Each spring the men poured out of rickety trucks and lived in a barn that smelled of pesticides for the next six months. They seemed always to be joking, but their weatherworn faces told a different story about their lives — one of hardship. more

Suddenly, I was captivated by the darkness below on a steamy August day. I could only stare as tiny gray pill bugs crept up from the recesses of the decaying leaf pile. Then I noticed an earthworm slithering to the surface and looping back to the underworld. This place was alive. more

In my mind, I pictured little boys scurrying through African jungles, chased by men with big guns. I saw the boys shot and killed, their blood running down the tall trees surrounding them. I saw them lying in oozing mud. more

As a child growing up on Long Island in the 1970s and ’80s, I splashed in the surf on Fire Island and at Westhampton Beach. I tooled around the wetland canals surrounding Head of the Harbor in a rickety rowboat, catching crabs. more

Richard Roth, CNN’s United Nations correspondent, did a report on June 18, just as the World Cup was getting under way, in which he asked Americans strolling on the street why the U.S. hasn’t … more

One of my favorite activities during a recent family vacation in St. Augustine, Fla., was sitting in a lawn chair on the white, sandy beach and watching flocks of pelicans streaking above the Atlantic Ocean like squadrons of jetfighters. more

Scott Brinton, senior editor of the Merrick and Bellmore Heralds, and an adjunct journalism professor at Hofstra University, took home a first place for Editorial Writing and a second place for Business News in the Press Club of Long Island’s annual Media Awards competition. more