KJOY spent the morning at Crossroads Farm in Malverne to get the scoop from Malverne Mel, Nassau County’s famous prognosticator! Six more weeks of winter? Early spring? Find out what Mel had to say here:
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran joined Jamie Thursday morning to discuss how Nassau County is dealing with COVID-19.
Check out this awesome duet remix of “Cold Heart” with Elton John and Dua Lipa!
NEW YORK (AP) — Nintendo has announced a June 5 launch date and $449.99 price tag for its latest gaming console, the Switch 2, which will introduce interactive chat and screenshare functions to connect gamers.
In its 60-minute Nintendo Direct presentation on Wednesday, the company revealed a more vibrant display on the Switch 2, a larger screen and several games that will launch with the console.
Central to its updated system is a new “C” button on its Joy-Con controller, which will launch a new “GameChat” feature that requires a subscription to Nintendo’s Switch online service. It allows players to “communicate with friends and family while playing a game,” and lets them share their game screen with others. A built-in microphone will also allow chatting with other gamers.
“When you think about some of the biggest titles on (the Nintendo Switch), it’s like Mario Kart, Super Mario Jamboree, even though that’s quite a new title, has cracked the top ten of most played games on the console. So, it does make a lot of sense that the sort of headline feature is geared primarily towards that sort of use,” said Hannah Cowton-Barnes, a London-based video game industry expert for Tech Advisor.
Perhaps the most contemporary function yet for the Switch 2 is the ability to use the Joy-Con controllers like a computer mouse. The developer displayed multiple ways to use the new function, such as angling a club in a golf game.
The new portable console features a 7.9 inch LCD screen that displays in 1080p. Nintendo also revealed in the live stream that, when docked, the system will be able to support 4K resolution for compatible games.
The presentation started with an extended look at Mario Kart World — the console’s launch bundle game — which adds a bit of flair to the series with in-game characters doing tailwhips, flips, rail grinds and other tricks.
The developer also unveiled a new James Bond game, dubbed Project 007, revisiting a classic Nintendo 64 console hit revered by many first-person shooter fans.
Nintendo also announced two more Switch 2 exclusives featuring its marquee characters. Donkey Kong Bananza, a 3D adventure with the big ape punching his way through a huge underground world, arrives July 17. Kirby Air Riders, a racing game from the director of the Super Smash Bros. series, is due later in the year.
Third-party exclusives likely to create some buzz include Koei-Tecmo’s Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment, a hack-and-slash prequel to The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, coming this winter. From Software’s The Duskbloods, a baroque multiplayer title from the creators of Elden Ring, is scheduled for 2026.
Miss the GameCube? Nintendo said Switch Online subscribers will be able to access a limited selection of GameCube titles such as The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and F-Zero GX.
The new console will be backwards compatible — able to play physical and digital Switch games — but users will need to purchase a microSD express memory card for the Switch 2. The presentation revealed that normal microSD cards will not be compatible with the system. However, data from the original Switch can be transferred to the new console.
The Switch 2’s launch price is significantly higher than the original Switch’s $299 price tag. A separate bundle that includes the new Mario Kart game will also be available for $499.99.
The Trump administration’s tariffs have hit the video game console industry at a fragile moment, said Joost van Dreunen, author of “One Up: Creativity, Competition, and the Global Business of Video Games.”
“At the beginning of a new hardware cycle, all of a sudden we’re looking at this price hike,” said van Dreunen, a games industry researcher. “I had originally predicted that the Switch 2 would be $400. Now it’s announced that it’s $450. That $50 difference is a Trump tax.”
The tariffs, he said, impact games hardware because console devices are manufactured and shipped from China and that region at large.
The early stages of a hardware life cycle are already very low margin, or usually a loss for hardware manufacturers, van Dreunen said. Those manufacturers typically eat the margin in order to get the devices out to stores.
“But with an increased tariff, that means that margin is probably even worse than it historically is. But their hands are kind of tied. They can’t not progress. They can’t not launch a new hardware generation. So for the consumer base, people are just going to pay more.”
Nintendo plans to host “Switch 2 Experience” events in several countries, where gamers can get a hands-on experience with the new system. Those events are planned for cities such as Los Angeles, New York, London and Paris beginning this month.
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Val Kilmer, the brooding, versatile actor who played fan favorite Iceman in “Top Gun,” donned a voluminous cape as Batman in “Batman Forever” and portrayed Jim Morrison in “The Doors,” has died. He was 65.
Kilmer died Tuesday night in Los Angeles, surrounded by family and friends, his daughter, Mercedes Kilmer, said in an email to The Associated Press.
Val Kilmer died from pneumonia. He had recovered after a 2014 throat cancer diagnosis that required two tracheotomies.
“I have behaved poorly. I have behaved bravely. I have behaved bizarrely to some. I deny none of this and have no regrets because I have lost and found parts of myself that I never knew existed,” he says toward the end of “Val,” the 2021 documentary on his career. “And I am blessed.”
Kilmer, the youngest actor ever accepted to the prestigious Juilliard School at the time he attended, experienced the ups and downs of fame more dramatically than most. His break came in 1984’s spy spoof “Top Secret!” followed by the comedy “Real Genius” in 1985. Kilmer would later show his comedy chops again in films including “MacGruber” and “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang.”
His movie career hit its zenith in the early 1990s as he made a name for himself as a dashing leading man, starring alongside Kurt Russell and Bill Paxton in 1993’s “Tombstone,” as Elvis’ ghost in “True Romance” and as a bank-robbing demolition expert in Michael Mann’s 1995 film “Heat” with Al Pacino and Robert De Niro.
“While working with Val on ‘Heat’ I always marvelled at the range, the brilliant variability within the powerful current of Val’s possessing and expressing character,” director Michael Mann said in a statement Tuesday night.
Actor Josh Brolin, a friend of Kilmer, was among others paying tribute.
“You were a smart, challenging, brave, uber-creative firecracker,” Brolin wrote on Instagram. “There’s not a lot left of those.”
Kilmer — who took part in the Method branch of Suzuki arts training — threw himself into parts. When he played Doc Holliday in “Tombstone,” he filled his bed with ice for the final scene to mimic the feeling of dying from tuberculosis. To play Morrison, he wore leather pants all the time, asked castmates and crew to only refer to him as Jim Morrison and blasted The Doors for a year.
That intensity also gave Kilmer a reputation that he was difficult to work with, something he grudgingly agreed with later in life, but always defending himself by emphasizing art over commerce.
“In an unflinching attempt to empower directors, actors and other collaborators to honor the truth and essence of each project, an attempt to breathe Suzukian life into a myriad of Hollywood moments, I had been deemed difficult and alienated the head of every major studio,” he wrote in his memoir, “I’m Your Huckleberry.”
One of his more iconic roles — hotshot pilot Tom “Iceman” Kazansky opposite Tom Cruise — almost didn’t happen. Kilmer was courted by director Tony Scott for “Top Gun” but initially balked. “I didn’t want the part. I didn’t care about the film. The story didn’t interest me,” he wrote in his memoir. He agreed after being promised that his role would improve from the initial script. He would reprise the role in the film’s 2022 sequel, “Top Gun: Maverick.”
One career nadir was playing Batman in Joel Schumacher’s goofy, garish “Batman Forever” with Nicole Kidman and opposite Chris O’Donnell’s Robin — before George Clooney took up the mantle for 1997’s “Batman & Robin” and after Michael Keaton played the Dark Knight in 1989’s “Batman” and 1992’s “Batman Returns.”
Janet Maslin in The New York Times said Kilmer was “hamstrung by the straight-man aspects of the role,” while Roger Ebert deadpanned that he was a “completely acceptable” substitute for Keaton. Kilmer, who was one and done as Batman, blamed much of his performance on the suit.
The Times was the first to report his death on Tuesday.
“When you’re in it, you can barely move and people have to help you stand up and sit down,” Kilmer said in “Val,” in lines spoken by his son Jack, who voiced the part of his father in the film because of his inability to speak. “You also can’t hear anything and after a while people stop talking to you, it’s very isolating. It was a struggle for me to get a performance past the suit, and it was frustrating until I realised that my role in the film was just to show up and stand where I was told to.”
His next projects were the film version of the 1960s TV series “The Saint” — fussily putting on wigs, accents and glasses — and “The Island of Dr. Moreau” with Marlon Brando, which became one of the decade’s most infamously cursed productions.
David Gregory’s 2014 documentary “Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr. Moreau,” described a cursed set that included a hurricane, Kilmer bullying director Richard Stanley, the firing of Stanley via fax (who sneaked back on set as an extra with a mask on) and extensive rewrites by Kilmer and Brando. The older actor told the younger at one point: “‘It’s a job now, Val. A lark. We’ll get through it.’ I was as sad as I’ve ever been on a set,” Kilmer wrote in his memoir.
In 1996, Entertainment Weekly ran a cover story about Kilmer titled “The Man Hollywood Loves to Hate.” The directors Schumacher and John Frankenheimer, who finished “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” said he was difficult. Frankenheimer said there were two things he would never do: “Climb Mount Everest and work with Val Kilmer again.”
Other artists came to his defense, like D. J. Caruso, who directed Kilmer in “The Salton Sea” and said the actor simply liked to talk out scenes and enjoyed having a director’s attention.
“Val needs to immerse himself in a character. I think what happened with directors like Frankenheimer and Schumacher is that Val would ask a lot of questions, and a guy like Schumacher would say, ‘You’re Batman! Just go do it,'” Caruso told The New York Times in 2002.
After “The Island of Dr. Moreau,” the movies were smaller, like David Mamet human-trafficking thriller “Spartan”; “Joe the King” in 1999, in which he played a paunchy, abusive alcoholic; and playing the doomed ’70s porn star John Holmes in 2003’s “Wonderland.” He also threw himself into his one-man stage show “Citizen Twain,” in which he played Mark Twain.
“I enjoy the depth and soul the piece has that Twain had for his fellow man and America,” he told Variety in 2018. “And the comedy that’s always so close to the surface, and how valuable his genius is for us today.”
Kilmer spent his formative years in the Chatsworth neighborhood of Los Angeles. He attended Chatsworth High School alongside future Oscar winner Kevin Spacey and future Emmy winner Mare Winningham. At 17, he was the youngest drama student ever admitted at the Juilliard School in 1981.
Shortly after he left for Juilliard, his younger brother, 15-year-old Wesley, suffered an epileptic seizure in the family’s Jacuzzi and died on the way to the hospital. Wesley was an aspiring filmmaker when he died.
“I miss him and miss his things. I have his art up. I like to think about what he would have created. I’m still inspired by him,” Kilmer told the Times.
While still at Juilliard, Kilmer co-wrote and appeared in the play “How It All Began” and later turned down a role in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Outsiders” for the Broadway play, “Slab Boys,” alongside Kevin Bacon and Sean Penn.
Kilmer published two books of poetry (including “My Edens After Burns”) and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for spoken word album for “The Mark of Zorro.” He was also a visual artist and a lifelong Christian Scientist.
He dated Cher, married and divorced actor Joanne Whalley. He is survived by their two children, Mercedes and Jack.
“I have no regrets,” Kilmer told the AP in 2021. “I’ve witness and experienced miracles.”
A Northport man and his family are facing deportation despite legally entering the U.S. Yader Salgado who is from Nicaragua came to the United States after being granted humanitarian parole by the U.S. government.
Salgado received a letter tell him that the program had been terminated and that he and his family must leave the U.S. by April 24. The family has applied for asylum. They are permitted to stay in the country while their case is being evaluated.
By ELAINE KURTENBACH and DEE-ANN DURBIN AP Business Writer
Hooters is going bust.
The U.S. restaurant chain, known for chicken wings and its skimpy “Hooters Girls” wait-staff outfits, has filed for bankruptcy protection. HOA Restaurant Group filed the motion for Chapter 11 protection Monday in the North Texas Bankruptcy Court in Dallas.
It’s the latest legacy restaurant chain to run into financial trouble amid high food and labor prices, changing customer tastes and growing competition from newer casual chains like Shake Shack.
Red Lobster, TGI Fridays and Buca di Beppo all filed for bankruptcy protection last year, while the Tex-Mex chain On the Border filed for bankruptcy protection last month.
Under the Hooters bankruptcy plan, 100 company-owned U.S. restaurants would get sold to a group of Hooters franchisees. The franchisees, who include Hooters’ founders, currently operate 14 of the 30 highest-volume Hooters restaurants in the U.S., the company said.
“For many years now, the Hooters brand has been owned by private equity firms and other groups with no history or experience with the Hooters brand,” Neil Kiefer, CEO of the franchise group Hooters Inc., said in a statement. “As a result of these transactions, the Hooters brand will once again be in the hands of highly experienced Hooters franchisees and we will be well-positioned to return this iconic brand to its historic success.”
Hooters said franchisees or licensing partners would continue to operate all existing locations, including those outside the U.S. There are more than 420 Hooters restaurants in 29 countries.
Hooters, based in Atlanta, Georgia, was founded in Clearwater, Florida, in 1983 by six businessmen with no food service experience who claimed they wanted to run a restaurant they couldn’t get kicked out of.
But its business strategy has faced challenges over the years, including lawsuits over hiring only “Hooters Girls” to serve customers. In 2017, the company tried opening a restaurant that didn’t feature servers in tight tops as a test of a different approach to its original concept.
Last year, Hooters agreed to pay $250,000 to settle a race and color discrimination lawsuit brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. According to the lawsuit, a Hooters in North Carolina laid off 43 employees during the COVID pandemic, but recalled primarily white employees and Black employees with lighter skin tones once it began rehiring workers.
The company has also been forced to scale back as its financial woes mounted. In 2019, the Hooters hotel-casino off the Las Vegas Strip was sold to an Indian hotel company and rebranded as the OYO Hotel and Casino. Last year, the company closed around 40 underperforming U.S. locations.
Hooters had sponsored the No. 9 NASCAR car driven by Chase Elliott since 2017, but last year, Hendrick Motorsports ended its ties to the longtime sponsor because it was not meeting its financial commitments.
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said Tuesday that she has directed prosecutors to seek the death penalty against Luigi Mangione in the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, following through on the president’s campaign promise to vigorously pursue capital punishment.
It is the first time the Justice Department has sought to bring the death penalty since President Donald Trump returned to office in January with a vow to resume federal executions after they were halted under the previous administration.
“Luigi Mangione’s murder of Brian Thompson — an innocent man and father of two young children — was a premeditated, cold-blooded assassination that shocked America,” Bondi said in a statement. She described Thompson’s killing as “an act of political violence.”
Mangione, a 26-year-old Ivy League graduate from a prominent Maryland real estate family, faces separate federal and state murder charges after authorities say he gunned down Thompson, 50, outside a Manhattan hotel on Dec. 4 as the executive arrived for UnitedHealthcare’s annual investor conference.
Mangione’s lawyer, Karen Friedman Agnifilo, said Tuesday that in seeking the death penalty “the Justice Department has moved from the dysfunctional to the barbaric.”
Mangione “is caught in a high-stakes game of tug-of-war between state and federal prosecutors, except the trophy is a young man’s life,” Friedman Agnifilo said in a statement, vowing to fight all charges against him.
The killing and ensuing five-day manhunt leading to Mangione’s arrest rattled the business community, with some health insurers hastily switching to remote work or online shareholder meetings. It also galvanized health insurance critics — some of whom have rallied around Mangione as a stand-in for frustrations over coverage denials and hefty medical bills.
Surveillance video showed a masked gunman shooting Thompson from behind. Police say the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” were scrawled on the ammunition, mimicking a phrase commonly used to describe insurer tactics to avoid paying claims.
Mangione’s federal charges include murder through use of a firearm, which carries the possibility of the death penalty. The state charges carry a maximum punishment of life in prison. Mangione has pleaded not guilty to a state indictment and has not yet been required to enter a plea on the federal charges.
Prosecutors have said the two cases will proceed on parallel tracks, with the state case expected to go to trial first. It wasn’t immediately clear if Bondi’s announcement will change the order.
Mangione was arrested Dec. 9 in Altoona, Pennsylvania, about 230 miles (about 370 kilometers) west of New York City and whisked to Manhattan by plane and helicopter.
Police said Mangione had a 9mm handgun that matched the one used in the shooting and other items including a notebook in which they say he expressed hostility toward the health insurance industry and wealthy executives.
Among the entries, prosecutors said, was one from August 2024 that said “the target is insurance” because “it checks every box” and one from October that describes an intent to “wack” an insurance company CEO. UnitedHealthcare, the largest U.S. health insurer, has said Mangione was never a client.
Mangione’s lawyer has said she would seek to suppress some of the evidence.
Former President Joe Biden’s Justice Department filed the federal case against Mangione but left it to Trump and his administration to decide whether to seek the death penalty. Because the federal case had been taking a backseat to the state case, federal prosecutors have yet to seek a grand jury indictment, which is required for capital cases.
Trump oversaw an unprecedented run of 13 executions at the end of his first term and has been an outspoken proponent of expanding capital punishment. Trump signed an executive order on his first day back in office on Jan. 20 that compels the Justice Department to seek the death penalty in federal cases where applicable.
Bondi’s order comes weeks after she lifted a Biden-era moratorium on federal executions.
Biden campaigned on a pledge to work toward abolishing federal capital punishment but took no major steps to that end. While Attorney General Merrick Garland halted federal executions in 2021, Biden’s Justice Department at the same time fought vigorously to maintain the sentences of death row inmates in many cases.
In his final weeks in office, Biden commuted the sentences of 37 of the 40 people on federal death row, converting their punishments to life in prison.
The three inmates that remain are Dylann Roof, who carried out the 2015 racist slayings of nine Black members of Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina; 2013 Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; and Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 congregants at Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S history.
By JULIE WALKER Associated Press
A fire burned down a Long Island cat shelter, killing its founder, who lived there, and at least 59 of the felines he rescued, authorities said.
The fire at the Happy Cat Sanctuary in the hamlet of Medford was reported shortly after 7 a.m. Monday. The cause is under investigation.
The body of founder Christopher Arsenault, 65, was found in a back room, officials said.
“He appeared to be a very caring person,” said Roy Gross, chief of the Suffolk County SPCA. “His life was about the cats.”
An estimated 150 cats are believed to have survived at the facility, which also included outdoor buildings, Gross said. Some of the surviving animals suffered burns and smoke inhalation. The SPCA and other animal rescue groups were working together to arrange care for them.
Arsenault founded Happy Cat in 2006 after the death of his 24-year-old son, Eric, in a motorcycle accident, according to the sanctuary’s website. Arsenault described finding his calling when he came across a colony of 30 sick kittens and nursed them back to health.
At the time of the fire, he was planning to move the sanctuary from Long Island to a farm upstate, Gross said.
“Unfortunately, this disaster happened and now he’s gone,” Gross said. “Right now it’s in the early stages of trying to put all of this together to get these animals cared for.”
The Trump administration has nominated former Long Island Rep. Anthony D’Esposito to serve as inspector general for the Department of Labor.
D’Esposito, served one term as congressman for Long Island’s 4th District. He was defeated in November by Rep. Laura Gillen.
Suffolk County police respond to a hazmat situation at the Homewood Suites by Hilton hotel in Melville Monday afternoon.
An employee at the hotel reportedly accidently spilled pool chemicals. One person was taken to the hospital, and dozens of guests were forced to evacuate.
NEW YORK (AP) — As the trade wars launched by U.S. President Donald Trump continue to escalate, all eyes are on Wednesday.
Trump has repeatedly called April 2 “Liberation Day,” with promises to roll out a set of tariffs, or taxes on imports from other countries, that he says will free the U.S. from a reliance on foreign goods. To do this, Trump has said he’ll impose “reciprocal” tariffs to match the duties that other countries charge on U.S. products.
But a lot remains unknown about how these levies will actually be implemented. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday that Trump would unveil his plans to place reciprocal tariffs on nearly all American trading partners on Wednesday, but maintained that the details are up to the president to announce.
Since taking office just months ago, Trump has proven to be aggressive with tariff threats, all while creating a sense of whiplash through on-again, off-again trade actions. And it’s possible that we’ll see more delays or confusion this week.
Trump has argued that tariffs protect U.S. industries from unfair foreign competition, raise money for the federal government and provide leverage to demand concessions from other countries. But economists stress that broad tariffs at the rates suggested by Trump could backfire.
Tariffs typically trickle down to the consumer through higher prices — and businesses worldwide also have a lot to lose if their costs rise and their sales fall. Import taxes already in effect, coupled with uncertainty around future trade actions and possible retaliations, have already roiled financial markets and lowered consumer confidence while enveloping many with questions that could delay hiring and investment.
Here’s what you need to know.
What will happen on April 2?
Details around Trump’s plans remain uncertain. Reciprocal tariffs could take the form of product-by-product duties, for example, or more broad “averages” imposed across all goods from each country — or perhaps something else entirely. The rates could reflect what other countries charge as well as their value added taxes and subsidies to domestic companies.
White House trade adviser Peter Navarro told “Fox News Sunday” that the tariffs could raise $600 billion annually, which would imply an average rate of 20%.
Trump has talked about taxing the European Union, South Korea, Brazil and India, among other countries, through these levies. On Monday, Leavitt said Trump had been presented with several proposals by his advisers. She added that the president would make a final decision, but right now was not contemplating any country-wide exemptions from the tariffs.
Previously-delayed import taxes could take effect very soon. Trump’s month-long delay for many goods from Canada and Mexico, for example, is set to elapse in early April. Earlier this month, Trump wrote on his social media platform Truth Social that the extension granted for Mexican imports covered by the USMCA runs through April 2. But further confirmation around a specific date has not been issued since.
Which of Trump’s tariffs are about to start?
Trump has said he will place a 25% tariff on all imports from any country that buys oil or gas from Venezuela, which includes the U.S. itself, starting Wednesday — in addition to imposing new tariffs on the South American country.
His 25% tariffs on auto imports will start being collected Thursday, with taxes on fully-imported cars kicking off at midnight. The tariffs are set to expand to applicable auto parts in the following weeks, through May 3.
The White House says it expects to raise $100 billion in revenue annually from these new duties, but economists stress this trade action will upend the auto industry’s global supply chain and lead to higher prices for consumers.
Which tariffs have already gone into effect?
Trump imposed a 10% tariff on all Chinese imports beginning Feb. 4, a levy he later doubled to 20% from March 4 onward. And China has hit back with retaliatory tariffs covering a range of U.S. goods, including a 15% tariff on coal and liquefied natural gas products and 10% tariff on crude oil from the U.S. that took effect Feb 10. China also imposed tariffs of up to 15% on key U.S. farm exports starting March 10.
Trump’s expanded steel and aluminum tariffs went into effect earlier this month, too. Both metals are now taxed at 25% across the board — with Trump’s order to remove steel exemptions and raise aluminum’s levy from his previously-imposed 2018 import taxes taking effect March 12.
Canada and Mexico, America’s two largest trading partners, have also faced steep tariffs. Earlier this month, Trump implemented a partial, month-long delay of his 25% tariffs on both countries — delaying taxes for auto-related imports as well as goods that comply with the 2020 US-Mexico-Canada Agreement until early April.
But other imports are still levied, as well as a lower 10% duty on potash and Canadian energy products. In response to these tariffs, as well as the new steel and aluminum import taxes, Canada has rolled out a series of counter measures amounting to billions of dollars on U.S. goods. Mexico, meanwhile, has yet to formally impose new levies — signaling it may still hope to de-escalate the trade war, although the country previously promised retaliation to Trump’s actions.
Can we expect additional tariffs down the road?
Even more tariffs from Trump are likely, with the president also threatening import taxes on products like copper, lumber, pharmaceutical drugs and computer chips.
And many countries have promised retaliatory measures — if not already imposed them, like Canada. Trump has said he won’t negotiate with other countries on Wednesday’s tariffs until after they’re imposed, though he has said his 25% taxes on auto imports would be permanent.
In response to Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs, the European Union announced measures on U.S. goods worth some 26 billion euros ($28 billion) — to target steel and aluminum products, but also American beef, poultry, bourbon, motorcycles, peanut butter and jeans. The 27-member bloc had intended to roll out this retaliatory trade action in two phases, on Tuesday and April 13, but later said it will delay it until mid-April, without giving a specific date.
We’ll potentially see more retaliatory announcements this week, particularly if Trump confirms more details of sweeping reciprocal tariffs on Wednesday.
March 26, 2025 (Deer Park) — United Way of Long Island is pleased to announce a generous $12,000 contribution from PSEG Long Island to Project Warmth, the region’s only non-governmental emergency fuel fund. This support helped provide heating assistance to over 2,000 families and individuals facing financial hardship across Nassau and Suffolk counties during this past winter. Now in its 30th year, Project Warmth has been a lifeline for more than 30,000 families to keep their homes warm.
“We are grateful for PSEG Long Island’s ongoing support of Project Warmth and its commitment to families, children, veterans, and seniors facing energy insecurity,” said Theresa Regnante, President & CEO of United Way of Long Island. “PSEG’s inclusion of a donation appeal in utility bills—reaching over 600,000 customers—has been instrumental in driving support for Project Warmth and extending security to more families in need. This support is truly game-changing.”
Project Warmth provides emergency heating assistance to eligible households who have exhausted other options, covering all fuel sources, including oil, gas, propane, and electricity. The program is made possible through the generosity of corporate partners like PSEG Long Island, as well as individual donors and community organizations.
“PSEG Long Island is committed to supporting our neighbors, especially during the colder months when heating costs can become overwhelming,” said David Lyons, Interim President and Chief Operating Officer. “By contributing to Project Warmth and encouraging our customers to do the same, we are working together to ensure that families across Long Island have the support they need to stay safe and warm.”
For those receiving assistance, the impact is life-changing. “When my oil tank ran dry during a freezing night, I didn’t know where to turn,” said Barbara, a local Project Warmth senior recipient. “Thanks to United Way and Project Warmth, I was able to get emergency assistance to keep warm. I’m beyond grateful for this support and for companies like PSEG Long Island that make it possible.”
United Way of Long Island urges individuals, businesses, and organizations to join PSEG Long Island in supporting Project Warmth. Donations can be made online at www.unitedwayli.org/projectwarmth or by calling 211 for more information on how to contribute or apply for assistance.
About United Way of Long Island
United Way of Long Island mobilizes communities to action so all can thrive. True to our founding spirit, whenever there is a need in our community, United Way of Long Island is there. We bring a comprehensive approach to every challenge, actively listening and responding to local needs. Our reach
across communities means we can share innovations and scale impact to improve lives. From strengthening local resilience to advancing health, youth opportunity, and financial security, we’re working towards a future where every person in every community can reach their full potential. To learn more, please visit www.unitedwayli.org, call 2.1.1 or follow us on Facebook, LinkedIn, X, and Instagram.
PSEG Long Island
PSEG Long Island is committed to providing the people of Long Island and the Rockaways with exceptional customer service, best-in-class reliability and storm response, and a strong level of involvement in the communities in which its employees live and work. PSEG Long Island operates the Long Island Power Authority’s transmission and distribution system under a long-term contract. PSEG Long Island is a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group Inc. (PSEG) (NYSE:PEG), a publicly traded diversified energy company.