A nearly three-year investigation by the MTA inspector general found 36 Long Island Rail Road workers were involved in a plot to duplicate and distribute LIRR employee ID cards that were used to cover up employees' routine absences from work. From 2021 to 2024, the accused workers — including some railroad supervisors — cloned the cards using a device bought online and then sold them for $5-$40 to co-workers at three employee facilities in Suffolk, Queens and Manhattan. Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that the LIRR immediately suspended most of the workers accused in the plot and has made some forfeit hundreds of thousands of dollars. In a statement, LIRR president Robert Free said the actions of the employees, including supervisors "responsible for making sure all employees play by the rules," were "nothing short of corrupt" and warranted "severe punishment."

The scheme points to a "culture of fraud and time abuse" at the three railroad employee facilities, according to the report.

Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney said yesterday that his office conducted a 16-month investigation into the charges, following a referral from Metropolitan Transportation Authority inspector general Daniel Cort's office in May 2023, but ultimately found the evidence "was insufficient to bring prosecutions due to the lack of controls at the MTA facility," including, "no cameras on the employee entrance-exit, no biometric checks, and inadequate records."

Free said the railroad has since implemented "enhanced technology and aggressive oversight" to ensure "that everyone is fully accountable for reporting only time actually worked."

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The median price of a home in The Hamptons climbed 30% to $2 million in the third quarter, compared with the same stretch a year ago, as a surge in high-end sales lifted the market.

On the North Fork, the median sale closed just above $1 million for the second quarter in a row, according to new data from real estate brokerage Douglas Elliman and appraisal firm Miller Samuel.

A strong year for Wall Street in 2024 increased the size of the buyer pool on the East End, said Todd Bourgard, CEO of Douglas Elliman for Long Island, the Hamptons and the North Fork. The average bonus among workers in the securities industry rose to a record $244,700 last year, Newsday previously reported.

“Wall Street and the Hamptons go hand in hand,” he said. “When the [stock] market is really good as it has been, our buyers are out here."

Jonathan LaMantia reports in NEWSDAY that neither price level represents a record, but home prices rose in both regions compared with the year before. The median price in the Hamptons reached a high of $2.04 million in the first quarter, while the North Fork record was $1.09 million in the second quarter of this year.

The higher median prices reflect the strength of the top end of the market, said Jonathan Miller, CEO of Miller Samuel. One reason is that buyers of luxury real estate often don’t use mortgages to buy homes and have access to alternative types of financing, so they are less affected by the average 30-year fixed rate staying above 6%.

“The high end market over the last year and a half has been consistently outperforming everything,” Miller said.

About 18% of deals in the Hamptons that closed in the third quarter sold for $5 million or higher, he said.

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In a unanimous vote Tuesday night on a resolution that was not on its published agenda, the Riverhead Town Board set in motion the demolition of 127 East Main Street, which could begin by the end of this month. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the site is under contract for sale to a company owned by members of the Petrocelli family, the town’s designated master developer for the town square project. The two-story building on the property will be demolished to make way for a five-story boutique hotel and condominium project to be developed pursuant to a master developer agreement approved by the Town Board in August. The building at 127 East Main in Riverhead is the last of three buildings the town purchased from Riverhead Enterprises for $4.85 million in 2021 for the town square project. The other two town square buildings were demolished in 2021 under a $965,000 contract with another Petrocelli company, which won the contract through a bidding process. Demolition of the 127 East Main Street building could begin as soon as Oct. 30, according to the Riverhead Town Supervisor.

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Last month’s two-week pilot program that restricted motorists from making left-hand turns onto Hill Street off Lee Avenue and Captains Neck Lane in Southampton Village did not improve traffic flow during rush hour…the late afternoon/evening trade parade…in any significant way — and, beyond that, it exacerbated traffic congestion in other areas of the village. That was the update traffic engineer Ryan Winter of VHB presented to the Southampton Village Board at its work session this past Tuesday. Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the data that the firm collected over the course of three weeks — during the pilot and in the week after it ended — show that people still chose Hill Street as a way to head west during the evening commute, instead of opting for County Road 39, despite the turn restrictions, which had been put in place not only to give residents on those roads relief but to see if it would move motorists to the county road, and improve the flow of traffic on Hill Street. Winter said, “No matter how inefficient we make it to take Hill Street, it’s inefficient now and people are still taking it.” The data also showed another by now common side effect of nearly all the different pilot restrictions the village has tried over the last few years to improve traffic flow: It simply pushed the problem to a different area. Traffic congestion worsened on residential streets north of Hill Street, particularly around Moses Lane, Pelham Street and Armande Street. “What we did to mitigate the southern area made the northern area worse,” Winter said. The conclusion, after that, was not surprising. “Our recommendation will be to not implement the pilot, at least as it’s presently constituted,” Winter said. “Due to the negative effects to a lot of other areas of the village, including the downtown.” A draft summary of the findings from the three-week study will be ready by the end of the month, Winter said.

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Tens of thousands of federal civilian employees on Long Island and across New York State are expecting to miss full paychecks for the first time starting tomorrow because of the U.S. government shutdown. Billy House reports in NEWSDAY that with Congress showing no signs of resolving its impasse over the federal closure, the economic fallout is about to start landing harder for many of these workers. Today will be the 23rd day of the nation’s second-longest shutdown.

There are as many as 31,000 federal civilian employees living on Long Island, and 115,000 statewide. Exact numbers on how many of these are among the roughly 700,000 federal civilian workers who have been furloughed nationwide are not available.

Federal workers, by law, are supposed to get back pay once the shutdown ends, but President Donald Trump and his budget lieutenant have questioned whether the government must do that.

Meanwhile, almost as many federal workers — jobs such as air traffic controllers — are continuing to work without pay.

Most of the nation’s federal civilian workforce last received paychecks for a biweekly pay period through Oct. 4. But many were partial ones, missing three or four days of pay because the shutdown began Oct. 1.

Active-duty military members who are continuing to work — including more than 2,000 service members on Long Island and 28,000 in New York State — had previously braced for a missed paycheck on Oct. 15, But the Trump administration announced just days before that it would reallocate $8 billion to fund the military during that first pay period.

But if the shutdown continues through the military’s next payday on Oct. 31 and no added money is moved around again, over 1.7 million of those paychecks could be withheld.

***

The East Hampton Food Pantry reports that its annual food drive, which began October 6 and continues through November 14, is already halfway to its goal of 3,000 pounds of food. Much of the progress has come through the online platform yougivegoods.com. Meanwhile, as reported on 27east.com, the pantry has served more than 1,000 clients so far this week — 200 more than during the same week last year and 300 more than the same week in 2023. With the holidays approaching, the pantry is encouraging supporters to shop online at yougivegoods.com. Shoppers can choose from a variety of holiday foods, receive a tax-deductible receipt, and have their purchases delivered directly to the East Hampton Food Pantry.

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A Nassau County school district this week sued New York State’s Education Department after the state blocked the district from requiring its students to use bathrooms that align with their sex assigned at birth.

In a federal lawsuit filed in the Eastern District of New York on Tuesday, the Massapequa School District said a recent order from the department demanded that the school district “permit biological males to enter intimate spaces with biological females.”

Santul Nerkar and Troy Closson report in THE NY TIMES that the Trump administration contends that the civil rights of girls are violated when school policies recognize transgender identities, and the lawsuit by Massapequa could be aimed at once again drawing the federal government into the fray on Long Island.

School policies that allow students to use bathrooms and participate in athletic programs based on their gender identity have animated political fights around the country. In September, the Supreme Court ruled that a transgender boy must be allowed to use a boys’ bathroom at a South Carolina public school after the state sought to bar him. (The court stressed that the order was temporary while the student pursued a challenge to the state law, and did not address the merits of the case.)

During Trump’s second term, his Education Department has targeted school districts across the country for allowing students to use bathrooms that match their gender identity, in what it says are violations of Title IX, a provision of federal law that prohibits sex discrimination at educational institutions that receive government funding.

The dispute in Massapequa, a district with roughly 6,500 students, centers on a policy that the local school board approved last month. It is just the latest imbroglio over national cultural issues in Nassau County, whose legislature is controlled by Republicans and whose Republican county executive, Bruce Blakeman, has embraced President Trump.

The policy, passed Sept. 9, required students to use restrooms and locker rooms that aligned with their sex assigned at birth, and offered to provide gender-neutral facilities upon request “to ensure that all students’ needs are respectfully addressed.”

Under state human rights law, denying someone the use of facilities because of gender identity is considered discrimination. The New York Civil Liberties Union challenged the district’s policy this month and asked the state to overturn the rule on behalf of a transgender student in Massapequa.

Betty A. Rosa, the NYS education commissioner, last week blocked the district from enforcing the rule.

The suit is not the first high-profile clash this year between the state and school leaders in Massapequa, a middle-class hamlet on Long Island’s South Shore where most voters supported Mr. Trump in last year’s election.

The district refused to follow a state requirement to abandon its decades-old “Chief” mascot, creating a remarkable standoff that caught the attention of Mr. Trump. The education secretary, Linda McMahon, came to Massapequa High School in the spring to support the district’s effort to keep the mascot.