Montauk Highway just east of Water Mill is closed in both directions following an accident midday Friday. 

Southampton Town police are investigating what caused a two-vehicle crash near Incarnation Lutheran Church around 12:10 p.m. At least two people were taken to the hospital.

The Bridgehampton Fire Department responded with an ambulance and an engine. A hazardous-materials team was brought in to clean up a fuel spill. 

Montauk Highway was originally closed at Scuttlehole Road, but police now have it shut down between Mecox Road and Hayground Road. 

This article will be updated with more information as it becomes available. 

Support for a ban on the intentional release of balloons has grown quickly in the Town of East Hampton since a town trustee first drew attention to their impact on marine wildlife, and last Thursday the town board unanimously passed a law against it. 

Suffolk County allows an individual to release up to 25 balloons per day, a fact that activists advocating a ban have incredulously recounted in recent months. Balloons’ effects are often lethal, as was illustrated by one of four people who spoke in favor of a ban ahead of the vote at Thursday’s town board meeting.

“I have observed the horrific consequences of discarded balloons on marine wildlife,” Kimberly Durham, necropsy program director for the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, told the board, recalling a year-old harbor seal rescued in Quogue “with balloon ribbon constricting and cutting deep into her neck.” This animal was lucky, she said; others are not. “Fragments of latex balloons — the rims, the ribbons, twine — are documented and archived routinely with investigations of sea turtle mortalities. In gestion, whether directly or indirectly through their food, is a major threat to New York’s marine mammals and sea turtles.”

The Atlantic Marine Conservation Society’s chief scientist scooped a balloon bearing a “Happy Father’s Day” message from Shinnecock Inlet last August, nearly two months after Father’s Day, Ms. Durham said, while several dolphins were observed nearby. “During that same survey he recovered a total of eight pounds of floating debris,” she said.

Chuck Morici, a Montauk fisherman, provided another eyewitness account, telling the board of “balloons everywhere” on the ocean surface.

Andrew Brosnan, chairman of the Eastern Long Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, told the board that 194 balloons were among the nearly two tons of debris he and colleagues had collected during 18 beach cleanups last year. “The legislation that is being considered here tonight is an excellent way to prevent the intentional littering of the ocean and of our beaches,” he said.

The law passed on Thursday bans the intentional release of balloons except in public or private receptacles and in designated areas at the town’s recycling centers. Balloons carrying scientific instruments or being used for governmental or meteorological purposes, hot air balloons, and balloons released indoors are exempted from the ban.

Susan McGraw Keber, a trustee, presented the board with a proclamation from the Give It Back Club at the Montauk School, where she served as a judge in a science fair. Each of the school’s students, she said, signed the proclamation, and she displayed posters students made bearing messages including “Pollution Is Bad,” “Save Sea Life,” “Do Not Pollute,” and “End Pollution, Save Lives.”

Last year, Ms. McGraw Keber, who is also an illustrator and cartoonist, designed a “balloon fish” crafted from found balloons, which she said was an effort to convey the message to children that balloons, which are popular at birthdays, weddings, and other celebrations, are hazardous to marine life. The design now adorns T-shirts that the trustees sell, with proceeds going to the Rysam Fund, a scholarship they award annually to a graduating high school student.

“The children are the ones who will protect and preserve what we have here in town,” Ms. McGraw Keber, who serves on the trustees’ education committee, told the board.

An N.Y.P.D. detective killed by friendly fire from fellow officers as they tried to stop a robbery in Queens on Tuesday night was an East End native known to many local police officers. 

Detective Brian P. Simonsen grew up in South Jamesport and graduated from Riverhead High School in 1995. He lived with his wife in Calverton while serving for the past 19 years as a police officer. He was 42. 

East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael Sarlo said Wednesday night that he was sure his officers would participate in upcoming services. "As an East End resident, many local officers knew him and several worked with him in the N.Y.P.D. before they came out east," he said. "Our thoughts and prayers go out to his family during this difficult time."

East Hampton Village and Sag Harbor Village police are also expected to send officers to the services. 

Funeral arrangments were announced late Wednesday night. The Simonsen family will receive visitors at St. Rosalie Catholic Church in Hampton Bays on Monday from 7 to 9 p.m., and on Tuesday from 2 to 4 p.m. and again from 7 to 9. A Liturgy of Christian Burial will be celebrated at the church on Wednesday at 10 a.m. Burial will follow at the Jamesport Cemetery. 

The DeFriest-Grattan Funeral Home in Mattituck is assisting the family with arrangements. 

Though PSEG Long Island officials insist that land has not been purchased nor a location for a new electrical substation determined, several Montauk residents appealed to the East Hampton Town Board last week to ensure that a wooded site along Flamingo Avenue would be off limits.

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc reassured the public at the town board’s meeting last Thursday that a sign erected on Montauk Highway at the western end of the commercial district depicting an electrical installation on the Flamingo Avenue site was “a complete fabrication.” Residents should know that “as presented here in that photograph, that is something that no one on this town board would ever support,” he said.

The town’s comprehensive plan and local waterfront revitalization plan include the directive to relocate critical infrastructure out of harm’s way. Given the prospect of sea level rise and more extreme weather, a proposal to replace an antiquated substation that juts into Fort Pond on flood-prone Industrial Road to a site on nearby Shore Road was abandoned. PSEG Long Island is reportedly prepared to purchase adjoining lots on Flamingo Avenue that are owned by the family of the actor Ralph Macchio, 6.7 acres of land at higher elevation than the existing substation. Residents have organized against any disturbance to that site.

“The question is where is that substation going to be located,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said last Thursday, “and what’s the process going to be of figuring that out?” He asked that everyone keep an open mind “until the actual facts are presented.”

PSEG Long Island, which manages the electrical grid on behalf of the Long Island Power Authority, is planning a public information session, for which it will provide at least three weeks’ advance notice, he said, and the town board will discuss all options and evaluate any proposals “to make sure it meets community standards.” Residents have pointed out that the Flamingo Avenue proposed site is close to the Montauk Playhouse, which hosts senior citizens’ and children’s day-care programs, and is both ecologically sensitive and a historical site containing Native American artifacts. “No one should have that in their backyard,” Bonnie Brady of Montauk said of a substation. “Montauk deserves better. We need for you all to do whatever is necessary.” But the discussion was notably light on acrimony. Rather, board members and residents alike sought a collaborative effort to identify an alternative location.

“What I ask of the board, and of everyone in attendance concerned about this issue tonight, is that we commit ourselves to working together tirelessly to engineer a new, creative solution that will provide PSEG with a suitable piece of land, one with minimal disruption to the environment and to the community alike,” said Shaun De Jesus of Montauk. Instead of being forced into a least-bad choice, he said, “let’s come together as full and willing partners dedicated to do what is best, not simply for PSEG, but for Montauk and its people.” Tom Bogdan, who founded the citizens group Montauk United, showed the board a petition opposing the Flamingo Avenue site that he said had 2,500 signatures. “In the history of all your political doings in East Hampton,” he asked, “have you ever seen a mandate as large as that for one particular issue? . . . This is not a neighborhood. This is Montauk speaking to you. I feel, so far you haven’t done your best for us.” That statement, he added, was based on past achievements, citing the board’s efforts to control air traffic to and from East Hampton Airport. “You have done some fantastic things in the Town of East Hampton and stood up for people who needed help,” he said. “And far less people than 2,500!”

To a suggestion from Jim Grimes, a Montauk resident and a town trustee, that a committee be appointed to “maintain attention to the problem, but more importantly a line of communication between this town board and what’s actually going on in a moment-by-moment basis,” Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said that the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee had just done that. A subcommittee’s job, she said, is to identify and evaluate alternative sites for the substation.

The committee will work with the town planning staff, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “who are great assets in terms of figuring out what available parcels there are within the area.”

Several residents proposed that the substation be built near the former Montauk landfill. “There’s a general problem with placing substations near landfills,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “but we’ll certainly investigate. That is the first choice by the town in the comprehensive plan and the L.W.R.P.”

PSEG Long Island “has made no firm decision on siting the substation,” David Gaier, the utility’s director of communications, said in an email yesterday, nor has it acquired the Flamingo Avenue property. “We’re considering a number of options across five possible sites, and we’ll provide information on these sites and options at a future public meeting,” to be announced once a date has been set.

Mr. Gaier emphasized that “the need is real because the load on the South Fork and the East End is growing significantly year over year.”

“We are not anywhere near giving our support for a specific site,” the supervisor repeated last Thursday. “We understand, though, that another site has to be found, and we’re in the process of figuring that out.”

“Montauk is worth it,” Mr. Bogdan said of an intensified effort to find a solution agreeable to residents. “You have a choice. You could be a Montauk hero. You could show up in Montauk and everybody will buy you a drink.” The supervisor had a ready response: “Did you hear that, Montauk?” he asked.

In a sign of a maturing domestic offshore wind industry, Eversource, New England’s largest energy company, has acquired a 50-percent interest in two of the Danish energy giant Orsted’s proposed installations, including the 15-turbine South Fork Wind Farm, which is to be constructed approximately 35 miles off Montauk.

According to a statement issued on Friday, Eversource will pay approximately $225 million for a 50-percent stake in Orsted's South Fork Wind Farm and also its Revolution Wind projects, the latter to deliver power to Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as a 257-square-mile federal lease area off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in which they are to be situated.

The deal builds upon Bay State Wind, the two companies' existing partnership in a separate 300-square-mile tract adjacent to the federal lease area originally won by Deepwater Wind. Together, the companies say that the lease sites they jointly own could generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity.

The companies will mutually manage permit requirements for their projects and have pledged to honor planned local investments and agreements entered prior to the partnership.

Revolution Wind is a planned 700-megawatt wind farm to be sited approximately 15 miles south of Rhode Island. Orsted and Eversource aim for it to go online in 2023.

Additionally, the Orsted-Eversource partnership is participating in New York State's first offshore wind energy solicitation, through which the State Energy Research and Development Authority plans to procure 800 megawatts of offshore wind. Bids are due today, with awards expected in the spring.

"Over the last several years, the two teams have worked together very closely, and have established a joint project development team," Clint Plummer, Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind's head of market strategies and new projects, said of the Orsted-Eversource partnership.

"When Orsted acquired Deepwater Wind, it was logical to expand those resources and capabilities to the rest of the New England portfolio." Eversource, he said, is "another strong American energy company that wants to make investments in assets like these."

Mr. Plummer said that along with himself, Deepwater Wind officials including Jeff Grybowski, its chief executive, Aileen Kenney, a vice president, Julia Prince, its Montauk manager and fisheries liaison, and Jennifer Garvey, Long Island development manager, remain in important positions within the Orsted organization.

"The thing that has changed is we are now executing this project with a larger group of people, which gives us more capability, and with companies with significant balance sheets, which gives us significant resources," he said.

While the American offshore wind industry is experiencing a growth spurt, there are just five turbines in the nation's waters, those of the Block Island Wind Farm, which Deepwater Wind commissioned in December 2016.

"Our challenge now," Mr. Plummer said, "is less about how you construct these. It's around the type of work we are doing now in East Hampton: making a big global business, like offshore wind, fit into an American context and -- in many ways more importantly -- making it fit into the context of the local communities it's going to serve."

Support for a ban on the intentional release of balloons has grown quickly in the Town of East Hampton since a town trustee first drew attention to their impact on marine wildlife, and on Thursday the town board unanimously passed a law against it.

Suffolk County allows an individual to release up to 25 balloons per day, a fact that activists advocating a ban have incredulously recounted in recent months. Balloons' effects are often lethal, as was illustrated by one of four people who spoke in favor of a ban ahead of the vote at Thursday's town board meeting.

"I have observed the horrific consequences of discarded balloons on marine wildlife," Kimberly Durham, necropsy program director for the Atlantic Marine Conservation Society, told the board, recalling a year-old harbor seal rescued in Quogue "with balloon ribbon constricting and cutting deep into her neck." This animal was lucky, she said; others are not. "Fragments of latex balloons -- the rims, the ribbons, twine -- are documented and archived routinely with investigations of sea turtle mortalities. Ingestion, whether directly or indirectly through their food, is a major threat to New York's marine mammals and sea turtles."

The Atlantic Marine Conservation Society's chief scientist scooped a balloon bearing a "Happy Father's Day" message from Shinnecock Inlet last August, nearly two months after Father's Day, Ms. Durham said, while several dolphins were observed nearby. "During that same survey he recovered a total of eight pounds of floating debris," she said.

Chuck Morici, a Montauk fisherman, provided another eyewitness account, telling the board of "balloons everywhere" on the ocean surface.

Andrew Brosnan, chairman of the Eastern Long Island chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, told the board that 194 balloons were among the nearly two tons of debris he and colleagues had collected during 18 beach cleanups last year. "The legislation that is being considered here tonight is an excellent way to prevent the intentional littering of the ocean and of our beaches," he said.

The law passed on Thursday bans the intentional release of balloons except in public or private receptacles and in designated areas at the town's recycling centers. Balloons carrying scientific instruments or being used for governmental or meteorological purposes, hot air balloons, and balloons released indoors are exempted from the ban.

Susan McGraw Keber, a trustee, presented the board with a proclamation from the Give It Back Club at the Montauk School, where she served as a judge in a science fair. Each of the school's students, she said, signed the proclamation, and she displayed posters students made bearing messages including "Pollution Is bad," "Save Sea Life," "Do Not Pollute," and "End Pollution, Save Lives."

Last year, Ms. McGraw Keber, who is also an illustrator and cartoonist, designed a "balloon fish" crafted from found balloons, which she said was an effort to convey the message to children that balloons, which are popular at birthdays, weddings, and other celebrations, are hazardous to marine life. The design now adorns T-shirts that the trustees sell, with proceeds going to the Rysam Fund, a scholarship they award annually to a graduating high school student.

"The children are the ones who will protect and preserve what we have here in town," Ms. McGraw Keber, who serves on the trustees' education committee, told the board.

On a beautiful Sunday afternoon, Randy Parsons took his two dogs — his hiking mates, as he calls them — to the Walking Dunes, on the northeast side of Napeague Harbor. The temperature had warmed up after a cold snap, but despite the 40-degree weather, parts of Napeague Harbor remained icy.

About 15 minutes into the walk, about half a mile from the end of Napeague Harbor Road, a large, black, shiny seal pulled itself onto the ice roughly 50 yards from shore, most likely to sunbathe, Mr. Parsons said. The seal caught the eye of Gus, one of Mr. Parsons’s two American Eskimo dogs. Gus trotted out onto the ice to get a closer look before his owner could stop him.

“As he approached, the seal waddled to a hole in the ice and dove in,” Mr. Parsons, a 66-year-old Springs resident who serves on the East Hampton Town Planning Board, said in a conversation yesterday. All was well, but then Gus’s sister, Mazy, joined him out on the ice. About 100 feet from shore, the 40-pound dog fell through.

“I didn’t expect them to go out there and was unprepared,” Mr. Parsons said. “In retrospect, when Mazy fell in I should have called 911 for help.”

Mazy tried to pull herself out for a few minutes, but she was not able to get herself back onto the ice. Meanwhile, Gus was still exploring, and the ice in the area seemed solid enough to support him. Mr. Parsons, wearing a sweatshirt and a vest, long johns underneath a T-shirt, a fleece hat, and hiking boots, tried sliding himself on his stomach along the route Gus had taken to get to Mazy, but he did not make it far when the ice gave way and he fell into the water.

“I expected Napeague Harbor to be shallow, but I could not touch the bottom. I tried to lift myself back onto the ice, but when I pushed, the ice broke, and I was back in the water.”

The nearest tidal gauge, in Fort Pond Bay, registered a water temperature of about 35 degrees that afternoon.

He managed to swim and break through the ice to get to Mazy, and then “was able to give her butt a shove up, and she got back up standing on the ice.” That’s when Gus, at about 32 pounds, came over and fell in too.

The dog paddled and barked anxiously but, like Mr. Parsons, was unable to get out of the icy waters. The two were about 30 feet from each other.

“I felt I had to try to get myself up on the ice to help him,” Mr. Parsons said, but it kept breaking when he tried to lift himself out. He was tiring and losing feeling in his hands. Hypothermia was setting in.

“I finally started yelling, ‘Help!’ ”

About a half-mile away, north of where Mr. Parsons and Gus were struggling in the water, Geoff Bowen and Jimmy Sullivan had been clamming, separately, for about two hours.

Mr. Sullivan, 55, heard the cries for help about every 10 seconds. “It was so rhythmic — that’s what caught my attention. Like, ‘Gee, that’s intentional.’ Sort of like a lighthouse beacon that flashes every 10 seconds.”

“It was the barking that got my attention,” Mr. Bowen, who is 50, said. He had heard the shouts, but they were faint at first. Judging from the dog’s bark, he knew it was in distress.

The two men looked at each other and ran toward their vehicles. Mr. Bowen’s wife, Briana Prado, who was sitting in the passenger seat of his Jeep, dialed 911, and they headed toward the sounds.

Mr. Sullivan’s girlfriend, Adrian Martin, who was sitting in his truck with Tom Donohue, a Montauk photographer and friend, also phoned police. They had heard the sounds too.

Mr. Donohue said the dog’s bark was alarming. “That’s a different type of bark — not a catch the stick, ‘Woof, woof, woof, I’m happy’ bark.”

Mr. Sullivan got on the phone briefly to describe their location — the northwest corner of Napeague Harbor — and Ms. Martin stayed on the line so dispatchers could track their exact location.

A call went out to the Amagansett Fire Department, the East Hampton Volunteer Ocean Rescue Squad, and East Hampton Town police just before 4:30 p.m.

While dispatchers instructed the callers that no one else should go in the water, there was no time to spare. They could see someone up to his neck in water, occasionally trying to get his arms above the ice.

“It was paramount we get him out of the water. There was nothing else to do but go get him,” said Mr. Sullivan, who has been a year-round surfer for 30 years and is a former lifeguard.

The men, in waders, grabbed their clam rakes and a 25-foot rope from Mr. Sullivan’s truck and headed toward Mr. Parsons. The ice did not hold Mr. Sullivan long, though Mr. Bowen, who is lighter, was able to tread on top of it a little longer. “It felt like a trampoline,” Mr. Bowen said.

Mr. Parsons heard the men arrive. “I remember feeling stubborn and determined . . . but also aware that I was losing feeling and strength.”

One of the first Amagansett firefighters to arrive on the scene Sunday had a six-foot dinghy in his truck, which rescuers used to get Randy Parsons back to shore.  Briana Prado

Gus was barking more and more anxiously, Mr. Parsons said, though the others don’t recall seeing him at that point. They remember Mazy, on the ice, barking and running back and forth between shore and her owner. Mr. Parsons remembers how she came over and licked his face when he had tried to lift himself onto the ice earlier.

As the men approached him, “He looked very, very icy, like somebody who was left out in a storm. His face was icy, his hair. He kind of had a glazed-over look in his eyes,” Mr. Bowen said.

They tried throwing a rope to him. Mr. Parsons was not able to grip it, but did wrap it around his wrist. He still could not pull himself up. Once waist-deep in the water, Mr. Sullivan broke through the rest of the ice, using his elbows to push it up in order to make it to Mr. Parsons. They grabbed him and started dragging him through the ice and the path they had created back toward the shore.

As they pulled him slowly to shore, trudging through the ice, they could see the flashing lights of the emergency responders arriving, which was one of the last things Mr. Parsons remembers seeing before arriving at the hospital.

“By the time we got him in knee-deep water, I was shot,” Mr. Sullivan said. His waders had filled with the icy water, and he could not longer move. He told Mr. Bowen that he had to get the waders off. With one arm holding onto Mr. Parsons, Mr. Bowen used his free hand to remove Mr. Sullivan’s waders.

One of the first firefighters to arrive at the beach had a six-foot dinghy in the back of his pickup truck, Amagansett Fire Chief Bill Beckert said. The chief, along with his brother, Second Assistant Chief Chris Beckert, and police officers on the scene grabbed it and waded through the ice out into the water, keeping it on top of the ice.

By this time, Mr. Sullivan, without his waders weighing him down, ran to shore with some help from an officer. In about waist-high water, Mr. Bowen and others who were in their street clothes were able to lift Mr. Parsons into the skiff and drag it back across the ice to shore, Police Sgt. Danny Roman said. “We got his wet clothes off, wrapped him in a blanket, ran him in a pickup up to the parking lot to the ambulance that was waiting.”

While police reported that Mr. Parsons was conscious and alert, he was exhibiting signs of hypothermia. All he remembers is the responders cutting his clothes off.

Around 4:50 p.m., fire personnel reported on the radio that everyone was out of the water. Mr. Sullivan walked to his truck, took off his wet clothes, and got warm. He refused medical assistance.

With the men out of the water, attention turned to the dogs. Mazy was on shore with Ms. Prado and Ms. Martin, who put a blanket around her to keep her warm. Chris Cinque, one of the East Hampton Ocean Rescue personnel, entered the water wearing a wetsuit — about chest-deep, police and fire officials estimated — and pulled Gus to shore.

“He was cold,” Chief Beckert said of the dog. “He didn’t have a whole lot of movement. He had shallow breathing.”

Once on shore, fire personnel wrapped the dog in blankets and warmed him in a truck before taking him to meet an East Hampton Town Animal Control officer who had been summoned.

“I am devastated that I could not help him,” Mr. Parsons said of the dog, who he has had since he was a 10-week-old puppy. “I am grateful for the nearly nine years I had with Gus’s remarkable spirit, intelligence, wild know-how, and sense of humor.”

“I am grateful Mazy and I can hike together again — and most of all to the clammers and emergency services personnel who gave me an extension on my lease on life,” he said. “Those people, the clammers and the Amagansett emergency services, saved my life.”

He knows he is lucky to be alive and hopes to thank his rescuers in person when he is feeling better. He believes he was in the water for 20 to 30 minutes. At Stony Brook Southampton Hospital, he was told his body temperature was 90 degrees when he arrived.

Mr. Parsons received continuous intravenous fluids and was released Tuesday afternoon. He still did not have feeling in half of his fingertips yesterday, and the hospital would have liked him to stay longer. But he said he is happier recuperating at home — with Mazy by his side. 

Representative Lee Zeldin was at the heart of a heated exchange on Twitter last week that laid bare the hyper-partisan atmosphere in Washington, accusing a newly elected colleague in the House of Representatives of “anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hate.” 

On Jan. 29, the same day he was appointed ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, he took to Twitter to state that he “Just learned that Freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota was also put on this committee w oversight of US foreign policy. Crazy to watch what House Dems are empowering/elevating.”

Mr. Zeldin, who was elected to a third term in November, is one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress. He is a strong supporter of Israel and an equally passionate critic of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions, or B.D.S., movement, which aims to force Israel into concessions with the Palestinian people. Its proponents liken their campaign to the anti-apartheid movement aimed at South Africa’s then-minority government; its detractors say that its real goal is Israel’s destruction. 

Ms. Omar is one of two Muslim women elected to the House last year. She and Rashida Tlaib of Michigan are Democrats. Both have been repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism. With her family, Ms. Omar fled Somalia at the start of its civil war in 1991. They were resettled in the United States as refugees in 1995.

In a 2012 tweet, she said that “Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.” Republicans and Democrats alike have criticized the remark, and on Jan. 22 she tweeted about “the anti-semitic trope I unknowingly used, which is unfortunate and offensive.” In a statement to The New York Times, she said that she supports Israeli and Palestinian states “side by side,” but “I will never apologize for standing up against oppression and injustice in Israel or anywhere else.”

She was dismissive in a Jan. 30 tweet responding to Mr. Zeldin’s of the previous day. “Don’t mind him, he is just waking up to the reality of having Muslim women as colleagues who know how to stand up to bullies!” she wrote. “It’s gonna be fun watching him lose his marbles.” 

Mr. Zeldin escalated the altercation last Thursday, posting a voice-mail recording that had been left at his office. The caller, who indicated that he is African-American, left a rambling, anti-Semitic message filled with expletives and references to Hitler. To Ms. Omar, Mr. Zeldin tweeted, “this is just another day in my world as an American Jew in Congress. Would love to know what part of this hate filled, anti-Semitic rant you disagree with? I disagree with all of it. Do you?” 

Ms. Omar responded on the same day. “This is heinous and hateful. I too am flooded with bigoted voicemails and calls every day. Maybe we could meet and share notes on how to fight religious discrimination of all kinds? Maybe over Somali tea, in your old office which I happen to be in now.” (Ms. Omar chose Mr. Zeldin’s former office after he, as a returning member of Congress, was  able to choose a different space.) 

Mr. Zeldin accepted the invitation via Twitter on Friday, though as of yesterday the two had not met, according to a spokeswoman for the congressman. He also took the opportunity to pressure Ms. Omar to co-sponsor a House resolution he introduced called “Rejecting anti-Israel and anti-Semitic hatred in the United States and around the world” that references Ms. Omar’s 2012 tweet alongside incidents including the October 2018 mass shooting at a syna-

gogue in Pittsburgh and the August 2017 white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. 

Asked, on the Fox News Channel, why he directed that voice mail to Ms. Omar, Mr. Zeldin referred to her support for the B.D.S. movement and accused her of being anti-Israel. “We’re seeing anti-Israel, anti-Semitic hate infiltrating American politics,” including “the halls of Congress,” he said. 

Via a spokeswoman, Mr. Zeldin told The Star yesterday that “It’s crazy that House Democrats appointed a member of Congress to oversee U.S. foreign policy who has advocated for leniency of ISIS fighters, has been the highest profile U.S. government defender recently of Venezuelan President Maduro, supports the B.D.S. movement targeting Israel, and has tweeted out ‘Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel.’ That unfortunately is all just a sampling. House Democrats should not be empowering those positions and that rhetoric.” 

Last month, he noted, the House voted almost unanimously to condemn white supremacy, and Representative Steve King, a Republican of Iowa who has used racist language and promoted neo-Nazis, was stripped of his committee seats. “Why won’t Democrats take similar action with the hate in their ranks?” Mr. Zeldin’s spokeswoman asked. “Instead, they give it a larger voice and greater platform, which is unacceptable.”

On Saturday, his attacks broadened, with a tweet that accusations of Islamophobia and racism leveled at him were “disgusting spin coming from the left.” On Monday, he attacked an opinion piece in The Forward, a Jewish-American periodical, which criticized his tweet directing the anti-Semitic voice mail at Ms. Omar. “This person calls me ‘Nazi-supporting’ & you’re going to play along promoting this person’s eager attack on a Jewish Member of Congress?” he tweeted to The Forward. Ms. Omar and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi were also addressed in the tweet. 

And on Tuesday, he tweeted that he had made “no references to anyone else’s religion/race” and “now I’m called a Nazi supporter, Islamophobe & racist of all things. All lies & absurd spin from radicalized left!” (Since the November 2018 midterm elections, in which Democrats recaptured a majority in the House of Representatives, many Republicans and right-leaning media have taken to using the term “radical left” to portray Democratic legislators.)

The congressman’s words were a departure from a statement made on the same day he had launched the rancorous exchange with Ms. Omar. “I look forward to working with my colleagues to provide bipartisan oversight of American foreign policy,” he said in the Jan. 29 announcement of his appointment as ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

One of the officers behind a major narcotics bust in Montauk over the summer was recognized for his work on the case by being named as the East Hampton Town Police Department’s officer of the year. Officer Arthur Scalzo was presented with the award at a Southampton Kiwanis Club dinner at the Long Island Aquarium in Riverhead on Friday night. 

Officer Scalzo, who has been assigned to the East End Drug Task Force for a little over a year, was the case officer in a wiretap investigation that took significant quantities of cocaine, oxycodone, and other pills off the street. Raids led to the seizure of $100,000 in cash and 650 grams of cocaine. 

“He was instrumental in this past summer’s large-scale narcotics investigation, which culminated with the arrest of 18 individuals on felony narcotics distribution charges,” Chief Michael Sarlo said. “As case officer, Artie worked diligently to coordinate E.H.T.P.D. detective and patrol division information and ensure the cooperation of federal, state, and county law enforcement.”

The case is still pending against five alleged ringleaders, who were indicted on drug felony and conspiracy charges. 

Officer Scalzo is in his 13th year with the department. He has received numerous commendations and was also named officer of the year in 2014. He is an Army veteran who served two tours in the Middle East during Operation Iraqi Freedom, one while he was a full-time town police officer, as he was called up during his time in the Army Reserves. 

“We are very proud of the outstanding work Artie performed during 2018, and the impact he made for the safety of the community.” 

Two East Hampton Village police officers, Eben Ball and Bethany Semlear, were recognized at the dinner for reviving a teenager who suffered a near-fatal overdose in June.

A 19-year-old from Manhattan was found unconscious and unresponsive in the front yard of a Dunemere Lane property on June 2 around 6:30 a.m. He was barely breathing, and the officers administered Narcan, a treatment used on suspected opioid overdoses. The young man regained consciousness quickly and was taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital. 

“Interesting to note was that the officers subsequently arrested the same person later that day for a residential burglary, which had occurred shortly before the man collapsed,” Chief Mike Tracey said. As it turned out, the young man had kicked down the door at the house and “destroyed the interior,” a detective said at the time. Police found tables flipped over, windows broken, and items strewn about. 

Officer Ball has been with the department since August 2008, while Officer Semlear was hired in March of last year.  

In Sag Harbor, Sgt. Robert Drake, whom Chief Austin J. McGuire called his “right hand” since he took over the department three years ago, was named officer of the year. “I truthfully could not do it without him,” Chief McGuire said in his speech at the dinner. 

Sergeant Drake was chosen for his overall dedication to the department, but also for some outstanding work this year. One of Sergeant Drake’s duties is to be the department’s investigator and liaison with the state police, all while assigned to rotating shifts and holding supervisory duties. 

“This year, Rob recovered over $200,000 in stolen property for a village resident, over $13,000 in revenue for the village from a forgery case, and was instrumental in identifying and locating four individuals who were arrested for numerous cases involving burglaries and larcenies on the East End, and the recovery of tens of thousands of dollars of property,” Chief McGuire said. He also oversaw and assisted with the training of four new police officers. 

Sergeant Drake has been employed with the Sag Harbor department since 1999, when he was hired as a part-time officer. Two years later, he was hired full time. He holds a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from the University of Hartford. 

He was promoted to sergeant three years ago, just as Chief McGuire transferred from the East Hampton Town Police Department. 

“He and I had been friends for many years and had worked together on occasion. Rob and I shared similar values and a vision of what direction we wanted to see the department go in,” the chief said. “What Rob had that I didn’t was the institutional knowledge and the trust of his colleagues, who knew him as hard-working and dependable.”

After giving the South Fork Wind Farm qualified support in May, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. reversed his position last week and now opposes the 15-turbine installation proposed for construction approximately 35 miles off Montauk.

In a statement last Thursday, Mr. Thiele cited what he called “the classic ‘bait and switch’ ” on the part of the wind farm’s developer, Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, formerly Deepwater Wind. 

“Since my statement in May, two important changes have occurred,” Mr. Thiele wrote. One is Deepwater Wind’s acquisition by Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, Denmark’s largest energy company and the world’s largest offshore wind developer. “Second, shortly after acquisition by Orsted, I have read that the project would utilize larger turbines and that the size of the project would increase from 90 megawatts to 130 megawatts, or a 44-percent increase.” 

“What we were originally told about the project and its goals are no longer true. A project originally proposed by an American company to address the growing energy needs of eastern Long Island, now is to be part of the portfolio of an international energy giant, whose first decision was a 44-percent increase in the size of the project. We are left to imagine what other changes might be made or what other projects might show up on our doorstep in the future. . . . Because of the ‘bait and switch’ tactics of Deepwater/Orsted, I cannot trust them with my community’s future.”

A spokesman for Orsted said the company was confused by Mr. Thiele’s about-face, but Mr. Thiele said on Monday that calls and emails support his present position 10 to 1. He said that he would meet with company officials, who, he said, had requested a meeting in the wake of his announcement.

In his May 2018 statement, issued as the East Hampton Town Board and the town trustees were debating an easement or lease to the offshore wind developer so that it could bring the wind farm’s transmission cable ashore in the town and bury it on a path to a Long Island Power Authority substation, Mr. Thiele expressed his support for renewable energy, including wind power.

“Through legislation, capital investment, and public statements, I have demonstrated support for a clean energy future for eastern Long Island and New York State that is based upon renewable energy,” he wrote last week. “I have also supported producing and conserving energy locally to avoid the need for more above-ground transmission lines to import power to our communities.”

However, he wrote, his support for offshore wind power in May should not have been construed as a rubber stamp for every offshore wind proposal. He referred to the concerns of the commercial fishing industry, which is almost uniformly opposed to the South Fork Wind Farm.

On Monday, Mr. Thiele said that he was disappointed by what he called a lack of communication on the part of the wind farm developer. “They were in my office, or wanted to be, and were calling all the time when they needed help and wanted people to convince the trustees or town board to support a property easement for their cable,” he said. “I was willing to take a chance on this particular project. Now, however, when they sold their company to Orsted, I never heard from them. When they changed the project by 44 percent — whether you think that is good or bad, no one can argue it wasn’t substantive — I never heard from them. I had to learn about it from other places. . . . If they want to work with elected officials, they should be keeping them informed. That’s not what happened here.”

A spokesman for Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind offered a different version of events in an email last Thursday. “We’ve requested multiple times over the course of the last four months to meet with Assemblyman Thiele to brief him on the facts — that offer still stands,” the spokesman said. “Frankly, we’re confused why Assemblyman Thiele was such a strong and vocal supporter of the 90-megawatt project, but now opposes the project when it’s capable of producing even more clean energy for his constituents at a lower price.”

The change in output capacity, Clint Plummer, Orsted’s head of market strategies and new projects, had said in November, was a result of advances in turbine technology, larger and more efficient models having been developed since the wind farm was first designed. The initial proposal for the installation, made in 2015, was based on 6-megawatt turbines, whereas 8, 10, and 12-megawatt turbines have since become available.

In addition to being critical of the change in ownership and the increased size of the turbines, Mr. Thiele cited concern about LIPA’s “ill-considered policy of denying public access to the Deepwater agreement under the guise of confidentiality,” for which he said there is no legitimate basis. He said that he would introduce legislation during the upcoming session “making it clear that these kinds of agreements are subject to the Freedom of Information Act. LIPA can either make the agreement public now or be compelled to make it public when my bill is enacted into law.”

“My point,” he said on Monday, “is that I’m all for renewable energy, I’m still for offshore wind and things of that nature. But I think it’s also very important who is the applicant. What are their corporate ethics, do they have a sense of responsibility to the community they’re in? Based on what I just told you, my instinct tells me we should be thinking twice about trusting a corporation.” 

The Orsted spokesman said in last Thursday’s email that, “We are as committed as ever to building an offshore wind farm that the South Fork can be proud of. The South Fork Wind Farm is the most affordable solution for the South Fork’s energy needs, and that’s a major reason why the community has overwhelmingly supported the project for years. We stand ready to make historic investments in East Hampton, including support of the commercial fishing community.”