Deceased Minke Whale Found In Bridgehampton

Long Island Morning Edition

The atmosphere at Stony Brook University was tense yesterday, less than a day after 29 people, including nearly two dozen students, were arrested during a confrontation with authorities. As reported in NEWSDAY, a pro-Palestinian protest broke out again on campus Thursday afternoon, although the demonstrators dispersed shortly afterward. And Jewish students, who gathered for a party in the space where Wednesday's protest took place, said the week's events had left them fearing for their safety.

Late yesterday afternoon, as students came and went to their final exams, roughly 100 students gathered at an outdoor campus concert, and later in front of the Earth and Space building, for an impromptu protest. They chanted “Free Palestine” and shouted “Shame” at university officials after the arrests of “peaceful protesters.”

The demonstrators chanted slogans against Israel and called for Palestinian resistance. One protester made an obscene gesture at a small group of students watching, one of whom was wrapped in an Israeli flag. The protest ended without altercations.

Shortly after midnight Thursday, 22 students, two faculty members and five others had been arrested after they refused to vacate a grassy area on campus known as the Staller Steps.

Meanwhile, students gathered yesterday for a Jewish heritage event in front of the Staller Center — the same site where protesters had been arrested and evicted hours earlier.

The event got underway amid heavy security. Campus police erected wood barriers and put up yellow police tape to control access to the site. It attracted about 50 people, a sparser crowd than the 500 who came last year, event organizers said.

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The Alive on 25 summer street festival will return this year with two events which will bring fireworks and, for the first time, a laser light show, to downtown Riverhead. Alek Lewis reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the first event will be on July 5 and include fireworks starting at 9 p.m. The second event is on Aug. 9 and includes a laser light show over the Peconic River and in the Riverhead Town square starting at 9 p.m.

The events, which feature live music on multiple stages, local craft beverages, food trucks, street dining, vendors and activities on Main Street and the Peconic Riverfront, begin at 5 p.m. and officially end at 9:30 p.m. Rain dates for the events are July 19 and Aug. 23.

The Riverhead Business Improvement District Management Association, which organizes the festival, decided to cut down the number of Alive on 25 events down from four to two events this year.

For the first time, the street festival had a small financial loss last year, Riverhead Business Improvement District Management Association executive director Kristy Verity said at a recent BIDMA board meeting. The first event of the summer, which coincides with Independence Day weekend, typically has an “enormous” turnout, and that attendance seems to dwindle with the other three events, she said. That caused some vendors to bow out of the festival altogether because they had to commit to attending all four events, she said.

This is the second big change to the street festival in recent memory; in 2022, BIDMA moved the festival from Thursday to Friday with the hope that weekend traffic could boost attendance. The move to Friday nights has been “very successful,” Verity said.

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A badly decomposed female minke whale was found in the ocean surf in Bridgehampton this past Wednesday morning. As reported on 27east.com, scientists with the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society conducted a necropsy of the 26-foot whale. The animal showed no sign of trauma, but it will not be possible to pinpoint a cause of death until the results of the examination are available in about a month, according to Rob DiGiovanni, the organization’s chief scientist. “This species is part of the unusual mortality rate” that has been reported in recent months, he said. The cause of death in most cases has been bacterial infections, he added. Although there has been speculation that the construction of offshore wind turbines may be playing a role in the death of whales, DiGiovanni said there was no evidence to support that conclusion. He said town, state and federal agencies assisted in the recovery and burial of the whale.

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Nearly 1,100 immigrants without legal documentation living in Suffolk County were ordered deported by immigration judges between October and the end of March, ranking behind only New York City statewide during that period, according to new federal data released last week by a nonprofit research group. Robert Brodsky reports on Newsday.com that nationwide, the highest number of removal orders issued by immigration judges during the first six months of fiscal 2024 — at just under 11,000 — went to immigrants living in the city, primarily in Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx, according to Department of Justice figures obtained by the Syracuse University-based Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a nonpartisan group that tracks federal data, including immigration.

TRAC's rankings merge the city's five boroughs into one region but separately list Long Island's counties. Nassau had about 300 fewer deportation orders than Suffolk.

The rise in deportation orders — which are significantly higher than in recent years — reflects, in part, an increased number of judges hearing cases but doesn't necessarily mean the immigrants are actually leaving the country, as many don't show up for court hearings, experts said.

While Long Island hasn't seen as many recent migrants compared to the city, TRAC's data shows that a high number of migrants have been nonetheless ordered removed from Nassau and Suffolk in recent years.

From Oct. 1, 2023, through March 30th of this year, 1,097 immigrants who listed Suffolk as their primary residence were ordered removed — the most of any region outside of the city and the 15th-highest among all counties nationwide, according to TRAC's data.

At its current pace, Suffolk would slightly exceed its highest year for deportation orders — 2,156 in fiscal 2019 — since at least 1998. There were 1,920 deportation orders to Suffolk residents in fiscal 2023, data shows.

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MTA Bridges and Tunnels and the NYPD arrested 56 people and issued nearly 1,400 tickets to persistent toll evaders and for “ghost plates” designed to avoid license plate readers on New York City bridges and tunnels, authorities said. John Asbury reports on Newsday.com that authorities also seized 193 vehicles during the operation Monday and Wednesday that screened vehicles at the Robert F. Kennedy, Willis Avenue, Third Avenue and George Washington bridges and the Queens-Midtown, Lincoln and Holland tunnels.

Persistent toll evaders owed more than $1.2 million in unpaid tolls, fees, judgments and debts, authorities said.

Arrests included one out-of-state resident wanted on forgery charges and another person wanted on an outstanding robbery charge. Other drivers were stopped for violations including driving with covered or obstructed license plates, unpaid tolls, driving unregistered vehicles and driving with suspended licenses.

During 10 operations this year, since March, authorities have seized 618 vehicles, made 142 arrests and issued 4,247 tickets, totaling more than $5.2 million in unpaid tolls and other outstanding judgments. Authorities have impounded more than 1,000 vehicles this year for unpaid tolls.

Officials seized 2,731 vehicles in 2023, up 47% from 2022. A study by Newsday found drivers concealed, obstructed or used bogus license plates to dodge an average of 224,000 tolls a month last year at MTA bridges and tunnels. The MTA previously told Newsday that plate cheaters cost the authority about $46 million in toll revenue in 2022.

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This coming Monday May 6th at 6pm, the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association will commemorate Holocaust Remembrance Day at Riverhead Free Library to honor the memory of the lives taken and of all who risked or sacrificed their own lives to save others.

This year, explore and reflect on Hearts and Minds; hearing the thoughts and emotions shared on diary pages written in hiding or in deathcamps; the memories of survivors whose life’s work became keeping their stories alive; and the reminders, written in essays and poems, that the future is in our hands.

This free program - Holocaust Remembrance Day – is next Monday, May 6th at 6pm in the Riverhead Free Library.

The event is presented as a community service by the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association. Advance registration requested, but not required. Call Riverhead Free Library at [phone] to register.

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What do you do with a broken toaster? Or a bike with an out-of-true wheel? Or with a sweater full of moth holes? Toss it? No way! North Fork Environmental Council is organizing its sixth Repair Café at the Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport on Saturday, May 4…that’s tomorrow from 1 to 4 p.m. At the Repair Café, everything centers on making repairs. Various volunteer repair experts will be available to help make all possible repairs free of charge. Tools and materials will also be on hand.

People visiting the Repair Café will bring along their broken items from home. Toasters, lamps, hair dryers, clothes, bikes, toys, crockery… anything that is broken is welcome. And can more than likely be repaired. The Repair Café volunteer repair coaches almost always have the know-how.

By promoting repairs, North Fork Environmental Council {NFEC} wants to help reduce mountains of waste. This is absolutely necessary, according to Margaret de Cruz, who organized this Repair Café.

“We throw away piles of stuff in the United States..But Where is Away? There is no Away, except the Oceans and Earth’s floor, and landfills,” she said.

Repair Café is also meant to put neighbors in touch with each other in a new way, and to discover that a lot of know-how and practical skills can be found close to home.

“Jointly making repairs can lead to pleasant contacts in the neighborhood,” said Ms. de Cruz.

Repairing saves money and resources, reduces unnecessary consumption and can help minimize CO2 emissions.

“But above all, Repair Café just wants to show how much fun repairing things can be, and how easy it often is,” she said.

The North Fork Environmental Council’s sixth Repair Café at the Floyd Memorial Library in Greenport is Saturday, May 4th from 1 to 4 p.m.

All repairs are free of charge.