Third Precinct officers responded to Netz Place after a 911 caller reported a man with a gun near the corner of Willis Avenue and upon arrival, the officers found the man walking down the block with a handgun, according to a police spokesman.

The officers ordered the suspect to drop the handgun, but he instead raised it toward the officers, the spokesman said.

That’s when the officers opened fire, hitting the suspect three times. He was taken to Winthrop University Hospital for treatment of gunshot wounds to the right leg, left thigh and right hand.

The case is the second time in five weeks that Nassau County police have opened fire on a suspect armed with a handgun. Officers shot and killed 30-year-old Dalton Smith, who police have said was committing a home invasion near Hofstra University on May 17.

Andrea Rebello, a 21-year-old Westchester woman and Hofstra student that police said Smith had in a headlock and was threatening to kill at the time, was also accidentally shot by the same police officer.

The investigation is continuing into both the Albertson and Hofstra shootings.

Suffolk County Treasurer Angie Carpenter, left, and County Comptroller Joseph Sawicki, right.

Suffolk County lawmakers debated Tuesday a proposal to merge the county comptroller and treasurer’s offices in a plan the county executive said will eliminate seven jobs, saving more than $1 million annually.

Treasurer Angie Carpenter told the legislature that the estimated savings are “bogus” and several lawmakers questioned the plan, prompting County Executive Steve Bellone to tweak the proposal before a public hearing scheduled for next month.

“If all the same duties are there and the same work has to be done, how would that $1 million be saved?” Legis. Lynn Nowick (R-Smithtown) asked Carpenter.

“It’s a fabrication,” Carpenter replied, calling the proposed merger “an injustice.” “If you eliminate those seven jobs, you can’t eliminate that work that’s being done.”

Bellone announced last week his proposal to have voters decide in a November referendum whether to merge the treasurer’s office with that of Comptroller Joseph Sawicki. He estimated that the plan would save nearly $6 million over five years.

But some lawmakers, including Presiding Officer William Lindsay (D-Holbrook), expressed concern Tuesday about the Bellone’s proposed appointment of an interim chief financial officer to head the merged office before a replacement could be elected in 2014.

Vanessa Baird-Streeter, Bellone’s spokeswoman, said the proposal has since been tweaked to have Sawicki lead the proposed merged office before his term limit at the end of 2014.

“If it is voted upon by the residents of Suffolk County to allow the merger of the two offices,” she said, “Sawicki…would hold two titles, comptroller and CFO.”

Lindsay called a special legislative meeting July 22 to hold a public hearing on the resolution that, if passed, would allow a referendum for the voters to decide if there should be “a unified county department of financial management and audit.”

The public hearing is required before the legislature votes on the resolution at its next meeting on July 30. Bellone is pushing for passage as quickly as possible to allow enough time for the resolution to appear on ballots in November.

Newsday has reported that Suffolk County GOP leadership called plan by Bellone, a Democrat, “payback” for Carpenter running against the county executive in 2011. Both Carpenter and Sawicki are Republicans, but only Carpenter is running for re-election.

Sawicki did not return a call for comment.

Officers smelled marijuana coming from a Chevrolet parked on Merrick Avenue in Westbury and asked Lloyd Davis, 23, and Christian Hines, 20, to exit the vehicle shortly after 10 p.m., police said.

Hines broke free, ran away and lost one of his shoes, which was found to have a bag of methamphetamine inside, police said. Davis also ran away from police, authorities added.

K-9 unit officers tracked the suspects down and apprehended both men after each struggled, police said.

One officer suffered a shoulder injury, another injured a finger and a third broke his hand during the struggle, police said. All three officers were taken to an area hospital where they were treated and released.

Lloyd and Hines were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and resisting arrest. Lloyd was additionally charged with assault.

They will be arraigned Wednesday at First District Court in Hempstead.

A passenger boards a Long Island Rail Road train in Long Beach (Joe Abate).

Long Island Rail Road service was mostly back to normal for the Wednesday morning rush hour commute two days after a train that derailed in Penn Station caused widespread delays.

The only issues reported during the first normal commute since the incident was a train with equipment trouble on the Montauk Branch that ran nearly an hour late. Mid-day trains are also being replaced with buses between Locust Valley and Oyster Bay while tie replacement work is underway.

The LIRR Amtrak, and the Federal Railroad Administration are investigating the cause of the derailment, which required 500 feet of track to be replaced.

Journalist Michael Hastings, whose 2010 Rolling Stone profile of US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal led to the commander’s ousting by President Barack Obama, died Tuesday, June 18, 2013 in a car crash in Los Angeles. (Photo courtesy of Blue Rider Press/Penguin)

Michael Hastings, the reporter perhaps best known for ending the career of US Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal following a candid 2010 profile in Rolling Stone, died early Tuesday morning in a car crash in Los Angeles, according to the magazine. He was 33 years old.

Besides a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, Hastings was a reporter for BuzzFeed, a frequent contributor to GQ, and former journalist at Newsweek. He was also a gifted author who penned two books: 2008′s I Lost My Love In Baghdad: A Modern War Story, chronicling his time as a war correspondent in Iraq and the tragic death of his then-fiancee, an aid worker there; and The Operators: The Wild and Terrifying Inside Story of America’s War in Afghanistan, based on his reporting for “The Runaway General,” the Rolling Stone article that led to President Barack Obama relieving McChrystal of his position as Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan.

Hastings is survived by his wife, writer Elise Jordan.

“Hastings’ hallmark as reporter was his refusal to cozy up to power,” wrote Rolling Stone reporter/contributing editor Tim Dickinson on the magazine’s website Tuesday. “While other embedded reporters were charmed by McChrystal’s bad-boy bravado and might have excused his insubordination as a joke, Hastings was determined to expose the recklessness of a man leading what Hastings believed to be a reckless war.”

“Great reporters exude a certain kind of electricity,” Dickinson quoted the magazine’s managing editor Will Dana as saying, “the sense that there are stories burning inside them, and that there’s no higher calling or greater way to live life than to be always relentlessly trying to find and tell those stories. I’m sad that I’ll never get to publish all the great stories that he was going to write, and sad that he won’t be stopping by my office for any more short visits which would stretch for two or three completely engrossing hours. He will be missed.”

“Hard-charging, unabashedly opinionated, Hastings was original and at times abrasive,” continued Dickinson. “He had little patience for flacks and spinmeisters and will be remembered for his enthusiastic breaches of the conventions of access journalism. In a memorable exchange with Hillary Clinton aide Philippe Reines in the aftermath of the Benghazi attacks, Hastings’ aggressive line of questioning angered Reines. ‘Why do you bother to ask questions you’ve already decided you know the answers to?’ Reines asked. ‘Why don’t you give answers that aren’t bullshit for a change?’ Hastings replied.”

“We are shocked and devastated by the news that Michael Hastings is gone,” Ben Smith, BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief, said in a statement. “Michael was a great, fearless journalist with an incredible instinct for the story, and a gift for finding ways to make his readers care about anything he covered from wars to politicians. He wrote stories that would otherwise have gone unwritten, and without him there are great stories that will go untold. Michael was also a wonderful, generous colleague, a joy to work with and a lover of corgis — especially his Bobby Sneakers. Our thoughts are with Elise and and the rest of his family and we are going to miss him.”

Hastings won the 2010 George Polk Award for Magazine Reporting, among other honors, for his revelatory expose of McChrystal. As Dickinson points out in his post, Hastings leaves behind a “remarkable legacy of reporting,” with topics ranging from a behind-the-scenes look at America’s drone program and the US Army’s PSYOPS to his exclusive, three-day interview last year with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange while he was holed up in a loaned hide-out somewhere in the English countryside. (Those are just a few of his articles.)

That Hastings will be remembered for his fearless, award-winning journalism and relentless pursuit of the truth is undeniable. What’s equally undeniable, as evident from the outpouring of condolences and tributes flooding the Internet in the few hours since news of his death, is just how truly loved he is.

And just how many countless others – be they journalists, readers, family members or friends – he’s inspired during his brief, illuminating life.

Alan Nobile of West Islip was driving along his route southbound on West Neck Road when his vehicle was hit from behind by an Audi near the corner of Barberry Lane at 3 p.m.

Nobile was ejected from the vehicle and taken to Huntington Hospital, where he died five hours later. Suffolk County medical examiners will perform an autopsy to determine his cause of death.

The second driver, a Lloyd Harbor resident, refused medical treatment at the scene.

Second Squad detectives are continuing the investigation.

A Great South Bay YMCA swimming instructor teaches a child how to swim on Tuesday, June 18, 2013.

Forty-five Suffolk County youngsters were among an estimated 35,000 nationwide that simultaneously plunged into The World’s Largest Swimming Lesson, an annual event designed to promote water safety for kids on Tuesday morning.

The Great South Bay YMCA in Bay Shore was one of a half dozen locations that participated in the event on Long Island, where Nassau and Suffolk county officials have launched drowning prevention awareness campaigns in recent years.

“YMCA’s of Long Island teach 22,000 plus swimming lessons yearly,” said Saskia Thomson, marketing and communication director of YMCA of Long Island, Inc. Several flotation devices were implemented into the lesson to kick start the kids’ journey to safe swimming.

The World’s Largest Swimming Lesson was created by the World Water Park Association in 2010 to decrease the amount of childhood drowning accidents by encouraging formal swimming lessons. Nearly 25,000 children participated throughout the country last year, qualifying the event for the Guinness Book of World Records for four consecutive years.

While it seemed the children were merely playing games with the Great South Bay YMCA swimming instructors, they were learning life lessons on how to prevent tragedies in the pool. Not only does it benefit the child to know how to swim properly, it also benefits those around that that may not be skilled swimmers.

Among those ages 1 to 14, fatal drowning remains the second-leading cause of unintentional injury-related death, behind motor vehicle crashes, studies show. Formal swimming lessons can reduce the risk of drowning by as much as 88 percent among young children in that age bracket.

In order to prevent children from drowning, swimming instructors offer these recommendations: by age five children should be properly instructed on how to swim, never leave a child unattended while in the pool area, have a four-foot fence surrounding pools at home and install an underwater pool alarm to utilize during emergency situations.

Service was temporarily suspended on the Montauk Branch after victim was hit after 7 p.m., shortly after a train derailment in Penn Station snarled the rush hour commute.

MTA Police are investigating the cause of the fatality. Service has since been restored.

A passenger boards a Long Island Rail Road train in Long Beach (Joe Abate).

Widespread delays and cancellations caused by a Long Island Rail Road train derailment in Penn Station Monday night are continuing into the Tuesday evening rush hour commute, the LIRR warned.

Twenty one of the normally scheduled 130 eastbound rush hour trains were cancelled Tuesday evening and the LIRR hopes that Amtrack crews will be able  to repair 500-feet of damaged track overnight, allowing for a normal Wednesday commute, the railroad said.

Thirty four of the usual 144 westbound rush hour trains were cancelled or diverted Tuesday morning while crews worked through the night to re-rail the cars that had jumped the track in Penn Station.

“The exact cause of last night’s derailment is being investigated jointly by Amtrak, the Long Island Rail Road and the Federal Railroad Administration,” the LIRR said in a statement.

Riders are urged to check the LIRR website or call 511 for more information.