed to use a Brentwood firehouse to launch enforcement operations against that very community,” state Assemblyman Phil Ramos raged on Facebook this week.

Ramos slammed Brentwood’s fire department, but B.F.D. officials told The Post they had no prior knowledge of ICE using the fire station’s parking lot as a base, adding that as a state entity, it can’t stop a federal agency from using the site, which they also said is public property.

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Amid Native American ceremonial chanting and drumming, members of the Shinnecock Nation presented a dugout canoe called a mishoon to the Long Island Children’s Museum in Uniondale recently, where it will become part of the first new permanent exhibit at the museum in more than a decade. Beth Whitehouse reports in NEWSDAY that “Saltwater Stories: We Need the Sea & the Sea Needs Me,” scheduled to debut on Oct. 11, will be devoted to Long Island’s maritime history. The dugout canoe, crafted in the traditional manner by Long Island tribe members in Southampton, will be one of the exhibit’s central artifacts, says Maureen Mangan, museum director of communications. The mishoon will remain on display in the museum lobby until the exhibit opening, when it will move upstairs to the gallery currently devoted to the Pattern Studio exhibit, which will be retired. Once it moves upstairs, children will be able to climb inside.

The new exhibit will also include a fishing boat, a bay house, a fish market, and an area called “Lifting the Ocean’s Lid” that will explore what’s underwater and suggest ways families can help protect the sea. Visitors will enter the new exhibit through a 9-foot-wave, because “for so many people on Long Island, their first connection to the water is a day at the beach,” Mangan says.

The 10-foot long mishoon was created by hollowing out a white pine tree log using a controlled burn and hand tools over a three-day period in April. It was rolled into the museum lobby under black fabric and unveiled to a crowd of children, adults, and museum and local officials last week. Paddles were also presented.

“We’ve been here for thousands of years. These are mishoons you would see all around these waters on Long Island,” said Chenae Bullock, Shinnecock cultural steward, during the presentation, when she was dressed in traditional buckskin, pucker moccasins and wampum shell jewelry. “It doesn’t just represent the Shinnecock, but also other tribes throughout Long Island. It’s really nice to have a representation here for our youth.”

Boys and girls from the Boys and Girls Club of the Shinnecock Nation helped to make the mishoon along with their tribal elders and attended the presentation ceremony at the museum on June 30.

The museum commissioned the mishoon and is also gifting funds for the Shinnecock to make another mishoon to keep for their community, Mangan says.