The Suffolk County health commissioner has announced the first mosquito samples to test positive for West Nile virus this year, 12 of them from samples collected late last month. 

Loretta Orion, a retired anthropology professor, author of two books, and former French teacher who developed the gardens at the Home, Sweet Home Museum in East Hampton Village, died on July 25 at home in Amagansett. She was 77 and had been in declining health after having been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease about 10 years ago. 

Christopher M. Forsberg of Montauk, who used to spend summers at the Ditch Plain hotel owned by his parents and returned to the hamlet full time about 15 years ago, died in his sleep at home on July 13. His cause of death was unknown. He was 49 years old.

Sue Feleppa died last Thursday at home in Springs. She was 77 and had been diagnosed with lung cancer two years ago. A service will be held from 1 to 3 p.m. on Aug. 14, a Sunday, at the Yardley and Pino Funeral Home in East Hampton.

Jennifer Bartlett, a painter who rose to prominence in the international art world in the 1970s and remained an innovative figure perhaps best known for her monumental steel-plate paintings, died at home in Amagansett on July 25. She was 81. 

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons, Shelter Island, and the North Fork will hold a debate among candidates for the Republican Party's nomination to represent New York's First Congressional District on Monday from 7 to 8 p.m. over Zoom. 

Throughout New York State, "people are talking about their safety, their freedoms, and their economy," Alison Esposito, the Republican Party's nominee for lieutenant governor of New York State, said last Thursday at the Clubhouse in East Hampton. 

The Nov. 8 midterm elections may be a tough one for Democrats, but three months before Election Day, Gov. Kathy Hochul, the Democratic incumbent, is comfortably ahead of her challenger, Representative Lee Zeldin, in the race for governor of New York State. 

As part of a long-range plan to convert all streetlights in East Hampton Town to energy-efficient LEDs, a consultant proposed to the town board on Tuesday the replacement of 682 fixtures, all but 41 of them of the "cobra head" design, an initiative that will save money while reducing impacts to the environment and providing better lighting,

The Suffolk County Legislature is considering a bill introduced on July 26 that aims to address a chronic concern for parents, educators, and others in the wake of New York's landmark cannabis legalization law that passed in March of 2021: the packaging of pot products, and especially edibles.

The double-yellow stripes running up and down Town Line Road make up the official dividing line between the hamlet of Wainscott and the Village of Sagaponack, in East Hampton and Southampton Towns respectively. But where it divides, it will also now unite — albeit in the wake of a tragedy.

Having achieved listing on the New York State and National Registers of Historic Places for Sag Harbor's historically Black communities of the Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah subdivisions in 2019, advocates came to the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday to discuss town-level designation.

The effort to preserve and restore the Springs house and studios of the Abstract Expressionist artists James Brooks and Charlotte Park took on new urgency this week when a consultant told the East Hampton Town Board that the 1,318-square-foot Brooks studio, called by one advocate of its preservation "a cathedral to midcentury abstract art," was beginning to collapse.

Affordable housing is a problem not just here, but nationwide, so it makes sense, especially given its size, that a 79-unit complex with housing above and retail space below proposed for downtown Sag Harbor is generating spirited conversation and debate. Some see it as welcome housing, others say its more of a "shopping mall with an affordable housing component."

Sam Gershowitz, an UpIsland recycling magnate who owns the Star Island Yacht Club in Montauk, is the new owner of Liars' Saloon and the Offshore Sports Marina on West Lake Drive in Montauk.

A year after a group of preservation-minded citizens successfully endeavored to dismantle and preserve the historic Little House on Wainscott Hollow Road, a new organization, the Wainscott Heritage Project, has emerged with an expansive vision and hopes that it will be able to carve out a historic district in the hamlet similar to those in Springs, Amagansett, and Montauk.

This week's to-do list for kids and teens includes birds of prey, Lego building, Camp Shakespeare, jewelry making, and more.

For those who enjoy hiking or paddling, here are two upcoming opportunities to do exactly that.

Kristofer Kalas, the owner of Hello Oma, a farm stand and coffee shop on Race Lane in East Hampton, was wearing board shorts and walking barefoot across the street last week, with a sleeve of ice over one shoulder. It's hard to imagine a greater contrast from where he was just a month ago, in a war zone in Ukraine.

East Hampton Village has given the owner of one of the few agricultural parcels in the village 10 days to clean up its Egypt Close property before the village cleans it up instead, at the owner's expense. The move, which came after a hearing on Friday before the village board, marks the first time that a property owner has been called to task under the village's new property maintenance and nuisance abatement law, added to the code in October.