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

Claudia Borecky, a Nassau County Board of Elections worker and president of the North and Central Merrick Civic Association, is challenging Nassau County Legislator Steve Rhoads for the 19th District seat this November. 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

Leeann Graziose, principal of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton School in Bellmore for the past 12 years, was at home when the envelope from the Diocese of Rockville Centre arrived last Friday afternoon. She … more

The Bellmore Movies once again hosted the Long Island International Film Expo, which presented a wide array of movies, from horror to comedy and mystery, by a variety of filmmakers, some local and some international. For the 18th year, the expo gave filmmakers an intimate opportunity to share their work with industry executives and movie-goers alike. more

Each night as a child, Connie Roberts stroked her white plastic rosary beads, recited her prayers and curled up in her comfortless bed at the Mount Carmel Industrial School for Girls, in Ireland’s Midlands region. She often heard screams echo through the cavernous institution. Now 52, Roberts can still hear them in her head. They were, she said, “the worst.” more

Jake Thomas and Alex Vargas, both 21, played baseball together in 2011 at Calhoun High School under legendary coach Joe Corea. In 2010, Thomas led the Colts squad that captured the Nassau County Class AA title. In 2012, Vargas played a critical role in the Colts’ victory at the Long Island Class AA championship. Major League teams recently drafted them both. more

Sixteen-year-old Sean Flynn, of Bellmore, called all 263 contacts on his cell phone on the afternoon of June 26, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that the Constitution guarantees the right to gay marriage. He made the calls in rapid-fire succession. “Marriage equality is legal!” Flynn yelled into the phone. “Woohoo!” Then he moved to the next number, again and again, for two and a half hours. He was ecstatic, he said. more