Long Island’s popularMemorial Day air showis going futuristic this year, trading its iconic fighter jet performance for a patriotic light show featuring 1,000 drones over the Atlantic Ocean.
The show’s first-ever drone performance, scheduled for 20 minutes on May 24 at 9 p.m., bumps the traditional air show to the Fourth of July weekend — July 5 and 6 — as part of the state’s broader celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
The flying robots will be sent soaring up to 400 feet in the air, synchronized to patriotic music, and form 3D-moving images across the nighttime sky depicting various symbols such as bald eagles, Uncle Sam’s hat, and, of course, the American flag.
“These events on Long Island are an exciting part of what is happening across New York State,” Parks, Rec and Historic Preservation Commissioner Kathy Moser said.Bucket List – Long Island
“These events on Long Island are an exciting part of what is happening across New York State as we share the compelling stories of the people who shaped the American Revolution with our Revisit the Revolution initiative,” New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation Acting Commissioner Kathy Moser said.
The drone show, organized by Gov. Kathy Hochul, the New York State Legislature and theNYS 250th Commemoration Commission, is being designed by Grizzly Entertainment — the same company behind Nassau County’s 9/11 drone show tribute in Bethpage last year.
The Navy Blue Angels will soar through the skies a month later, on July 5 and 6, as part of the celebration of America’s 250th birthday.
This year, the Blue Angels will also be joined by the Canadian Snowbirds, the US Army Golden Knights, and the Navy’s F-35C Lightning II Demo Team, and others, while a fireworks show is also set for July 4 at 9:30 p.m.
The flying robots will be sent soaring up to 400 feet in the air, synchronized to patriotic music, and form 3D-moving images across the nighttime sky.Jeff Greenberg/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The drone show is being designed by Grizzly Entertainment — the same company behind Nassau County’s 9/11 drone tribute in Bethpage last year. Neil Starkey / For the Amarillo Globe-News / USA TODAY NETWORK
Memorial Day weekend at Jones Beach won’t just be about the drones.
Visitors can also catch Revolutionary War reenactors camping out as the all-Black 1st Rhode Island Regiment and the 5th New York Regiment, George Washington and other founding fathers trotting in on horseback, and more actors playing the four New York signers of the Declaration of Independence and Long Island’s own Culper Spy Ring.
Colonial cooking, fife and drum musical performances, inflatable play areas, and history-themed family games will fill out the rest of the evening while residents wait for the nighttime drone show, state officials detailed.
“As we commemorate 250 years since our nation’s birth, special events – like those at Jones Beach, and our other State Parks and historic sites – offer residents and visitors alike a unique opportunity to explore and experience different regions of the state, and complement any getaway or extended vacation,” Empire State Development President Hope Knight said.
Zo’s nickel-and-diming New Yorkers to save a buck.
Mayor Zohran Mamdani officially rolled out his $124.7 billion spending plan Tuesday as he patted himself on the back for closing a so-called multibillion-dollar budget gap with short-term fixes — but included a menu of hidden fee hikes.
Fiscal watchdogs poked holes in Hizzoner’s cheers that his first-ever budget was “evidence of a new era of government in our city” as his administration touted numerous ways the city would hold onto $1.7 billion over the next two years.
“Banking on yet to be determined revenue-raising gimmicks and identifying fake savings are not wins,” a Democratic operative said. “This budget plan is as real as Kim Kardashian’s lips.”
Mamdani, who campaigned on an affordability agenda, said that over several months, new “Chief Savings Officers” were able to identify municipal savings — but some of the supposed extra cash would come from soaking residents and businesses for more dough.
City Hall plans on jacking up the costs for ambulance transportation to net nearly $25 million more a year and charge people for EMS help even if they aren’t taken to a hospital, which would add another $10 million to the coffers, according to the mayor’s savings program.
Ticketing more cars in bus lanes, upping enforcement on the trade waste industry and public wholesale markets and hiking tree replacement fees were also tied to the savings, city docs stated.
Chump change
Mayor Mamdani’s budget has various fee increases:
AMBULANCE FEES: Increase rates for ambulances to net $24.6 million annually
ADDED ‘NO AMBULANCE’ FEES: Charge patients even if they don’t take an ambulance but are treated by EMS at the scene to get $10 million more per year
GUN PERMITS: Mamdani is shooting for an extra $2.3 million in handgun licenses due to high demand.
TREE MONEY: Admin is proposing charging more to pick up trees to generate $14.6 million
TAXI RIDE: Another $4 million from Taxi and Limousine Commission permits because of Green Rides rules
CONCESSION MONEY: Boost profits from concessions stands in NYC parks to raise $11 million more per year
BUS TICKETS: Add more bus lane cameras to issue more tickets, generate $15 million per year
. . . and rather than cutting big-budget items, he’s proposed
VETERAN CUTS: Mamdani admin proposed cutting unspecified events for veterans to save a measly $60,000
CANCEL BATTERY DISPOSAL: Save $353,000 by stopping battery disposal programs.
The city also plans to crack down on the popular STAR credit for property owners and “abatement compliance” by increasing audits to collect at least an estimated $24 million more a year, the budget states.
An insider cautioned, “There’s not enough savings at all.”
“The only good thing is he gave on property tax and the rainy day fund,” the politico said. “Otherwise, the budget is not where it needs to be at all.”
The Department of Veterans’ Services is also ready to slash unspecified veteran events to save a measly $60,000, and Sanitation is expecting to cancel a battery disposal program to the tune of $353,000.
Under the “savings” plan, officials merely re-estimated revenue they believed would be more accurate, including counting on millions of dollars more for handgun licenses, permit applications to the Landmark Preservation Commission and Taxi and Limousine Commission license renewal fees.
City Hall plans on jacking up the costs for ambulance transportation and charging New Yorkers for EMS help even if they aren’t taken to a hospital.Robert Miller for NY Post
About $149.5 million this fiscal year is expected to be saved from “improved financial controls,” while an eye-popping $922 million would be saved next year, which would be driven by “improved financial control,” including $30.3 million in procurement “reform.”
Mamdani, during a Tuesday press conference announcing his first budget, insisted his team searched “for every efficiency and savings we can find.”
“It is evidence of a new era of government in our city, one that can balance both ambition and fiscal responsibility, one that can invest in housing, child care, libraries, parks, schools and climate resiliency, while also cutting waste and finding efficiencies,” he said.
The Mamdani administration claims the Big Apple will hold onto $1.7 billion over the next two years.Paul Martinka for NY Post
“One that does not accept austerity as the only answer to adversity, one that refuses to kick structural challenges down the road for someone else to have to solve.”
During his presentation, he listed about $94 million in saved funds thanks to “pursuing better contract rates, and terminating contracts where city workers can do it better” and stowing away another $28 million by “modernizing city technology and software license.”
He also boasted the city would save $368 million by “improving the efficiency of public services” while cutting down on overtime and obsolete programs and highlighted saving a whopping $947 million by merely “improving our financial management, claiming revenue that the city is owed, and accurately estimating expenses.”
Ticketing more cars in bus lanes is also part of Mamdani’s first-ever budget plan.Tomas E. Gaston for NY Post
The city would also save by consolidating, giving up unused space, combining agency leases and not filling vacant positions.
City Hall officials also insisted it was narrowing the budget gap by stretching out payments to the city’s pension funds to save $2.3 billion over two years and implementing a pied-à-terre tax on ritzy second homes that is supposed to generate $500 million — though that sum has come under scrutiny.
The admin also made lofty claims that it would save hundreds of millions of dollars by slowing down the growth of cases around special education reimbursement and housing vouchers — but offered up little in real-world fixes on the ballooning budget lines.
Mamdani’s new Office of Community Safety was budgeted for $270 million — a fraction of the $1.1 billion he vowed on the campaign trail to spend on a proposed new department focused on responding to New Yorkers with mental health crises.
City Comptroller Mark Levine warned in a statement that the budget still “relies on $2.8 billion in one-time measures and $2.3 billion in short-term pension savings, without solving for the fact that City government continues to spend more than we take in, even in a year of record revenues.”
Citizens Budget Commission president Andrew Rein also said that while the city deserves kudos for reining in some spending, more belt-tightening is needed.
“Holistic transformation is the best path for the excellence in government the Mayor rightly promotes and New Yorkers need,” he said in a statement.
“Unfortunately, we get the types of maneuvers we’ve seen in the past.”
Mamdani’s budget will be reviewed by the City Council as the two sides look to reach an agreement before the new fiscal year starts on July 1.
Global oil demand is set to exceed supply in the current year amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, reversing previous projections of a surplus,OilPrice reports citing the latest IEA data.
"With Hormuz tanker traffic still restricted, cumulative supply losses from Middle East Gulf producers already exceed 1 billion barrels with more than 14 million (barrels per day) of oil now shut in, an unprecedented supply shock," said the agency, which advises industrialized countries.
According to the May 2026 Oil Market Report by the International Energy Agency (IEA), global oil supply is projected to fall by 3.9 million bpd across 2026, with ~10.5 million bpd of Gulf oil production currently offline.
Consumption is also under pressure due to the war as price spikes lead to demand destruction and slower economic growth: Global demand is also forecast to contract by 420,000 bpd compared to a previous forecast of an 80,000 bpd drop due to surging prices, slow economic growth and widespread flight cancellations, with oil demand still set to outpace supply by 1.78 million bpd in the current year.
"Our latest supply and demand estimates imply that the market will remain severely undersupplied through the end of 3Q26, even assuming the conflict ends by early June," the Paris-based agency said, adding that the second-quarter deficit will be as stark as 6 million bpd.
Global crude runs are expected to plunge by 1.6 million bpd to an average of 82.3 mb/d for the year as operators face infrastructure damage and severe feedstock shortages, with refinery throughput expected to fall by 4.5 million bpd in the second quarter alone.
Operators in the Middle East and Asia are battling significant damage to energy infrastructure and reduced availability of crude feedstocks, largely stemming from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. The heaviest cuts have been in the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, heavily impacting naphtha, LPG and jet fuel production.
According to the IEA, global oil inventories are projected to fall by an average of 8.5 mb/d during the second quarter of 2026, with the drawdown largely due to a decline in crude output from countries including Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE.
The steepest inventory draws are projected to occur in May and June, helping to keep Brent crude prices elevated at ~$106 per barrel.
Whereas the release of a total of 400 million barrels by 32 IEA members is expected to provide a temporary buffer, the market will still face a significant deficit that could keep prices high through the year.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and other intelligence officials are investigating U.S. funding to overseas laboratories handling biological research.
Initial searches of intelligence files showed that the U.S. government has provided money to more than 120 biolaboratories in more than 30 countries, a spokesperson for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence told The Epoch Times in an email on May 12.
That includes biolabs in Ukraine that “may be at risk of compromise due to the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war” and other laboratories that have researched highly contagious pathogens, potentially including research that enhanced the pathogens’ virulence or transmissibility, with little visibility or oversight, according to the office.
The Department of Defense in a 2022 document said the United States had invested approximately $200 million since 2005 to support work at 46 Ukrainian laboratories, health facilities, and diagnostic sites.
Gabbard issued new guidance to officials that directs them to step up the collection of information on laboratories and related facilities outside the United States, which is already yielding new details on clinical trials being performed at the facilities, officials said.
The information has raised ethical, financial, and security concerns, according to the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
“The COVID-19 pandemic revealed the catastrophic global impact research on dangerous pathogens in biolabs can have,” Gabbard said in a statement.
“Yet despite these obvious dangers, politicians, so-called health professionals ... and entities within the Biden administration’s national security team lied to the American people about the existence of these U.S.-funded and supported biolabs and threatened those who attempted to expose the truth.”
She said that the Trump administration is “working closely with partners across the government to identify where these labs are, what pathogens they contain, and what ’research' is being conducted, to end dangerous Gain-of-Function research that threatens the health and wellbeing of the American people and the world.”
The first COVID-19 cases were detected in 2019 near a biolaboratory in Wuhan, China, that received funding from the United States.
Gabbard’s investigation was prompted by a May 5, 2025, executive order from President Donald Trump that forbade federal funding from supporting risky research, or experiments aimed at increasing functions of a virus, unless proper oversight is in place.
Trump said in the order that “dangerous gain-of-function research on biological agents and pathogens has the potential to significantly endanger the lives of American citizens” and that the government had previously approved funding for research “in China and other countries where there is limited United States oversight or reasonable expectation of biosafety enforcement.” COVID-19, he said, “revealed the risk of such practices.”
UAE Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed and Kuwaiti Foreign Minister Sheikh Jarrah Jaber Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah condemned the alleged infiltration of Kuwait’s Bubiyan Island by Iran’s IRGC elements, the UAE state news agency WAM reported on Wednesday.
Britain will introduce legislation to tackle what King Charles described as the growing threat posed by foreign states and their proxies, according to remarks delivered at the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday.
"My government will legislate to tackle the growing threat from foreign state entities and their proxies," King Charles said while outlining the government's planned legislative agenda.
