Long Island churches and nonprofits are holding "emergency planning" workshops explaining how immigrants living here illegally — and who fear arrest or deportation — can sign papers for "standby guardianship" of their children. Bart Jones reports in NEWSDAY that some immigrants are refraining from activities like food shopping in part because of their biggest fear of all: getting detained and deported while their children stay here, advocates said. A temporary custody transfer can be done by signing a form provided by the New York State Office of Child and Family Services, said Theo Liebmann, a professor at Hofstra Law School. "It's horrifying. It's the most devastating thing I've ever experienced," said Minerva Perez, whose East End Latino advocacy group, OLA of Eastern Long Island, has held workshops explaining the process to immigrants. "You're in a room with people who are silent as you speak to them about the possibility of them being separated from their children. And there's not a heavier feeling in the world," said Perez. Usually the standby guardianship is used in cases when the parent has little standing to remain in the country legally but the child does, such as through a special immigrant juvenile status visa given to children abandoned, abused or neglected by at least one parent, Liebmann said. Or there could be a case where the parent entered the country without authorization, but the child was born here, making him or her a U.S. citizen. The designated caregiver can decide issues such as education, housing and medical care. It is good for 12 months but can be extended.

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Long Island now has one of the fastest, most efficient and reliable mail services in the country thanks to a high-tech Postal Service upgrade covering both its counties, officials say. Brandon Cruz reports in THE NY POST that a US Postal Service state-of-the-art sorting and delivery center opened in Huntington Station in Suffolk County last week as part of a $40 billion nationwide modernization effort aimed at dragging the country’s aging mail system into the 21st century. The move comes after the October opening of Nassau County’s revamped hub in Hicksville — making Long Island one of the only regions in the country where both counties are fully modernized. “With these upgrades, Long Island now has one of the most efficient mail systems in the country,” USPS spokeswoman Amy Gibbs told The Post. Officials said results are already being delivered to residents throughout both counties. “Customers are definitely getting their packages faster,” said Robert Kasten, who oversees vehicle operations for the Atlantic 4 territory, which includes Long Island. USPS has already deployed 16 of their new electric Ram ProMaster trucks across Suffolk, with plans to eventually replace the county’s entire decades-old 1,400-vehicle fleet. The EV vehicles can run for days without needing a charge and are designed with better visibility, easier dismounting and improved ergonomics to help carriers move quicker and safer. The hubs in Nassau and Suffolk are just two of roughly 111 newly modernized sorting and delivery centers opening across the nation. The upgrades are thanks to the United States Postal Service investing $40 billion over 10 years to revamp its processing, mail and package systems, having already poured more than $18.9 billion into renovations nationwide, according to Gibbs.

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The Hampton Bays Civic Association will hold its next monthly meeting tomorrow in the Hampton Bays Community Center on Ponquogue Avenue. Doors will open at 6:30 p.m. for light refreshments, with the meeting beginning promptly at 7 p.m. this Tuesday.

Tomorrow evening’s featured guest speaker is Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore, who will provide an update on key issues impacting both Hampton Bays and the Town of Southampton. Also joining the meeting will be Southampton Town Councilman Rick Martel, who will share news on current governmental activities and initiatives.

The evening will conclude with a Q&A session, giving community members the opportunity to ask questions and engage directly with Southampton Town officials.

That's tomorrow at 7pm in the Hampton Bays Community Center.

For more information, visit hbcivic.org.

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Southampton Town and Southampton Village officials plan to formally ask Suffolk County to implement a version of the traffic pattern changes that were tested for two weeks in late April and early May. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that Southampton Town Highway Superintendent Charles McArdle said that village and town officials will meet next week to discuss what to specifically propose the county change along the roadway. But he said that it will center on restricting County Road 39 and Sandy Hollow Road to one lane where the two roads merge, so that traffic can come together without the necessity of frequently alternating traffic signals. The county is in the midst of a multi-year study of the County Road 39 corridor that is intended to update the latest understanding of the causes of the gridlock and revisit what the possibilities for real, permanent solutions are. For decades, Suffolk County engineers have said that the only real way to reduce congestion on County Road 39 is to give thousands of cars per hour another alternative, for those heading past the choke points in Southampton and Water Mill. Proposals for new bypass roads following rights-of-way cutting through the woods north of County Road 39 and Montauk Highway are seen as moon-shot projects that would be extraordinarily costly and disruptive to residential and environmental areas during construction. But without it, the county’s top engineer said as recently as last year, the South Fork region will have to accept enduring the crawling traffic, congested downtowns and residential neighborhoods being used as bypass routes. Southampton Village officials have searched for years for ways to ease the impacts of the congestion on Hill Street and the residential streets north and south of 27A in Southampton.

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The New York Civil Liberties Union is questioning the Eastport-South Manor school district's decision to declare "obsolete" hundreds of copies of 14 books, several of which have been the subject of recent bans elsewhere in the nation or contain themes of race and identity that have been controversial. An Eastport-South Manor School District official told the civil liberties organization that the copies were too damaged to be used in school and at least three of the books remained in the curriculum. Documents obtained by the NYCLU suggested the books were not replaced and most had not appeared in the syllabus for the district’s English and social studies classes in its junior-senior high school since 2019.

Dandan Zou reports in NEWSDAY that the Eastport-South Manor school board voted in July 2024 to declare "obsolete" the titles, including acclaimed literary works such as Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” Zora Neale Hurston’s “Their Eyes Were Watching God” and Richard Wright’s “Black Boy.”

"The unexplained disposal of widely recognized works written by and about people of color sends a deeply troubling message to students and community members alike," the NYCLU wrote in a letter to district officials dated July 21.

The Eastport-South Manor district, located in Manorville and Eastport, educated more than 2,700 students in the 2023-24 school year, including about 450 Hispanic students and roughly 50 Black students, according to state data.

The NYCLU is calling on the district to offer more transparency in its decision-making process and make clear whether the titles in question continue to be used in district schools.

“People have a right to know what young people are learning in school, particularly in this moment when so many books are being ideologically targeted,” said Emma Hulse, education counsel for the NYCLU.

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The Hampton Bays Beautification Association will host its next meeting on August 4 at 7 p.m. in the Hampton Bays Library, featuring special guest speaker Rikki Klieman — renowned television anchor, legal analyst, trial attorney, actor, and best-selling author.

Klieman is widely recognized as one of the nation’s most respected legal minds, with a career spanning television journalism, courtroom litigation, academia, and public speaking.

She has served as a legal analyst for CBS News, appearing regularly on air. Klieman has also appeared as a legal expert on NBC Nightly News, ABC, CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC.

Her autobiography, “Fairy Tales Can Come True: How a Driven Woman Changed Her Destiny,” became a Los Angeles Times bestseller. She was named one of the five most outstanding women trial lawyers in the country by Time magazine.

Klieman resides in Hampton Bays with her husband, former New York City Police Commissioner William Bratton.

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As the world’s best golfers lowered their shoulders against the rains of Northern Ireland for the opening rounds of the 153rd Open Championship earlier this month…an event Americans often refer to as the British Open…the organizers of the American counterpart arrived in Southampton to begin the planning for next year’s U.S. Open at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that it will be the sixth time the U.S. Open has been held at Shinnecock Hills, and next year’s version will have a substantially different look and feel from the last time around that will be immediately noticeable to fans — both those at the course and watching on television — and the players themselves.

The course this time will be — well, recognizable.

For the 2026 event, the Shinnecock membership has asked the USGA to substantially reduce the number of large hospitality and concessions tents that it erects on the interior of the course’s routing next spring. That would leave the hillside that most of the back nine holes play along, and large swaths of the flatter front nine’s open areas, mostly undisturbed.

The decision by the membership to demand the scaled-back build-out was one of both aesthetics and sensibility.

In 2018, some 350 white vinyl-sided tents — some the size of department stores — filled much of the usually mottled brown-green open spaces of fescue between the mowed fairways and greens.

Next year, that number will be cut by about a third, and the bulk of them will be restricted to the perimeters of the course itself and the fringes….thus reducing the uncomfortable feel of commercialization on the course during the tournament.

The changes will also have a substantial impact on the condition the golf club’s property is left in when the U.S. Open departs for Pebble Beach in 2027.

The 2026 U.S. Open Golf Championship is June 18-21 at Shinnecock Hills Golf Club – right here in Southampton, N.Y.