In the News

Valley Stream South High School has been awarded nearly $1 million in federal funding to protect its recently renovated athletic fields from erosion, district officials and Rep. Laura Gillen announced Monday.

District officials said over the past 10 years, they have spent $1.4 million to build a new athletic field and track, and a scoreboard. But a nearby creek, which they said has doubled in size since Superstorm Sandy and spread 10 feet closer to the school, is threatening the integrity of the fields.

ROCKVILLE CENTRE, NY — While the New York Mets continue an 11-game skid, a more hopeful baseball story is developing a short drive southeast from Citi Field: Rockville Centre Little League held its Opening Day ceremony, where Congresswoman Laura Gillen announced $2 million in federal funding to overhaul Hickey Field.

In a sharp rebuke of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy, a bipartisan effort led by New York lawmakers to preserve Temporary Protected Status for Haitians passed out of the United States House of Representatives on Thursday.

Temporary Protected Status, also known as TPS, is a humanitarian immigration status that protects those whose home countries have been deemed unsafe from deportation. It also provides recipients with authorization to work.

The House on Thursday defied its own Republican leaders and passed a bill that would force the Trump administration to extend temporary humanitarian protections for Haitian migrants, in a bipartisan rejection of President Trump’s effort to end them.

The move was largely symbolic, given that Mr. Trump would be all but certain to veto the bill. His administration last year terminated the deportation protections, known as Temporary Protected Status, or T.P.S., for more than 350,000 Haitians who under the program were allowed to live and work legally in the United States.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday approved a bill sponsored by Long Island Democrat Laura Gillen to reject part of President Donald Trump's immigration policy and reinstate protected status for nearly 350,000 Haitian nationals living in the United States.

The bill was the first measure introduced by freshman Gillen (D-Rockville Centre) upon her arrival in Washington last year as a minority party member — and now is her first that has passed.

But prospects for approval in the Senate, which like the House is controlled by Republicans, remain uncertain.

WASHINGTON — An effort to force the U.S. House to vote on a bill from Long Island Democratic Rep. Laura Gillen that would extend protected status for nearly 350,000 Haitian nationals has gained enough bipartisan member signatures for a vote.

Boosted by four Republicans who joined Democrats in signing the "discharge petition," a majority in the 435-seat House now backs a vote on Gillen’s bill that would extend the status to 2029. That means the measure can be brought to the floor in a matter of weeks, without the support of Speaker Mike Johnson and other GOP House leaders.

Congresswoman Laura Gillen joined village officials in Rockville Centre on March 11 to announce more than $1 million in new federal law enforcement funding to install high-grade police security cameras throughout the village.

The cameras are intended to help prevent and solve crimes by expanding surveillance capabilities for the Rockville Centre Police Department.

A group of congressional Democrats is urging the State Department to restart chartered evacuation flights and take additional steps to help U.S. citizens who wish to leave Israel amid the ongoing war with Iran.