Headlines Nearby: Train Strikes and Kills Commack Man

Commack

A Commack man was struck and killed on the Long Island Rail Road tracks early Friday morning, according to a LIRR spokesman. Long Island Rail Road officials reported Gary McCue, 42, of Commack, was hit by a westbound train approximately 600 feet east of Carll's Path, near the Deer Park train station at approximately 8 a.m. Friday.

-----

Hauppauge

The Hauppauge Board of Education adopted a $98.6 million budget for the 2012-13 school year Tuesday night to present to district residents May 8 after receiving additional state aid at the last minute.

-----

Kings Park

Two local state parks are part of a $34 million investment project to upgrade and repair seven state parks on Long Island.  will receive $3.5 million to rehabilitate the bathhouse and make emergency services improvements. The $14 million in funds allocated to Nissequogue River State Park is money that was already secured by State Sen. John Flanagan and is being used for the demolition of vacant and condemned buildings that are part of the park and former Kings Park Psychiatric Hospital.  

-----

Three Village

Eileen Koff's first trip to Uganda yielded a hard lesson in the differences between America and rural Africa. "Things that we don’t even think about, they deal with on a daily basis," she said. Among those things: Shoes. Going to school. Electricity to light their homes. Having parents, grandparents, or parental figures to raise them. Koff's next effort: to build an orphanage, a project which is still in its infancy. To fundraise, she has begun selling beaded necklaces and handbags made by Mukisa and the children, and has raised $800 so far within the last couple of weeks. Building the orphanage – to be named the Peace Island Children's Centre – will cost around $25,000, she said, to purchase land and construct the building.

-----

Port Jefferson

According to a report in the Associated Press, a spokesperson for American artist Thomas Kinkade, best known for his fantastically rendered scenes and self-described "painter of light," said that the artist died suddenly in his California home on Friday night. He was 54.