For nearly 10 years, a few days prior to the Belmont Stakes Horse Race, the jockeys, dressed in their full regalia, arrive at Ronald McDonald House. They come with ponies to ride, huge bags filled with stuffed toys, horse racing goggles, hats and lots of good cheer. FULL STORY

"I'm running for governor! Did you know that?" And with that, Nassau County Executive Tom Suozzi opened a June 8 roundtable lunch discussion with editors from several Nassau County weekly newspapers. Mr. Suozzi invited the weeklies to discuss his gubernatorial campaign, with a focus on issues of importance to Nassau County residents, including property tax reduction, school aid and Medicaid reform. FULL STORY

The Nationals continued their solid play with a terrific week of baseball. Despite a 3 week layoff due to rain outs and Memorial Day Weekend holiday the Nationals had the bats going scoring over 36 runs for the week. Great hitting by (Tommy Murphy, Matty Lorandini, Steven Polito, Anthony Verde, Matthew Bateman, Brendan Quinn, Michael Lynch) They also played solid defense turning 3 double-plays holding opponents under the run rule in 5 innings. Great team defense turned in by (Joe Dunn, Andrew Filocoma, Mark Niewierowski, Dominick Patrizi, Michael Hershenhorn and Brian Klig). Great effort Nationals keep up the good work. FULL STORY

In preparation for next week's World Cup match right here in NHP, the TOPSoccer players had a tune-up game against the coaches and parents. The match clearly displayed the ineptness of the adults as they came up well short in the 9-3 final score. The players were at peak performance with Stefani Egre racking up a bundle of goals. Ryan McCurry was a dynamo with a pair of tallies. Chris Mirino and Alex Warner put away one each and our newest player, Connor Farrell, blasted home one of his own. Christian Buccellato was a force to be reckoned with as he sent several blistering rockets on net. Marley Whittaker has some tricky moves as she out maneuvered the defense with great dribbles. The coaches made a feeble attempt to stay in the game and it looked like the referee was their best resource. After a legitimate goal by Peter Zimmerman's header from a perfect cross by Ray Andersen, the only way they could score was on questionable penalty calls by the man in black. They were able to convert two of the three calls as goalie Brian Evers guessed right and got a hand on both but couldn't quite hold on to them. Credited with goals were Megan Griffing and Ray Andersen. That brings it all down to next week. Hopefully some of the missing parents were conducting a much-needed practice but it's doubtful that such a late session would bear any fruit. It's all on the field next Saturday at 10:00 a.m. We shall see. FULL STORY