Ludlum Elementary School in Hempstead did not even wait until the inauguration to go ahead and rename themselves Barack Obama Elementary School last night. Like the election of Obama himself, the push to rename the school came in large part from a youth movement--this time of preteens in the largely African-American and Hispanic community. District Superintendent Dr. Joseph Laria praised the students' exuberance saying, "You want to talk about "Yes We Can!"? That was a lesson in democracy." In a very different scene elsewhere on the Island, police have arrested three Shirley men on charges of criminal mischief for the sexual and racist graffiti they left on cars in Mastic last week. Since some of the slurs threatened Obama, the Secret Service is still involved with the investigation of the three men, all in their early twenties. more ›

On a quiet street in Mastic, residents found over a dozen cars had racial slurs sprayed on them. Newsday reports some target President-elect Obama--"The graffiti included racial slurs, as well as sexually graphic references."--and that neighbors were shocked, with one saying, "I'm really surprised. This is like the United Nations here." One of the victims told WCBS 880's Mike Xirinachs (who took the photo), "It's all over the place. It's just sickening. You know...it's sad. It really is sad," but another said, "One thing about something like this - when everybody becomes a victim - it brings us all a little bit closer together." more ›

The NYPD is stepping into a long-running feud between two rival Orthodox Jewish patrol groups in Crown Heights in order to unite them into a single police-supervised unit. Shmira and Shomrim are two bitterly-divided private crime-patrol organizations that split in the late '90s. (Here's one explanation of their complicated rivalry.) In an exclusive titled, "Jew Guys Need to Talk," the Post reports that Shmira has agreed to the merger, but Shomrim refuses to sit down with Shmira, who they accuse of slashing patrol-car tires, making prank emergency calls and falsely informing on Shomrim to the police. Yossi Stern, director of Shmira, denies the allegations: "It's all a bunch of rhetoric. Show me a police report. We're not out to harass anybody. We're out to do a service for the community." You'll recall that members of Shmira were suspected of beating a 20-year-old black man, Andrew Charles, in Crown Heights last April. more ›

The police have increased their presence in Crown Heights after two incidents that have upset the black and Jewish communities and caused unrest between them. And many are recalling the summer of 1991, when the Crown Heights riots shook the city. more ›