Just over two years after its official launch, Suffolk County’s Stop-Arm Camera Program has been racking up tickets across the county, and sending the money from the fines into school district coffers, including those on the South Fork.

The beloved firefly, or lightning bug, has suffered steep declines in recent years. The three biggest threats to lightning bugs, listed on firefly.org, are habitat loss, landscape lighting, and pesticide use. In New York State there are about 15 species of fireflies that are commonly observed, but on Long Island, we now see only five.

“Soldier Ride,” said Peter Honerkamp, an owner of the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, where Soldier Ride was conceived, “became a rehabilitative tool so the wounded could get out of their hospital beds, empowering themselves and their fellow wounded, setting an example for the incoming wounded, and going out into the communities they sacrificed so much for.” This year's ride returns on July 15 with a 24-mile cycle taking participants from the Amagansett Firehouse to East Hampton and Sag Harbor before returning to its starting point.

A new 185-foot tower to house emergency communications and personal wireless equipment, a component of East Hampton Town’s long effort to upgrade its emergency communications infrastructure, has been installed on the Camp Blue Bay property in Springs. The goal is for it to be operational by next spring.

“I am extremely concerned now about how it might affect public safety at the main artery to Montauk,” East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys said of the trees on Napeague killed by an infestation of southern pine beetles in recent years.

A Sag Harbor School District committee tasked with monitoring the conditions of the school facilities has recommended that the school board embark on three major capital projects: building a wet lab to enhance science programs in all grades, overhauling the Pierson High School gym, and making key security upgrades, all to be funded via a bond referendum on the May 2024 school budget ballot.

A newly installed 262-kilowatt solar system array is now operational at Hither Hills State Park in Montauk, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation announced last week. It's projected to generate 360,000 kilowatt hours per year, covering the park’s entire electricity use and saving around $45,000 annually on electricity costs.

This page is from the newly digitized Village of East Hampton Board of Trustees meeting minutes for March 17, 1925. During the meeting, the board resolved to lobby against the Montauk Steamboat Company’s schedule reduction.

A special celebration of all things shark will begin on Tuesday at the South Fork Natural History Museum in Bridgehampton. Plus: music and art lessons, teen gaming sessions, movies, story time, and more for kids and teens.

There was another shoplifting incident at the Balenciaga store recently, though nothing on the scale of the one last year, when an organized ring of five thieves made off with $94,000 in luxury handbags and led police on a high-speed chase before being captured. On June 25, a woman stole a $520 pair of sunglasses while her male companion was making a purchase. Surveillance cameras caught the incident on tape.

On May 25, the day before a fire tore through Maison Close restaurant at 435 East Lake Drive in Montauk, David Browne, the chief fire marshal for the town, did a routine fire inspection and found 11 violations. Four involved improper use of electrical cords and three more cited overdue servicing of fire suppression equipment. In the official report from the fire marshal's office none of those were blamed, and the cause of the fire was listed as undetermined.

State Attorney General Letitia James has announced the sentencing of a Bridgehampton investment adviser to one to three years in prison for what she described as a “multi-million-dollar securities and loan fraud scheme that cheated dozens of New Yorkers out of nearly $7 million.

“Definitely, the better fishing has been out at Montauk,” Ken Morse of Tight Lines Tackle said Monday. “The bass fishing remains solid and there are acres and acres of bluefish between 10 and 18 pounds roaming around.”

East Hampton’s 11-and-12-year-old Little League traveling all-star boys team finished pool play at 4-0 thanks to an 8-2 win over North Shore American at the Stephen Hand’s Path fields here Saturday morning. They’ll play in the District 36 semifinal Thursday night at Rocky Point.

“These kids, in all shapes and sizes, and from all sorts of backgrounds, coming from all over the world and putting aside their differences to play together on a team for the summer,” Coach Jack Tobin said of the Sag Harbor Whalers collegiate baseball team. “It gives you hope for the future of the planet.”

John Loeffel bested a field of 250 in 25 minutes and 13.51 seconds, comfortably ahead of Sergey Avrimenko, the runner-up, at Southampton’s Lake Agawam park on Sunday.

To mark the first anniversary of the celestial images captured by NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the Hamptons Observatory and Suffolk Community College will co-host a virtual talk by Michael T. Menzel, NASA Mission Systems engineer for the telescope, on Tuesday at 7 p.m.

Important poultry notes from 1898, and more ripped from the pages of Ye Olde Star.

Summertime, and the letters are (not) easy . . .

Lucas DeSario, a 2006 graduate of East Hampton High School, died at sea on June 27 after having been missing for several weeks.