Alyssa Garbarino’s second concussion came on a frigid Sunday afternoon when she was 17. Under overcast skies, Garbarino, of North Merrick, who was then playing with the East Meadow Soccer Club’s Storm, bruised her way through a sea of bodies. As she battled with her opponent on the Northport Cow Harbor United Soccer Club, she was constantly driven to the ground, her head hitting the hard earth. As fast as she went down, though, she popped back up. As the game wore on, she began to feel dizzy and developed a sharp headache. more

The Town of Hempstead ripped out its wooden bulkhead at the Merrick Road golf course in recent months and is replacing it with a $1.66 million vinyl-and-wood bulkhead to hold back Merrick Bay. more

Ever since St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church moved from Freeport to Hewlett Avenue in Merrick in 1982, parishioners there have dreamed of constructing a community center where they could hold Greek language, culture and religious classes, said the Rev. Nikiforos Fakinos, St. Demetrios’s pastor. more

“Over here, Joe! Over here, Joe! You gettin’ sick of that, Joe? ” Japanese soldiers yelled in thick accents. They patroled the jungles of Okinawa Island at night in the hopes of catching American soldiers hiding in the shadows, as World War II was coming to a close in 1945. Army Cpl. Dominick Gualtieri hid in his tank, alongside two other soldiers. They waited until the Japanese retreated to escape the blazing heat and cramped quarters of the tank. more

Coloki Inc., a nonprofit group set up by Merokean Liz O’Shaughnessy to run the Freeport Work Hiring Trailer that aids impoverished day laborers, will host a benefit fundraiser at Mulcahy’s Pub and Concert Hall in Wantagh on Sunday, April 3, from 4 to 8 p.m. more

In its final report, issued Dec. 10, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s Common Core Task Force called on the state to place a four-year moratorium on the use of students’ state test scores to evaluate … more

The drug addicts’ brain scans that Dr. Stephen Dewey takes appear in psychedelic shades of red, yellow, green and blue, each indicating a level of brain activity — or inactivity. Red means excited. Blue is dormant. Dewey is the laboratory director for behavioral and molecular neuro-imaging at the North Shore-LIJ Feinstein Institute for Medical Research. In that capacity, he’s put hundreds of addicts’ brains to the test — the positron emission tomography test, that is — seeking to understand precisely what happens to the mind when a pot smoker lights up or a heroin junkie shoots up. And, he has found, it isn’t pretty. more

The Meadowbrook Alternative Program, which the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District offers as an alternative to the mainstream, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. more

The Senior Pops Orchestra, an intergenerational group under the direction of Stephen Michael Smith, will appear at the Brookside School in North Merrick on Sunday, Oct. 11, at 2 p.m. The suggested donation is $5. more

Sister Lynn Caton, a pastoral associate in charge of social ministries at Sacred Heart Parish in North Merrick, began a garden for the first time this summer. It’s a small patch of greenery under her office window, with a handful of bushy tomato plants and soaring sunflowers. There’s also a bird feeder and a clear-plastic cross. She calls it her little “corner of heaven.” more