Paul LaRocco

4 days ago | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

Nassau County paid 14,205 current and former government employees a total of $1.25 billion in 2024, an increase of nearly 11% from 2023, according to payroll data obtained under the Freedom of Information Law. Forty-seven percent of the payroll budget, or $584 million, went to the police department. You can explore the department breakdown in this interactive chart: Video Player is loading. Current Time 0:00Duration 0:00Remaining Time -0:00Beginning of dialog window.

4 days ago | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

Suffolk County paid 16,993 current and former employees a total of over $1.18 billion in 2024, an increase of 5% from 2023, according to public payroll data obtained by Newsday through the Freedom of Information Act. Just under half of the payroll budget, or $562 million, went to the police department. You can explore the department breakdown in this interactive chart: Video Player is loading. Current Time 0:00Duration 0:00Remaining Time -0:00Beginning of dialog window.

Nov 20, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

Matthew Sherwood measures the cost of Bethpage Community Park contamination in missed opportunities. The 41-year-old investment manager, who is blind and walks with a guide dog, said the park four blocks from his home "could be a safe place" to take his 3-year-old daughter to — if much of it wasn’t a fenced-off plot of tainted soil. "It's frustrating hearing stories from others using it when they were a kid: ‘A family place;’ ‘A beautiful park,’ " said Sherwood, a Bethpage resident since 2016.

Nov 11, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco |Keshia Clukey

Donald Trump flipped numerous Democratic strongholds on Long Island on his way to taking a decisive majority of local voters for the first time in his three presidential campaigns, according to a Newsday analysis of unofficial results. More than 53% of voters in Nassau and Suffolk cast their ballots for Trump. He won Suffolk for the third consecutive election and captured Nassau for the first time, becoming the first Republican to win there since 1988.

Sep 4, 2024 | newsday.com | Paul LaRocco

Three miles from the Brookhaven landfill sits the state's only auto shredder south of Albany. Crushing cars and appliances at the rate of one every eight seconds, Gershow Recycling's vast Medford operation yields mountains of scrap iron sold to steel mills across the country while extracting other metals, down to the smallest bits of aluminum and copper that technology can detect. By weight, the company says it salvages 77% of what it takes in.