From western Nassau County to Montauk Point, Long Island towns are preparing for what could be the largest winter storm to hit the region in four years.

Meteorologists are forecasting 6 to 12 inches of snow this weekend — with local accumulations of up to 15 inches. The snowfall is expected to start falling early Sunday morning and last until Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

On the East End, where open farm fields can expose roads to snowdrifts, highway superintendents are preparing by checking snow fences, which help trap windblown snow, and readying large snow-blowing trucks.

“I don’t really fear the total, I fear the wind,” Riverhead Highway Superintendent Mike Zaleski told NEWSDAY. Snowdrifts caused by strong winds can make roads near farms hazardous and impassable, he said.

According to the forecast, gusts on Sunday could reach up to 30 mph.

“We have a few roads that are very open with farm fields on either side,” Southold Highway Superintendent Dan Goodwin said. “A road like that, you go through and open it up, and by the time you get to the other end of it, it doesn’t look like you were ever there.”

Employees with the Town of Southold's Highway Department and Department of Public Works will work 24 plow routes to clear 400 miles of road, Goodwin said. A crew will also be stationed on Fishers Island, responsible for about 10 miles of road.

Ahead of the storm, crews are checking plow blades, equipment and about 7 miles of snow fencing throughout town.

Officials expect one of the storm’s biggest challenges to be its duration.

“It’s tough on the crew. It’s a mentally draining job to stay sharp, to stay safe,” said Goodwin. “I’m hopeful that everybody will be able to go home on Monday evening and start to get caught up on a little bit of sleep."

Officials are offering a few reminders about managing the storm, ranging from travel impact to keeping pets safe.

Officials have warned people to avoid travel. But for those who must, it's wise to check for cancellations and schedule changes.

Several airlines have offered to waive change fees ahead of the storm in order to reschedule flights in case of widespread cancellations. There were minimal delays and cancellations listed as of yesterday afternoon at Kennedy and LaGuardia airports through Saturday.

The MTA and Long Island Rail Road generally begin reducing service for between 8 to 12 inches of snow, according to the MTA.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has traditionally seen significant suspensions of service or shut down the full system during more than one foot of snow or blizzard conditions. Service may also be interrupted during subzero temperatures.

The National Weather Service advised those who must drive to consider taking a winter storm kit in case a vehicle gets stuck or stranded. Supplies may include tire chains, jumper cables, a flashlight, a shovel, blankets and extra clothing.

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East End Arts holds a reception tomorrow for its last show before a massive renovation of its East Main Street Campus in Riverhead.

This year’s member’s show, is titled “In Motion.”

The exhibit’s Opening Reception is Saturday, January 24…that’s tomorrow from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.

Movement is both the inspiration and the metaphor for this year’s show, symbolizing not only artistic energy and transformation but also the exciting transition of East End Arts Council itself. This exhibition marks the final show at 133 E. Main Street before the organization’s temporary relocation during the Riverhead Town Square revitalization project.

East End Arts “In Motion” opening reception is tomorrow at 4 p.m.

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Long Island schools are gearing up to tackle the threat of a major snow storm this Sunday into early Monday.

Lorena Mongelli reports in NEWSDAY that school district...

National Grid Ventures, co-owner of Long Island’s first two battery storage plants, has withdrawn plans for a half-dozen other plants across the region, even as it works with partner NextEra Energy Resources to overhaul a plant in Montauk that’s offline. National Grid Ventures, a division of London-based National Grid whose U.S. operation owns a fleet of Long Island power plants and the regional natural gas system, had been listed in a state grid-connection database as proposing battery plants in West Babylon, Southampton, Far Rockaway, Port Jefferson, Wading River and Glenwood Landing.

Together the projects represented hundreds of megawatts of potential energy storage, some using space at power stations National Grid owns from its acquisition of KeySpan in 2007. (The plants were previously owned by the former LILCO.)

Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that New York Independent System Operator, which manages requests to connect to power grids across the state, previously had proposals for about 60 battery-storage facilities for Long Island in 2025. That list has since been whittled to 20. "National Grid is not planning to develop any additional battery sites on Long Island at this time," other than the two on the South Fork, National Grid Ventures spokesman Will Brunelle told NEWSDAY. "The other proposals were withdrawn in favor of opportunities that better aligned with our business priorities."

National Grid was listed as proposing battery plants in Wading River, Southampton and Glenwood Landing. The two existing facilities on the South Fork, in Montauk and in East Hampton, have been operating under contract to LIPA since 2018. LIPA’s 20-year contracts to use the facilities, which are rated at 5-megawatts each, amount to a combined $109 million.

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Suffolk County health department testing of Peconic River samples following last week’s sewage discharge at an East Main Street construction site have shown “bacteriological indicator levels …. well below NYS Standards for bathing beaches” a health department official wrote in an email to Riverhead Sewer District Superintendent Tim Allen yesterday. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that the Suffolk Health Department has lifted a Jan. 14 health advisory urging the public against recreating in the tidal waters of the Peconic. The agency said in a press release “recent analysis of surface water samples collected from the potentially affected area indicates this area is suitable for primary contact recreation.” “SCDHS took multiple rounds of samples for bacterial contamination at various locations in the tidal portion of Peconic River. Results were unremarkable and do not suggest any sewage-related contamination,” Suffolk County Associate Public Health Sanitarian Nancy Pierson said in her email to Allen. A break in a Riverhead Sewer District pipe at the 203-213 East Main Street construction site on Jan. 14 resulted in a discharge of approximately 10,000 gallons of untreated wastewater at the site, located a short distance from the river. Allen said last week the situation was quickly “mitigated” and there was no visible evidence of the discharged wastewater contaminating the river. The property under construction is being developed by Heatherwood with a 165-unit apartment building. Allen told the Riverhead Town Board last Thursday that the discharged wastewater “saturated into the ground” so “there was no cleanup.” The contractor has a dewatering box on site because the shallow depth to groundwater requires dewatering during excavation for sewer pipes and the building foundation.

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The Calverton Civic Association is urging members of the public to attend this evening’s Riverhead Town Zoning Board of Appeals meeting at 6 p.m. to raise concerns about a proposed construction and demolition debris processing plant at 1792 Middle Road, which is currently the site of a single family...

With the growing prevalence of cameras in public spaces and what some refer to as a "surveillance state," many citizens are concerned with the widespread use of license plate readers and related video technologies in police departments. James Kiernan is Chief of Police for the Town of Southampton police department. He joins the panel to discuss the practical and local applications of video surveillance and how he views law enforcement's moral precedent to use technology available to them for the sake of public safety. The topic was prompted by a recent article from the East End Beacon about the seemingly sudden rise in solar-powered traffic cameras across the East End.

Live on WLIW-FM Saturday at 10am, and on demand right here where you get podcasts.

Every 7 minutes on average, a crash causes death, injury or significant damage on Long Island.

Cars playing cat and mouse on the Southern State Parkway.

Motorists regularly pushing 90 mph on the Long Island Expressway.

Drivers casually blowing through stop signs and hitting excessive speeds in residential neighborhoods.

On Long Island roadways, crashes that lead to serious injuries or death often do not involve a singular cause.

Sometimes drugs or alcohol are at play. Other times, it's the weather or motorists driving aggressively or while distracted.

But one thread connecting the bulk of the most serious crashes on Long Island is speed.

"People don't realize just how dangerous speeding is and how much they're increasing the risks of having an accident by routinely speeding," said Stuart Cameron, a former chief of the Suffolk County Police Department. "They need to just slow down…Probably the most dangerous thing that people do on Long Island is to drive their cars."

Robert Brodsky and Michael O'Keeffe report in NEWSDAY that from enhanced driver education and beefed-up enforcement to lowered speed limits and improved road designs, experts contend there are a multitude of ways to reduce Long Islanders' need for speed.

But in a region where most of its 3 million residents use a vehicle to get to work or school or to navigate their daily lives, Long Islanders' desire to quickly get where they're going has made the roads increasingly dangerous, according to data analyzed by Newsday and interviews with more than a dozen traffic safety experts, law enforcement officials and victims of speed-related crashes.

On Long Island, 65 people were killed in 2024 in crashes where police determined that speed was a contributing factor, up from 51 such fatalities in 2019, according to data from the Institute for Traffic Safety Management & Research in Albany. Across Long Island, speed was a factor in more than 35% of all fatal crashes in 2024, the data shows.

Meanwhile, crashes involving serious injuries spiked to a 10-year high in 2024, at 353, according to Institute data.

"Speeding is avoidable — it is dangerous, and it can be deadly," Transportation Department spokesman Stephen Canzoneri said. "There is no question that speeding makes crashes worse on Long Island and across New York State."

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Long Island school districts would see an increase of 3.8% in state aid under New York Gov. Kathy Hochul’s budget proposal, which would allocate $200 million more to the region’s schools in 2026-27, a Newsday analysis found.

The proposed aid package for Long Island schools totals nearly $5.5 billion, according to aid projection figures released yesterday.

If approved by the state legislature, the governor’s proposal would boost funding for most school districts in Nassau and Suffolk.

Nine districts would see modest declines in their total aid.

Dandan Zou and Michael R. Ebert report in NEWSDAY that state aid makes up about 30% of the total revenue for schools on Long Island, with the majority funded through local property taxes. School taxation makes up roughly two thirds of homeowners' tax bills.

Governor Hochul's plan calls for a minimum increase of 1% in Foundation Aid for all districts. Foundation Aid is the largest source of school revenue from the state and represents “new money,” compared with expense-based funding that comes in the form of reimbursements, said Bob Vecchio, executive director of the Nassau-Suffolk School Boards Association.

Although the overall amount of Foundation Aid for the region would rise by 2.9% to nearly $4 billion under Hochul's budget plan, educators noted 73 of Long Island’s 121 districts would only see the minimum increase.

“This is an encouraging first step but there’s still work to be done,” Vecchio said of the governor’s...

As the developers of two offshore wind farms off Long Island argued in court this month to end Trump administration stop-work orders, their filings for the first time shed light on the cost to build the two massive arrays — a combined $13 billion.

In filings earlier this month, Sunrise Wind, which is scheduled to bring its 924 megawatts of power to Long Island at Smith Point in Shirley by late 2027, said it has “already spent or committed more than $7 billion on the project,” and that it would incur another $1 billion if the project were to be canceled.

Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that last year Orsted issued special new stock to raise $9.4 billion, some $6.3 billion of which was earmarked for completion of Sunrise.

The stop-work order for Sunrise Wind remains in place, with a court hearing scheduled for Feb. 2. The stop-work order alone is costing Sunrise $1 million a day, the company said in its filings. All of Sunrise Wind's energy production is scheduled for the Long Island electric grid, where the company has said it can power some 600,000 homes -- about half of LIPA’s customer base.

Orsted argued that the “compounding impacts of delay” for the Sunrise project also risk the prospect of “project cancellation,” which would result in the project suffering “enterprise-level harm, including losses of more than $8 billion.” Orsted stock has been battered in recent years by losses and write-downs tied to offshore wind, including cancellation of two big New Jersey projects.

Separately, Empire Wind, the 810-megawatt project being built off Jones Beach, revealed in court papers that it had spent $4 billion to date on the project, which is more than 60% complete, and that it would spend another $2 billion to complete it this year. Empire, which last week got the go-ahead from a federal judge to resume work under a preliminary injunction, will bring all its energy to New York City’s grid by the end of this year and 2027.

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The 41st Annual Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast drew a crowd of about 400 people to the Hyatt Regency Long Island in Hauppauge yesterday, to honor the life and legacy of the civil rights leader. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that Rev. Charles Coverdale, who conceived the event shortly after joining the First Baptist Church of Riverhead, was honored by the memorial breakfast committee with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The breakfast committee presented MLK Jr. Meritorious Awards to community healthcare advocate Vanessa Baird-Streeter, president and CEO of Health and Welfare Council of Long Island and affordable housing developer and advocate David Gallo, president/cofounder of Georgica Green Ventures. The committee also presented an MLK Jr. Special Recognition Award to Justice Fernando Camacho, acting Suffolk County Supreme Court justice and New York State Court of Claims judge. In remarks accepting his award, Coverdale, who has just retired as senior pastor at First Baptist Church of Riverhead, reflected on his journey from the South Bronx to Harvard to Riverhead. He said he was a city boy called to pastor a church in the country. Coverdale also looked back on the origins of the MLK memorial breakfast. In 1983, the year Coverdale came to Riverhead, Congress adopted legislation setting aside the third Monday in January to honor King’s birthday. Pastor Coverdale said he realized that there was no countywide event celebrating King’s life, so, working with members of his congregation, he started one. It quickly grew to be one of the premier MLK Day events in the region. The Rev. David L. Kelley II, senior pastor at Christ Fellowship Baptist Church in Brooklyn, was the keynote speaker at Monday’s event. Musical selections were performed by the Reverend Dr. Marti Luther King Jr. Freedom Choir. Guest speakers included Rep. Nick LaLota, Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine, and Suffolk County...

Young people under 25 are at increased risk of developing gambling problems compared with older adults, whose brains are fully mature. Mental health professionals and industry experts say this factor, combined with the 24/7 accessibility of mobile sports wagering apps, has made gambling addiction among Long Island's younger generations including teenagers a harmful and growing trend.

In response, at least one school district on Long Island has started educating graduating seniors about the dangers of gambling. Area universities are also taking proactive steps to provide outreach to students and some local education advocates are pushing gaming platforms to strengthen their safety checks, particularly for minors.

Lorena Mongelli reports in NEWSDAY that on the state level, Gov. Kathy Hochul recently unveiled a proposal to expand age verification requirements for gaming platforms and to strengthen privacy settings. The legal age to bet online is 18 for fantasy sports and 21 for sports wagering. Online casinos are not legal in New York.

While many gamblers are over 18, experts say they are also seeing underage players developing problematic betting habits.

In 2018, federal restrictions on sports betting were lifted by the U.S. Supreme Court. New York State in 2022 legalized online betting, which includes mobile sportsbooks and fantasy sports. Since then, online wagering has surged in popularity. Online bettors in New York wagered a record-breaking $26 billion in 2025, more than any other state.

But the increased appeal has come at a cost.

Local mental health professionals said their treatment offices are seeing more Gen Z patients struggling with gambling. Gambling recovery organizations on Long Island said they are also fielding more calls from people seeking help.

A spokesman for Gamblers Anonymous Long Island said the increase began around the time online betting was legalized. Last month, the local branch received double the number of calls compared with November, with people as young as 18 seeking help.

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A federal judge yesterday granted Empire Wind a preliminary injunction to allow the project off Long Island's South Shore to restart construction following a stop-work order by the Trump administration last month over unspecified national security concerns.

Mark Harrington reports in NEWSDAY that U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols granted the order Thursday morning, calling for an expedited summary judgment briefing schedule for the ongoing case by Jan. 20, according to court filings. The order from the Washington, D.C.-based federal court means the project, which is more than 60% complete, can go forward and avoid critical work deadlines that could have canceled it, developer Equinor of Norway said.

"Empire Wind will now focus on safely restarting construction activities that were halted during the suspension period," the company said in a statement yesterday. "In addition, the project will continue to engage with the U.S. government to ensure the safe, secure and responsible execution of its operations."

White House spokesman Taylor Rogers responded, “President [Donald] Trump has been clear: wind energy is the scam of the century," with Americans "forced to pay billions more for the least reliable source of energy." He said the administration "looks forward to ultimate victory on the issue.”

Equinor has already spent $4 billion on the 810-megawatt project, which is 14 miles off the coast of Jones Beach and will bring all its energy to the New York City power grid late this year and next. The company plans to spend another $2 billion to complete the project this year.

Earlier this week, a Washington, D.C., district judge granted a similar injunction for a second offshore wind array impacted by the order, Revolution Wind off New England. Orders remain in place for three others, including Sunrise...

New York Governor Kathy Hochul, eyeing a reelection campaign later this year, used her annual State of the State address yesterday to take aim at two targets: affordability and the Trump administration. Yancey Roy reports in NEWSDAY that Hochul, a Democrat, proposed an array of initiatives she said could reduce everyday costs for New Yorkers: increasing aid for child care, speeding up housing development, lowering automobile and homeowner's insurance costs, reining in utility bills by increasing oversight and boosting aid to food pantries.

The governor also outlined measures to counter the Trump administration on several fronts: child care aid, vaccine standards, tax deductions and energy development. She proposed a new law related to federal immigration/deportation initiatives — it would create a right to sue federal officers for constitutional violations.

Hochul touted an improving New York economy and declining crime rates. But she also emphasized immediate challenges in making the state more affordable and "defending fundamental rights."

"Today, New York faces serious headwinds. Reckless federal actions are pushing up costs, threatening jobs and putting critical investments at risk," Hochul wrote in a booklet accompanying her speech. "Efforts to divide, exclude, and roll back hard-won rights are testing the values that have long defined our state. And too many families are still asking the same fundamental question: Can we afford to build our future here?"

Governor Hochul asserted that her agenda for the year will help.

"The 2026 State of the State agenda is grounded in a simple belief: Government should make life more affordable, keep people safe and expand opportunity — not shrink it."

Hochul will have to back up her proposals with a funding plan — which she is slated to present to the State Legislature next Tuesday. Her State of the State address set her thematic and aspirational goals for the legislative session, which runs until the beginning of June.

Amid the budget and lawmaking, Hochul also is trying to set a reelection course against the presumptive Republican nominee, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman.

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In late fall of 2025, new solar-powered traffic cameras began popping up along roadways throughout the North Fork, raising heated discussions on social media about how the cameras were being used. The Southold Town Police Department has released a bulletin explaining its use of the Flock Safety Camera automatic license plate readers, funded through a state law enforcement tech grant, which has enabled the Suffolk County Sheriff to greatly expand the use of these cameras throughout the county. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that the Southold Town Board agreed at its Dec. 16 meeting to put a public informational bulletin about the cameras on its website in response to residents’ questions about the purposes of the cameras and what data they are collecting. Chief Steven Grattan said the Town of Southold has used Flock ALPR cameras for about three years, and that both the original cameras and several of those recently installed were donated to the town by the Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office. The town police department has also recently purchased its own cameras using a state Law Enforcement Technology (LETECH) grant, he said.

Last August, the Suffolk County Legislature approved increasing the number of county Flock Safety Cameras in areas that don’t require local or state legislative approval from 25 to 60 cameras, funded through a $542,500 LETECH grant from the state. Sixteen other cameras were planned to be installed along New York State rights-of-way, including along state Route 114 in Sag Harbor and East Hampton Village and along Route 25 in Riverhead and Southold.

Chief Grattan said cameras in Southold are monitored by town police dispatchers, who receive automatic alerts when the vehicles are...