The events range from fundraisers for Superstorm Sandy survivors and family events for the kids to local bars and restaurants offering specials on burritos, margaritas and Coronas—so break out that souvenir sombrero from Cancun.

But, before leaving the house in a poncho, here’s a quick North American history refresher lesson:  Cinco de Mayo is not—like some people mistakenly believe—Mexican Independence Day, which is Sept.16.

The holiday commemorates the Battle of Puebla, when Mexican forces turned back invading French troops in 1862—a symbol of resiliency for the world’s most populous Spanish-speaking nation.

And for those who still remember their high school Spanish 101, here’s a potentially useful bonus factoid—a Mexican saying that may come in handy on the Long Island Rail Road this weekend: “A boca de borracho, oídos de cantinero.”

It translates to “the mouth of drunk, ears of barman.” It basically means ignore the loud drunks.

Saturday
10 a.m.-5 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Dive Meet, Nassau County Aquatic Center, Eisenhower Park, East Meadow, 516-572-0501.

2-4 p.m., Cinco de Mayo at the Long Island Children’s Museum, 11 Davis Ave., Garden City, 516-224-5800.

Cinco de Mayo Kickoff Party, Napper Tandy’s Irish Pub, 275 Rte 25A, Miller Place, 631-331-5454. $4 Coronas and margaritas.

May 4-5: Cinco de Mayo Weekend at The Nutty Irishman. 323 Main St. Farmingdale. 516-293-9700. $4 Coronas, 8-10 p.m.

Sunday
11 a.m.-2 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Festival at the Garden of Eve Organic Farm & Market. 4558 Sound Ave, Aquebogue, 631-523-6608

11 a.m.-2 p.m., Cinco de Mayo at the Long Island Game Farm Wildlife Park. 638 Chapman Blvd, Manorville, 631-878-6644. www.longislandgamefarm.com

12-2:30 p.m. or 3-5:30 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Fiesta Kid’s Fun Skate. United Skates of America, 1276 Hicksville Rd. Seaford, 516-795-5474.

2 p.m., Cinco de Mayo: Serenata Mexicana. The Suffolk Theater, 118 E. Main St. Riverhead, 631- 727-4343. $35.

2-3 p.m., Latin Music. Long Island Museum of American Art, History and Carriages, 1200 Route 25A  Stony Brook, 631-751-0066

2-5 p.m., Mambo Loco at Martha Clara Vineyards. 6025 Sound Ave. Riverhead, 631-298-0075

3-8 p.m., Cinco de Mayo Party, Sandy survivor fundraiser, Knights of Columbus, 2333 Bellmore Ave., Bellmore, 516-785-9407. $40.

3-9 p.m., Cinco de Mayo at Pefecto Mundo Latin Bistro. 1141-1 Jericho Turnpike, Commack, 631-864-2777.

10 p.m.-12 a.m., Cinco de Mayo at Lily Flanagan’s Pub. 345 Deer Park Ave., Babylon, 631-539-0816

Cinco de Mayo Party at Dublin Deck. 325 River Ave, Patchogue, 631-207-0370.

Cinco de Moe’s at Moe’s Southwest Grill, multiple locations. Homewrecker burrito, chips and salsa for $5 and bobblehead Cinco de Moe’s collector’s cups.

Margaritas and Fajitas at Cozymel’s Mexican Grill, 1177 Corporate Dr., Westbury.11 a.m.-12 a.m.

Buy two tacos get one free at Chico’s Tex-Mex Restaurant, 18 Berryhill Rd., Syosset, 516-802-3500. 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

$2 tacos, $5 nacho platters, $3 beers and $4 margaritas and sangrias at Swell Taco, 135 Deer Park Ave., Babylon, 631-482-1299. 12-4 p.m.

$5 margaritas, $3 beers, free giveaways, Don Juan’s, multiple locations.

-Compiled by Danny Mounce

Robert Cleva shows off his Crasche Middie women’s lacrosse helmet.

Many years ago, Robert Cleva, who runs a commercial real estate business in Woodbury, fell off his bike, landed on the grass and hit his head. An avid exercise enthusiast, he got back on his bike the next day and wore a baseball batting helmet. Dissatisfied with other bike helmets and unhappy with his fallback version, he came up with his own design, eventually patenting a product for bikers, skiers and skateboarders—even police officers.

“People who don’t want to look like they’re wearing a helmet but want to have protection are our clients,” says Cleva, whose online head gear company is called Crasche New York. Last year they began marketing the Crasche Hat, which looks like a woolen ski cap (it’s actually 100 percent Acrylic) but has hidden “impact-resistant protective inserts” made out of polycarbonate plastic and padded with neoprene rubber and air chambers to cushion the shock.

Cleva noticed that parents were buying the Crasche Hat for their daughters playing lacrosse—especially if the girls had suffered concussions—and that surprised him. He had it tested to determine its effectiveness against the impacts of lacrosse sticks and balls to the player’s head.

“It turned out to be a very good product for stick to head but it was marginal for ball to head,” Cleva says.

In February 2012 he’d submitted the hat model to US Lacrosse (USL), the sport’s national governing body, based in Baltimore, where the first women’s lacrosse team played in the United States in 1926. The league itself has been debating how to address the concussion issue—a debate that Cleva inadvertently got caught up in. At first, he got an encouraging reply from Melissa Coyne, the women’s game director at USL.

“Your product complies with current USL rules for women’s lacrosse,” Coyne emailed Cleva in March 2012. “Hope that helps!”

But with the test results in hand, Cleva decided to redesign his product so it could withstand a ball speeding to the head at 78 mph and reduce the impact below the concussive level.

“We re-engineered it, and informed US Lacrosse that we’d made some changes,” Cleva says. “We opened it up—took the top off—because the girls didn’t want the skull cap, they wanted their hair [coming] out the top.”

He named the new model the Crasche Middie, after a lacrosse position. It resembled a head band, available in red, white, black, navy blue or light blue.

“It’s designed to rest on the head,” Cleva explains. “It’s attached to the goggles. When you pull the goggles down, it goes back with it.”

He’s most proud of the material used in the new headgear’s inserts. “You could hit the thing with a sledge hammer and you can’t crack it,” he says.

At this year’s January national lacrosse convention in Philadelphia, Cleva set up a booth featuring the Crashe Middies underneath a big banner proclaiming, “The future of headgear in girls lacrosse.” The future was short-lived, however. USL officials shut him down and escorted him out of the building. Cleva thought USL’s previous approval of the Crasche Hat extended to the Crasche Middie. He was mistaken, they informed him. He would have to submit his new design for approval.

“It happened to be seen by one of our rules committee members who brought up the fact that this product was different from the one that we had approved and this had not been approved,” Coyne tells the Press. “It’s significantly different!” She added that the Crasche Middie brochure “made some pretty incredible claims of its protective value, and that concerned some members of our organization, specifically our sports, science and safety committee…”

After Cleva submitted his new headgear for their examination, the USL’s rules subcommittee determined that the product was “deemed illegal for play.”  In their email to him, they said it violated “portions of Rule 2” regarding “Soft Head Gear…defined as any head covering without hard or unyielding parts that have the potential to injure another player. The product, Crasche Middie, contains hard inserts that are not unyielding which could possibly pose a danger to other players. Additionally, those inserts which [sic] are not adequately padded or appropriately secured and can be easily dislodged. They could potentially injure the player wearing the product or another player.”

Cleva was infuriated by USL’s response and wrote Coyne the following: “To claim that the inserts can come loose is patently false. To claim that they become a danger to other players is ridiculous.”

He sent them an impact test from ICS Laboratories in Ohio, which he’d paid for, claiming it showed that not only did his headgear pose no threat to another player it actually reduced the force of two players knocking heads if one wore the Crasche Middie and the other girl didn’t. USL’s Coyne was not persuaded.

“Parents are looking for protective headgear. We understand that,” says Coyne. “But we as a governing body also have a responsibility to make sure that consumers are protected.”

Coyne told Cleva that US Lacrosse is working closely with ASTM International, a nonprofit organization based in Pennsylvania formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials, to create a women’s lacrosse headgear standard. She suggested his company become a member. Cleva says joining would cost only $75, but he’s concerned that the terms of the membership could impinge on his patent rights. He is having his lawyer look into that issue before he signs up. Without a doubt, he insists, “My product will be the standard because it’s so effective.”

Of more immediate concern, he says, is that one of ASTM’s current members told him that setting standards could take two years at least. Any delay is hard for Cleva to take.

“How many girls who are denied the use of the Crasche Middie will subsequently suffer a preventable head injury?” Cleva wrote Coyne back in February after she suggested he wait until USL’s committee meeting in June.

The answer is that nobody knows.

A researcher at George Mason University, Shane Caswell, partnered with two members of USL’s sports science and safety committee to examine head injury incidents reported during 2008 and 2009 involving high school girls’ lacrosse players between the ages of 14 and 18 years old. Their study came out in February 2012. Gathering data from 529 varsity and junior varsity games, they found 21 concussions. Most of these injuries resulted from stick-to-head contact in front of the goal.

Coyne says that USL is constantly monitoring national research on the occurrence of concussions in the sport. “I don’t necessarily see that we’ve had this huge jump in the actual injury,” she says. “I think the actual diagnosis has been what’s changed.”

The girls’ game is intended to be safer than the boys’ game, says Stephanie Degennaro, who manages the Lacrosse Unlimited store in Miller Place. She played varsity lacrosse at Longwood High School in Brookhaven and at Stony Brook University. When she’s not selling merchandise for “the fastest sport on two feet,” she’s coaching and refereeing girls’ games.

“Basically women’s lacrosse is supposed to be a non-contact sport,” she says. “Everything is supposed to be finesse and controlled… Men’s lacrosse is a contact sport like football.”

Degennaro’s store does not carry headgear for girls, but she has noticed players wearing “these headband things” and “those soft foam ‘ugly’ helmets” on the field.

“Approving headgear is going to make the girls’ game more violent,” she says. “To be completely honest, I wouldn’t want to see the game go that way. Some of the girls out there wearing these helmets act as if they’re invincible. I would only want to give [headgear] to girls who’ve had prior concussions.”

One of those girls playing lacrosse with a concussion is Cindy Dreher’s 10-year-old daughter, Darby, who picked up the sport after watching her two older brothers play. The Babylon Village mother bought her a Crasche Middie because she had gotten a concussion from a serious horse-back riding accident last year.

“My daughter has dark hair so you don’t even notice she’s wearing it out there,” Dreher tells the Press. “It looks like a band for sweat. It doesn’t look like a helmet at all.”

Dreher had looked for a long time before she found Cleva’s product online.

“I had to do some research because what’s available for girls right now is this ridiculously stupid, soft helmet that doesn’t protect at all,” Dreher says. “They say it’s a ‘non-aggressive game’ but I don’t care because it’s got a stick and a ball, and those girls are very capable of hitting each other pretty hard with it…”

Lacrosse Unlimited’s Hauppauge store manager, Jason Sweet, a high school and college lax (lacrosse) player who still plays, thinks that giving girls’ more protection will change their game. “They might as well get gloves, too, and go out there and beat each other up like we do!” laughs Sweet, who’s had three concussions himself, but none since he started wearing a $234 helmet. By comparison, the Crasche Middie retails for under $30.

“I would say that most parents want headgear [for girls],” Sweet says, “Most players don’t.”

Cleva thinks one obstacle facing his product’s approval is growing tension within girls’ lacrosse about the future of the game.

“You have one camp that says, ‘Let’s put helmets on and protect the girls, and become like a boys’ sport. If it’s rough and tumble, who cares?’” Cleva explains. “The other side is saying: ‘That’s the worst thing. We don’t want the game to change. Leave it alone.’ US Lacrosse is in the ‘leave-it-alone’ camp. This is a big controversy, and I’ve kind of fallen into the middle of it.”

As of now only goalies in girls lacrosse are permitted to wear hard helmets. Goggles were mandated for all female players in 2004—New York State reportedly led this initiative—but now USL is considering whether the eyewear standards should be revised. “We’re taking a good look at that,” Coyne says.

Last week, Cleva got his hopes up when a USL official asked him to send his headgear to the rules committee at the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Then he learned that the USL’s own subcommittee, scheduled to convene this month, had tabled discussion of his headgear until June “when they can get the entire rules committee together,” Cleva says.

“Mr. Cleva has been told on several occasions that if he adjusts his product to fit the two elements that we wanted fixed – if he makes those adjustments—we are happy to look at his product again,” says Coyne. “But he has to address them just like anyone else. He’s not the first person to be rejected.”

Cleva has demonstrated the headgear’s ability to hang onto its inserts to Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) and to an aide in the office of Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford). He doesn’t believe USL is giving his product a fair shake.

“They’re saying it can come out and it can’t come out!” Cleva exclaims. Given the opportunity, this reporter shook the Middie as hard as possible for almost a minute and finally an insert dislodged when the head gear was hurled against the floor.

“When a 10-year-old comes to your office and her mother is terrified that the girl’s going to get hurt, it’s the human element that’s overpowering,” Cleva says. “We think we offer a very reasonable product that is going to offer impact protection and give some peace of mind to people and these people won’t let your daughter buy it.”

Sandy damaged houses across Long Island, such as this one in Atlantique on Fire Island.

Superstorm Sandy went down in history six months ago as one of the biggest natural disasters to hit Long Island, irreversibly changing its landscape and washing away many residents’ sense of security.

While the widespread blackouts, lengthy gas-shortage lines, catastrophic flooding and mountainous debris piles are mostly just a memory, recovery efforts are still most visible on LI’s Atlantic Ocean-facing barrier beaches that suffered the worst damage.

“Sandy to some people is gone, it’s passed,” said James Mallot, the mayor of Ocean Beach, Fire Island’s unofficial capital. “We live it out there every single minute of the day.”

The village, like the rest of LI’s Sandy-ravaged beachfront communities, is rushing to prepare for Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff to the summer beach and tourist season that pumps billions into the local economy.

Meanwhile, a breach that Sandy caused in Fire Island’s federal wilderness area to the east of the residential communities remains open, which has become a point of contention between those who blame the breach on flooding in communities near the Great South Bay and others who argue it’s cleaning out the polluted waterways.

The storm, a massive hybrid of a category 1 hurricane that merged with a nor’easter, is considered the worst to hit the region since the infamous “Long Island Express” in 1938.

Looking to Katrina for Perspective on Sandy Recovery Timeline

In the City of Long Beach on LI’s westernmost barrier island, officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday to commemorate construction of the new boardwalk to replace the old one that Sandy destroyed—although the Long Beach Medical Center is still closed.

“We came together months ago to mourn the loss of our boardwalk,” Scott Mandel, president of the Long Beach City council, told hundreds of residents who gathered for the event. “Today we come together to celebrate the rebirth of it. Long Beach is coming back better than ever.”

A five-mile stretch of badly damaged Ocean Parkway on Jones Beach Island just reopened last week after contractors rebuilt the roadway’s protective dunes that were washed away. Parts of Jones Beach itself are already reopened, but Robert Moses State Park is still closed.

And in the Hamptons, some millionaires have sparked controversy by building seawalls—work that may be challenged in court—in the hopes of protecting their oceanfront mansions, The New York Times recently reported.

Signs of a comeback can be found on mainland LI as well. Camp Bulldog, a makeshift support network in Lindenhurst that was a lifeline for residents coping in Sandy’s aftermath, closed over the weekend. On the North Shore, the West Shore Road seawall is nearing completion. And East Rockaway Junior-High School reopened Monday just in time to mark the six-month mark of the Oct. 29 storm.

Also on Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that its four remaining disaster recovery centers in Long Beach, Island Park, Seaford and Copiague will become Disaster Loan Outreach Centers on Wednesday, indicating another milestone in the recovery process.

“New York has made tremendous progress in the six months since Sandy,” said Michael F. Byrne, FEMA’s federal coordinating officer for Hurricane Sandy operations. “But the work is not done.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested Friday night and is suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon. (Photo: FBI)

Federal authorities have charged the Boston Marathon bombing suspect with using a weapon of mass destruction, which is punishable by death, but didn’t deem him an enemy combatant as some had urged.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is expected to be arraigned Monday in his room at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where authorities have said he is listed in serious condition.

“Today’s charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston and for our country,” said Attorney General Eric Holder. “We’ve once again shown that those who target innocent Americans and attempt to terrorize our cities will not escape from justice.”

The 19-year-old Cambridge man was captured Friday night following a five-day manhunt that ended when the teen was found hiding in a boat in Watertown, Mass.

His 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, was killed in a shootout with police after the duo allegedly gunned down an MIT police officer and carjacked a driver Thursday night.

The bombings last Monday at the Boylston Street finish line left three dead and more than 200 wounded. Investigators have said the suspects made the bombs out of pressure cookers filled with nails, ball bearings and other projectiles.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) joined fellow Republicans in calling on President Barack Obama to have the surviving Tsarnaev as an enemy combatant, meaning he would be tried in military tribunal instead of civilian court.

“The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans,” King said in a joint statement. “The suspect, based upon his actions, clearly is a good candidate for enemy combatant status.”

Tsarnaev, a native of the Chechnya region in southern Russia, was granted U.S. citizenship in September. Massachusetts has outlawed the death penalty, but it is still allowed under federal law. He could also be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Carmen Ortiz, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said she could not disclose what the teen may have said to investigators except to say that they always “seek to elicit all the actionable intelligence and information we can from terrorist suspects.”

Rich Sturges, a 41-year-old Boston school teacher originally from Malverne, was about five blocks from the scene during his second running of the nation’s oldest marathon when the bombs went off second apart.

“It was very stunning,” he told the Press. “It’s not going to be back to normal for a while.”

First responders on the scene at The Boston Marathon finish line following a pair of explosions Monday, April 15, 2013 (Courtesy of CBS).

Long Island is on high alert after twin bombings Monday at the Boston Marathon left at least three dead—reportedly including an 8-year-old boy—and more than 100 wounded.

New York State, city, Nassau and Suffolk county authorities said they are taking extra precautions while federal investigators work with Boston police on the investigation, which is still in its early stages. A number of Long Islanders were among the runners and spectators swept up in the ensuing chaos.

“We will be holding a security meeting this Wednesday with subsequent security briefings in the weeks leading up to our Long Island Marathon,” Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano said of the May 3-5 races—just two weeks away. He said Nassau police “is in constant contact with the FBI and the [NYPD].”

Suffolk County Police Deputy Chief Kevin Fallon, that department’s chief spokesman, said officers are focusing on Long Island Rail Road stations, malls and sports arenas with backup from bomb-sniffing dogs.

“Patrols will include having officers exiting their vehicles and walking through the transportation facilities,” he said. “Police have no reason to believe that a similar incident will occur in Suffolk…but the department is taking precautionary measures.”

The two closely timed bombs went off about 50 yards from each other at the Boylston Street finish line shortly before 3 p.m. Police said they later found at least one undetonated explosive devise nearby and that a report of a third explosion at nearby JFK Library preliminarily appears to be an unrelated fire. The FBI has taken over the probe.

Rick DesLauriers, FBI Special Agent in Charge of the Boston field office, said authorities are treating the case as a “potential terrorist investigation.” Boston police said that despite widespread news reports to the contrary, there is no suspect in custody.

Sal Nastasi, a 33-year-old Massapequa Park man who finished the 26.2-mile race in two hours and 35 minutes, was cheering on a friend at the 24-mile mark when he got word he narrowly avoided the carnage himself.

“The course cleared out and people were trying to figure out just what was going on,” Nastasi told CBS Sports Radio. “People were pretty frantic.”

Anthony Abbruscato, a 22-year-old North Babylon man who was also cheering on friends who were running the race when the bombs went off, said he was stunned by the attacks.

“There was a moment where time seemed to stand still as all of us tried to digest what was happening,” he said. “After the gravity of the situation set in, everyone began to panic and flee from the area. Phone lines were either down or busy, and everyone just felt helpless as they tried to contact friends and loved ones at the event.”

The case is a reminder that the public and law enforcement needs to remain vigilant, according to Vincent Henry, director of the Homeland Security Management Institute at Long Island University.

“From what we’ve seen it appears to have been an anti-personnel device,” he said. “Something that was designed to harm people and not buildings.”

Jeffrey Grossmann, a St. John’s University criminal justice professor in the Homeland and Corporate Security Program, said that the fact that countless cameras were aimed at the finish line could help solve the case.

“Anyone with recordings and videotapes of surveillance videos of anything that happened should contact authorities,” he said. “It may play a key role in finding out what happened.”

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), chairman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Counterintelligence & Terrorism, said the attackers will be brought to justice.

“Americans will not be deterred by terrorism,” he said. “We will hunt down and bring to justice the cowards responsible for today’s attack.”

Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis echoed the sentiment.

“This cowardly act will not be taken in stride,” he told reporters in a Tuesday night news conference. “We will turn every rock over to find the person responsible.”

President Barack Obama addressed the nation in a brief televised statement.

“We still do not know who did this or why,” he said. “And people shouldn’t jump to conclusions before we have all the facts.  But make no mistake—we will get to the bottom of this. And we will find out who did this; we’ll find out why they did this. Any responsible individuals, any responsible groups will feel the full weight of justice.”

Nassau County jail was ordered to enact a long-overdue oversight panel.

Long Island’s county jails have been shackled by a string of legal setbacks in the past month as a new $185 million correctional center opens in Suffolk County.

Five female ex-inmates at Suffolk jail in Riverhead filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against a corrections officer and, in a separate case, a judge consolidated claims by more than 100 inmates into a class-action suit alleging conditions there are deplorable. Nassau County jail also got bad news when New York State criticized the East Meadow facility for failing to prevent a former soldier from committing suicide and a judge ordered the county to implement an oversight panel that had been neglected by the past three county executives.

“None of it is surprising at all,” said Barbara Allan, founder of Prison Families Anonymous, a Long Island-based inmate advocacy group. “They both leave a lot to be desired,” she said of the jails on either side of the county line.

The developments come after Nassau County jail had seven inmate deaths in two years, including five suicides—giving it one of the highest county jail suicide rates statewide—a medical death and an inmate homicide that’s still under investigation. Inmates reportedly died at Suffolk jail in February and last June.

Nassau County Jail: Suicides, Health Care Changes, Budget Cuts Prompt Calls For Oversight

The New York State Commission on Correction found that Bartholomew Ryan, a 32-year-old ex-Marine from Seaford who’d served in Iraq, was not on suicide watch despite Nassau jail knowing he needed constant mental health supervision before he hanged himself in his cell on Feb. 24, 2012.

“He received inadequate evaluation and treatment by Armor Correctional Health Care, Inc.,” the commission wrote in its partially redacted five-page report. Armor is the private firm hired by Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano to treat inmates at the jail. The agency recommended the firm and the jail retrain staffers and make Automatic External Defibrillators more easily accessible to help save inmates quicker.

Representatives for Armor referred questions to jail officials, who were not available for comment. Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli said Nassau Sheriff Michael Sposato is “very conscientious” and that the jail’s “policies and procedures are constantly under review to make them the best that they can be.”

The explanation was little consolation to Ryan’s grieving family, which is suing the jail.

“This entity couldn’t get it together enough to actually be there to help save his life,” Thomas Ryan, the soldier’s brother, told News12 Long Island.  “How could Nassau County, one of the richest counties in the country, not have the proper training in the jail? It’s ridiculous to me that that could happen.”

The March 19 corrections commission report on Ryan was issued the same day that U.S. District Court Judge Joanna Seybert granted class-action status for plaintiffs in 111 individual lawsuits making similar claims of grotesquely inhumane conditions at Suffolk County’s two jails. Among those allegations are broken toilets “ping-ponging” waste between cells, mold-encrusted showers, overcrowding, rodent and insect infestations and inadequate heating.

A new minimum-security jail in Yaphank was mandated by New York State to increase capacity and ease overcrowding in Riverhead, although construction has yet to begin on a second phase of the jail that’s projected to cost more than $100 million.

“For too long, county officials have been content to force people to live in degrading conditions that are unfit for a civilized society,” said Amol Sinha, director of the New York Civil Liberty Union’s Suffolk chapter. “It’s time for them to meet their moral and constitutional obligations to provide humane conditions at the jails.”

The federal suit includes inmates who were held at Suffolk’s jails in both Riverhead and Yaphank as far back as 2009—jail inmates who haven’t made bail while their trials were pending or were serving sentences of less than one year on misdemeanor convictions, as opposed to convicted felons serving prison time in an upstate penitentiary.

A Suffolk County Sheriff’s Office representative referred questions about the lawsuit to the county attorney’s office.

“We don’t comment on pending litigation,” Suffolk County Attorney Dennis Brown said. “We will review the papers and we will defend the interest of the county and its employees.”

A week after that pair of same-day developments, Acting State Supreme Court Justice James McCormack ordered Mangano to comply with a county charter provision mandating the establishment of an independent, seven-member board charged with overseeing and reforming conditions at Nassau jail—a mandate that has gone unfulfilled since 1990.

“More than 20 years after Nassau County voters overwhelmingly approved this charter amendment, there will finally be much-needed oversight at the jail,” said Jason Starr, director of the NYCLU’s Nassau chapter. The group has received hundreds of complaints from Nassau jail inmates about being deprived of medication, mental health services and the mistreatment of people with disabilities.

Nassau County Attorney John Ciampoli said the appointments will be made within the 90-day deadline that the judge set. “We’ve advised the court that a full seven appointments are now pending before the legislature from the county executive,” Ciampoli said.

Once they’re appointed, the Board of Visitors’ volunteer panelists—people with a “working knowledge of the correctional system,” mandates the amendment—will have an office at the jail as well as access to jail records, books and data.

Five days after that ruling, a quintet of women filed a federal lawsuit alleging that in 2009 and 2010 they “were subjected to sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexually degrading treatment by Sergeant Joseph Foti,” who has since retired. They also claim that he punished them when they complained about the harassment.

The Sheriff’s office also referred questions on this case to the county attorney, who could only say that he would “vigorously” defend the county.

The plaintiffs include former pre-trial detainees Sharon Watts, Tara Lucente, Michelle Atkinson, Jamie Culoso and Catherine Andres, who estimate in their lawsuit that more than 40 other women were also sexually harassed but are afraid to come forward.

“Get used to it, you’re in jail,” Corrections Officer Santa Cruz, head of security at the jail, allegedly told Watts when she complained, according to the lawsuit. They’re represented by Southold-based attorney Laura A. Solinger, who’s also seeking class-action status.

“Because these women are incarcerated, they’re literally trapped and can’t leave,” she told Newsday. “It’s unlike at a job, where you can get in you car and drive away. You’re so vulnerable there. This makes this abuse that much more intense. They have to stay where they are and see him the next day, and the next day and the next.”

The 11:58 a.m. train from Babylon due in Penn Station at 1:12 p.m. hit the victim shortly after noon, according to the LIRR.

The victim was reportedly pronounced dead at the scene. His identity was not immediately available.

MTA Police are investigating the cause of the incident. There were delays on the Babylon Branch throughout the afternoon.

It was the third time a person was struck and killed by an LIRR train in the past week following incidents in Syosset on Monday and Bay Shore on Thursday.

Nassau County police said Bryan Flack was crossing Merrick Road when he was hit by a Nissan Frontier that was making a left turn from Jackson Avenue at 5:39 p.m.

The victim was taken to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead about four hours later.

The 65-year-old Massapequa driver was not injured but his truck was impounded for brake and safety checks.

Seventh Squad detectives found no criminality involved.

President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union address of his second term Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013.

President Barack Obama laid out more than a dozen new initiatives Tuesday in the first State of the Union address of his second term, packing an array of issues into the hour-long speech, including four—climate change, immigration, veterans and gun control—of particular importantance to Long Islanders, a few of whom were in the audience.

Obama started off flat while discussing his budget and tax reform proposals, but he worked his way up to an emotional plea for Congress to enact new restrictions on firearms sales to reduce the number of gun deaths nationwide. He sounded encouraged by current immigration reform talks among lawmakers, but the president oscilated between urging the Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to negotiate a compromise on the upcoming deficit reduction plan known as sequestration, and threatening to use executive orders if Congress doesn’t act on global warming.

“We can choose to believe that Superstorm Sandy, and the most severe drought in decades, and the worst wildfires some states have ever seen, were all just a freak coincidence,” Obama said, referring in part to the Oct. 29 hurricane-nor’easter hybrid that ravaged LI and the Northeast. ”Or we can choose to believe in the overwhelming judgment of science—and act before it’s too late.”

The president remained vague on most of his proposals, choosing to paint a broad picture of the goals he’s setting for the year to come, but did get into some specifics while discussing immigration and, to a lesser degree, gun control.

“Senators of both parties are working together on tough new laws to prevent anyone from buying guns for resale to criminals,” the president said, before rallying for a vote on the bill. ”Police chiefs are asking our help to get weapons of war and massive ammunition magazines off our streets, because these police chiefs, they’re tired of seeing their guys and gals being outgunned.”

Among those top cops was John Aresta, the Malverne village police chief, whose uncle was among six murdered in the 1993 Long Island Rail Road massacre. He was invited to attend by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-Mineola), whose husband was killed and son injured in the same shooting spree that launched her to the national stage to advocate for gun control.

“I personally don’t see a reason why anybody would need a 30-round clip or a 10-round clip for an assault rifle,” Aresta had told Fox Business News  last month shortly after New York State passed sweeping new gun control laws in the wake of the Newtown elementary school massacre in December.

Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford), the lone Republican among LI’s five-member Congressional delegation, wrote on Twitter that he was disapointed in Obama’s lack of focus on unemployment and deficit reduction, but co-authored an op-ed in Politico expressing support for ensuring background checks for all  gun purchases, with the exception of gifts between family members or temporary transfers for hunters. He noted national estimates that only four in 10 gun buyers are subject to such checks.

New York City got two mentions. Obama first touted the heroic nurses who evacuated newborn babies from the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan during Sandy, signaling Menchu Sanchez by name. She was seated next to First Lady Michelle Obama. He later extolled the benefits of P-Tech in Brooklyn, a collaboration between New York Public Schools, the City University of New York and IBM, where students graduate with a high school diploma and an associate’s degree in computers or engineering—a model he wants emulated nationwide.

The emphasis on improving education to better the economy dovetailed with his reasons for supporting immigration, a hotly debated issue on LI, where undocumented Hispanic immigrant day laborers have repeatedly been victims of Suffolk County hate crimes in recent years.

“Our economy is stronger when we harness the talents and ingenuity of striving, hopeful immigrants,” Obama said, emphasizing that reform must include stronger border security, cutting waiting periods, attracting highly skilled engineers and ”establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship—a path that includes passing a background check, paying taxes and … learning English.”

But some immigration issues are easier to solve than others. Rep. Steve Israel (D-Dix Hills) invited as his guests Dania and Nick Marvos, a Little Neck couple who were in the process of adopting a 1-year-old boy named Ari from Russia until two months ago when Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law banning American adoptions of Russian children. The move was widely seen as retaliation for a recently passed U.S. law punishing Russian human rights violators.

“Waiting for news to see if we will be allowed to bring our baby home has been one of the most trying times in our lives,” Dania Mavros said in a statement released by Israel’s office. ”Devastating does not capture the emotional roller coaster that we are enduring every day.”

Congressman Israel said he is negotiating to help the couple complete the adoption process despite the new Russian law in an attempt to save their son-to-be from growing up in an orphanage. Thousands of other cases are also in jeopardy.

Rep. Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) invited Dina McKenna of Lindenhurst, whose husband, Sgt. William McKenna, died in 2010 of cancer caused by his exposure to toxic fumes from burn pits the military used for disposing of hazardous waste in Iraq. Bishop had laws passed to curtail the use of burn pits and require the Department of Veterans Affairs to improve its treatment of soldiers exposed to them.

“All veterans whose health may have been affected by toxic burn pits must be accounted for and given the health care and support they have earned,” Bishop said in a statement.

Obama’s nod to veterans came as he promised to better defend against cyber attacks, end the more than decade-long war in Afghanistan “by the end of next year,” prevent Iran from building nuclear weapons and isolate North Korea for its provocations in testing nuclear weapons potentially capable of being fitted on inter-continental ballistic missles. He reiterated plans to strengthen U.S. missle defense to block such an attack.

The commander-in-chief also made clear that while the military will not be sending large numbers of troops abroad for Iraq-style occupations, he vaguely referred to special operations forces that will continue to hunt al-Qaeda terrorists in Afghanistan and wherever else they may be hiding. He made veiled reference to the continued deployment of predator drones despite recently renewed controversy over their use to kill American citizens working with terrorists, such as Westbury-native Samir Khan, the al-Qaeda propagandist killed in U.S. airstrikes alongside militant cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen in 2011.

“Where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans,” he said.

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Nassau County police arrested a Seaford man Wednesday for criminal possession of a weapon after they discovered a rifle in his car and several assault weapons at his home, police said.

Detectives said 29-year-old Jonathan Erler was driving a 2004 Subaru north on Seamens Neck Road when Asset Forfeiture Criminal Investigative Rapid Response Team officers stopped him for a traffic violation and found a Flint Lock Rifle in the back seat and marijuana inside the car.

After he was placed under arrest, CIRT task force detectives and the Arson Bomb Squad conducted a search of his Seamens Neck Road home where they recovered six assault weapons, five high-capacity ammunition clips, several Chinese throwing stars, two bullet proof vests, marijuana and concentrated cannabis, police said.

Erler was charged with criminal possession of marijuana, criminal possession of a controlled substance, second-degree criminal possession of a weapon and six counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon.

Police did not immediately release arraignment information.