Yesterday, two thousand residents in Shirley and Mastic on Long Island were evacuated at around 1:30 a.m. due to a gas leak. According to Newsday, "A cracked plastic valve on a propane tank was the source of a leak that sent thousands of gallons of toxic, flammable liquefied propane gas." Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said, “It could have been a terrible disaster, a terrible explosion, but fortunately we had seasoned, trained professionals who did their jobs very well and averted a tragedy." more ›

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 ›