Trump war with Iran continues to raise cost of living for Long Islanders

Gasoline prices on Long Island rose more than 12 cents a gallon over the last week, pushed by the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran, which has choked oil exports from the Persian Gulf, as well as seasonal factors, according to AAA.By Monday morning, the auto club put the average price per gallon at just under $4.13. Gas Buddy put the average at $4.09, the highest in 12 months, though well off the $5.05 highest average price the AAA recorded for the region in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The national average has dropped since early April and was $4.11 on Monday, according to AAA. Here on the east end stations were charging over $4.20 per gallon in Water Mill and points east.Nicholas Spangler reports in NEWSDAY that gas prices — advertised on almost every commercial road — are key to consumer confidence, especially on Long Island, where there are more cars than households. Crude oil cost is the major driver of retail gasoline prices, and it has surged since the start of the Iran war because of disruption to production and shipping of oil and gas in the Persian Gulf. The threat of Iranian attacks on shipping has essentially closed the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20% of the world’s daily crude diet passed before the war’s start.The U.S. Energy Information Administration’s last available short-term energy outlook, from April 6, predicted retail gasoline prices would peak at $4.30 in April and average more than $3.70 this year, but that outlook assumed that war would not continue into May and that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz would gradually resume.***The Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center in East Hampton is looking to undertake a $4 million basement renovation to make way for a new Infant center, building on the success of the program for infants launched at the center last year.Jack Motz reports on 27east.com that to get the renovation project off the ground, the center, which provides child care and early education for infants and toddlers in East Hampton, is eying a $3.5 million grant from the NYS Office of Childhood and Family Services, which will be awarded to an early childhood center within the state for either new construction or a renovation.What the renovation project calls for is an overhaul of the center’s underutilized basement space as part of a three-phase project.If the center does not receive the grant for the renovation, it will pursue the project through other means. But the grant would serve to expedite the process overall.“We're still going to go ahead, and what we'll do is we'll probably break up the project into three different areas,” said Tim Frazier, Executive Director. “We'll probably put the elevator in first, and then we'll look at the renovation on the outside, then the renovation on the inside.”The Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center is one of only a few early education centers in the region that offers a structured and educational infant program.***Montauk, the home of the lighthouse, is about to see its name in lights on Broadway. Daniel Bubbeo reports in NEWSDAY that yesterday, Manhattan Theatre Club announced that Emmy Award winner and Oscar nominee Laura Linney will star in the world premiere of "Montauk," a new drama by David Hare at the Samuel J. Friedman Theatre next spring. The play is described as "a visceral portrait of two artists with violently different approaches to art and life." Linney will play a writer who becomes infatuated with a passionate artist who is "a stubborn titan of Long Island abstraction," according to the announcement.Montauk has history as a refuge for artists including Andy Warhol, who lived in the oceanfront estate Eothen in Montauk.Eothen is Greek for "from the East" or "from the dawn.***Suffolk County officials are pointing to the Navy’s cleanup of the Bethpage plume in Nassau County as a precedent — and warning they expect the same urgency in Calverton, where county testing shows contamination from the former Navy-owned Grumman manufacturing site continues to move through groundwater, surface water and fish habitat while federal cleanup efforts remain largely in the study phase. Denise Civiletti reports on Riverheadlocal.com that at a community meeting last night, County Executive Ed Romaine made clear Suffolk is no longer willing to wait.“We are not without options,” Romaine said, emphasizing the county’s size, population and resources as he warned the county is not willing to tolerate indefinite delay from the U.S. Navy.The contrast with Bethpage is hard to miss. There, after decades of delay and denial about groundwater contamination from a former Navy/Grumman site, the Navy and Northrop Grumman in 2020 agreed to a $406 million cleanup plan to halt the spread of a massive groundwater plume that had already polluted public water supply wells, according to the Associated Press.That is the model Suffolk officials and environmental advocates say should now apply in Calverton: a former Navy/Grumman site, migrating contamination, public-water impacts, years of delay — and, eventually, an engineered containment plan funded by the responsible parties.Suffolk Health Commissioner Dr. Gregson Pigott said the stakes are high because Nassau and Suffolk have only one drinking water source: the sole-source aquifer.“It’s very important to understand what’s going into that aquifer, what’s going into our groundwater, our surface waters,” Pigott said.Riverhead Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin said after last night’s meeting that the Navy must move beyond discussion.“It’s time for the Navy to take accountability and begin action,” Halpin said. “They need to formulate an action plan and clean up our water so people have clean drinking water. It’s a basic human right.”***The mother of 8-year-old Thomas Valva, who reached a $9 million settlement with Suffolk County after her son died from being forced to sleep in a freezing garage in Center Moriches, could soon see the agreement scrapped and instead be forced to take the case to trial, a federal judge said yesterday during a brief but contentious hearing.Nicole Fuller reports in NEWSDAY that U.S. District Judge Brian M. Cogan, who recently took over the case after Valva's mother, Justyna Zubko-Valva, refused repeated requests from her lawyers to sign the required documents to finalize the settlement, issued an ultimatum from the bench in federal court in Brooklyn."There will be no settlement unless the plaintiff [Zubko-Valva] files an infant compromise motion," Cogan said, referring to the required motion that he said must be approved by a judge in settlements involving minors.If Zubko-Valva doesn't sign off on the motion in 30 days, the judge said, "Then the only other option is, we're going to trial."Zubko-Valva rejected an earlier proposal for distribution of the settlement, which called for her to receive $2 million immediately and for trusts in the amounts of about $2 million apiece to be established for her two surviving sons, Anthony and Andrew. The remaining $3 million would have been set aside for Zubko-Valva's attorneys. Her former attorney, Jon Norinsberg, has argued he is entitled to be paid. But Zubko-Valva has argued that neither her current attorney nor her previous one are entitled to any of the money, despite her signing agreements with each that stipulated they would be paid a portion of any settlement reached. 8-year-old Thomas Valva was killed on Jan. 17, 2020, by his NYPD officer father, Michael Valva, and Valva's then-fiancee, Angela Pollina, who forced the boy to sleep in their unheated Center Moriches garage, and starved and beat him. Thomas died from hypothermia.Valva and Pollina were both convicted of second-degree murder and are serving sentences of 25 years to life in upstate prisons.***The Town of Southampton will host a community discussion of the Riverside Water Resource Recovery Facility this evening at 7 p.m. at the Flanders Community Center, 655 Flanders Road, Flanders.Attendees will receive the latest updates on the Riverside project, learn what an E-One grinder pump looks like, and hear information about its installation and operation from the vendors at Site Specific. Southampton Town’s consulting engineers and architects will also be available to answer questions and gather community feedback.Community participation and input are encouraged as the Town of Southampton works with residents toward the future of Riverside.Tonight’s meeting begins at 7 p.m. in the Flanders Community Center.***Years of independent ground and surface water testing by Suffolk County shows that a far more extensive plume of industrial chemicals is spreading beyond the former Grumman site in Calverton than the U.S. Navy has acknowledged. Tara Smith reports in NEWSDAY that the findings, presented by the county at a forum in Manorville last night, show the hazardous and in some cases carcinogenic chemicals are migrating directly toward the Peconic River, putting the entire estuary at risk.Residents, environmental advocates and local officials have grown frustrated by what they say is the U.S. Navy moving too slowly to confront the full extent of the pollution. The Navy is "dragging their feet," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment.Navy officials did not participate in yesterday’s forum, though a Navy representative was in the audience taking notes.The 6,000-acre former Grumman site was used to build and test fighter jets from 1954 to 1996.Last night's meeting struck an urgent tone among nearly 100 residents who...