East Hampton Village beach permit sales day moved to January 29

In Montauk all public school classes move to remote learning today otherwise most east end school districts have implemented a two hour delayed start.Meanwhile, Nicholas Grasso reports in NEWSDAY that tomorrow marks 40 years since the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after liftoff, killing high school teacher Christa McAuliffe and the six astronauts aboard. McAuliffe had been selected for a trip on the Challenger from a pool of more than 11,000 teachers who had applied for NASA's inaugural Teacher in Space Project. Grade school students on Long Island and nationwide took special interest in the flight, since McAuliffe was planning to give lessons from space…and witnessed the explosion as it happened.While the makeup of the crew appeared extraordinary, NASA missions themselves felt quite ordinary by the mid '80s. With the Space Shuttle program's record of success, it seemed safe to welcome aboard McAuliffe, selected from the more than 11,000 teachers who vied for her seat."The shuttle was being billed as a routine then," Joshua Stoff, the curator of the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City, told Newsday. "They were talking about sending kids into space." While children looked up to the astronauts aboard the Challenger, many Long Islanders felt proud of the machine itself, having built several of its essential components, according to Stoff. Long Island’s deep aviation history — from airfields developed after the turn of the century, to the manufacturing of World War II bombers and even the creation of the lunar module that landed Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin on the moon — thrived inside Fairchild Republic and Grumman manufacturing facilities in Farmingdale and Bethpage, according to Stoff.But NASA had never launched a space shuttle with the temperature as cold as it was at liftoff on Jan. 28, 1986 — 36 degrees, about 15 degrees colder than any previous launch, according to the official commission report. Investigators determined the bitter cold weakened the O-ring seals in the ship's right solid rocket booster, causing the shuttle to rupture. The disaster grounded the Space Shuttle program for more than 2½ years."It was almost like the Titanic, ‘the ship is unsinkable, full speed ahead’ kind of thing," Stoff said. "[NASA was] just complacent and didn’t pay attention to a lot of engineers who said it was not safe to launch that day."***On Sunday afternoon as a foot of snow was accumulating across the south fork two houses caught fire on Noyac Avenue in the Pine Neck neighborhood of Noyac knocking out power for 28 houses in the vicinity amid the ongoing winter storm.Cailin Riley reports on 27east.com that the fire damaged a pole in the area, per PSEG spokesperson Elizabeth Flagler; PSEG crews had to deenergize the area to make it safe for the firefighters to enter and crews to begin repairs. The pole will be replaced, and PSEG workers were on site attempting to complete repairs as quickly as possible. Power was fully restored to the area by 2:41 a.m. on Sunday, January 26.The Sag Harbor Volunteer Fire Department was called to the fire at 187 Noyac Avenue at 3:13 p.m., where a fire had started in the garage of one of the cottages clustered in that area. No one was injured, but several residents who were home at the time were displaced, at the peak of the winter storm that had descended on the area and dropped nearly 12 inches of snow. The Red Cross was involved in the effort to help those displaced residents, Sag Harbor Fire Chief Mike Guyer said.The fire occurred in a cluster of cottages situated on a long driveway off Noyac Avenue that leads down to the bay.The Sag Harbor Fire Department called in the RIT team from East Hampton and also requested mutual aid from the North Sea Fire Department, which sent an engine. The Bridgehampton Fire Department headed to the Sag Harbor firehouse to be on standby.Guyer said the fire was knocked down “fairly quickly,” but he did not arrive home until 7 p.m. that night.Southampton Town fire marshals were on the scene, but had not yet determined the cause of Sunday's fire in Noyac.***Due to the winter storm this weekend, East Hampton Village officials have moved the one-day nonresident beach permit sales from January 27 to January 29 at the Emergency Services Building.There, East Hampton Town residents who live outside the village will be able to purchase nonresident village beach parking permits for $500, down from the usual $750. The intent is to ensure local people get priority access to the coveted permits before the village runs out.The times remain the same: Doors will open at 7 a.m., and the permits will go on sale at 9 a.m. this coming Thursday at the East Hampton Village Emergency Services Building.***Immigration and Customs Enforcement will cap the number of detainees it holds in cells at Central Islip federal courthouse and limit how many hours they can stay there, Long Island's top prosecutor told a judge. Josefa Velásquez reports in NEWSDAY that officials for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York, which covers Long Island and Brooklyn, filed a letter to a Trump-appointed judge on Friday saying that ICE will now transfer detainees in the Central Islip hold rooms to other facilities each evening, barring “exceptional circumstances,” and limit capacity inside each of the four rooms to no more than two people.The planned changes come less than a month after U.S. District Judge Gary R. Brown, who was appointed during Trump’s first term, chastised ICE’s use of “putrid, cramped” holding rooms in the courthouse to detain undocumented immigrants “in a manner that shocks the conscience.”Last month, Newsday reported that roughly 100 undocumented immigrants during the first 10 months of 2025 had been detained in these cells at Central Islip for more than 12 hours at a time, many of them overnight and some for as many as 72 hours.In a letter made public on Dec. 31, Long Island's top federal prosecutor told Brown that ICE would no longer continue to detain people in the holding rooms at the courthouse beyond a 12-hour period or overnight.Two of the rooms are described by government officials as 7 feet by 10 feet, while the other two are 8 feet by 10 feet large.The U.S. attorney’s office said in its Friday letter that it also plans to provide all detainees a written notice of their rights, “including the right to calls with counsel, food, water, changes in clothes, and personal hygiene items,” according to the court filing. Additional meals, water, a change of clothes and toothbrushes, toothpaste and wet wipes are also available upon request.The government also says it has established a “Habeas Response Team” to help handle the influx of habeas corpus petitions, which are filed to challenge the legality of someone’s detention. Such cases have risen sharply during the Trump administration's illegal immigration crackdown, and federal officials say they will now place an attorney in the Central Islip courthouse “for the purpose of assisting with compliance and court orders.”***Adoptive parents would be allowed to provide more financial support to birth mothers under a popular proposal in New York — where critics say it’s easier to get an abortion than to adopt a baby. Carl Campanile reports in THE NY POST that in the State of New York, adoptive parents are currently limited to providing financial support to birth moms from 60 days before the baby is born and up to 30 days after birth, severely hindering help for the biological moms at crucial times of need, critics told the Post.But Gov. Kathy Hochul tucked a new provision in her $260 billion budget plan that would increase the time in which adoptive parents could cover the birth mother’s expenses for housing, maternity clothing, clothing for the child and other expenses from 60 days to 180 days before birth and from 30 days to 45 days after birth.The plan would also permit payments beyond these time frames if a court determines circumstances exist that require financial help for a longer period.“Many New York families rely on this type of adoption, which offers unique benefits for both adoptive and birth parent,” said a summary of the Democratic gov’s proposed legislation tied to the budget.“However, New York’s rules related to reimbursements for birth mothers are out of sync with other states, making it harder for New York parents to adopt,” the summary said.The plan does not involve surrogacy, which is governed by a whole different set of laws.Many New York parents who adopt have been forced to go out of state to find a birth mother set to give up her child because of New York State’s policy, advocates for the change said.An adoption lawyer said Hochul’s proposal, if enacted, will really help boost adoption. “It’s a win for the birth mother and adoptive parents,” said lawyer Leslie Silver Hoffman. “It helps the woman carrying the child to get the resources she needs. The birth mother needs the support.” Hoffman said the reimbursed expenses have to be related to the pregnancy of the birth parent.***The East Hampton Library will launch the 2026 Tom Twomey Series this coming Friday with a free lecture examining the origins of the town’s place names and landmarks.“Landmarks and Legends: East Hampton Unveiled,” presented by David Cataletto, is scheduled for Friday evening, Jan. 30, from 7 to 8 p.m. at the East Hampton Library. The talk will explore how Native American, African and European influences shaped East Hampton’s roads, places and landmarks.Cataletto, an East Hampton native, teaches history and English at East...