As Democrats and Republicans duel over health care subsidies, the government’s closure has left many Long Island federal workers without pay — and diminished means to pay for essentials like food, experts say. Roughly 30,000 Long Islanders work for the federal government. Tiffany Cusaac-Smith reports in NEWSDAY that yesterday, federal workers got a reprieve in the form of an emergency food distribution event from Long Island Cares/The Harry Chapin Regional Food Bank at the Center for Community Engagement in Hauppauge. More than 100 federal workers signed up to receive food like cereal, potatoes and cabbage. Some of the public servants who trickled in worked at the Social Security Administration. Others were members of the military, some wearing their uniforms.Nearly all the families that preregistered for the event had never been to a food pantry before, Long Island Cares officials said.“So many people are one crisis away from needing a food pantry, and we’re in a crisis right now,” said Katherine Fritz, president and CEO of Long Island Cares. Fritz added that the nonprofit decided to host the food distribution event for federal workers after hearing from local pantries about the need.During the government shutdown, President Donald Trump’s administration has attempted to terminate government workers, a move that was temporarily halted by a federal judge.At the same time, New York officials have warned that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, once called food stamps, might be postponed should the gridlock continue into November. SNAP is used by more than 160,000 Long Island residents.“What we are expecting is a surge of food insecurity on Long Island,” Fritz said, later noting that food insecurity “doesn’t mean that people don’t have any food in the refrigerator.”“It’s that they’re not sure if they could put a meal on their table tomorrow, or the next day or next week,” she said. “That’s what food insecurity means.”***The Long Island Rail Road has taken several measures, including installing cameras near time clocks, to combat employee time abuse like that uncovered in an MTA watchdog investigation into a counterfeit employee ID card ring involving 36 workers, the railroad’s president said yesterday.As first reported in Newsday, a report by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority Inspector General’s Office — an independent oversight agency — accused three dozen LIRR workers, including seven supervisors, of buying a machine on Amazon and producing, distributing and using counterfeit employee ID cards. Employees swiped the cloned badges at time clocks at three LIRR facilities — in Ronkonkoma, Queens and Manhattan — to cover up for the absences of their co-workers, some of whom "would routinely leave LIRR property for up to two hours in the middle of their shifts for personal activities, including meals at home or workouts at the gym," according to the report from the office MTA Inspector General Daniel Cort.In their report, investigators cited the "lack of adequate and effective supervision" as a contributing factor in the "culture of fraud and time abuse" among some LIRR employees.Alfonso A. Castillo reports in NEWSDAY that the latest scheme was hatched even after four LIRR workers were convicted of fraud for lying about overtime. This signals "a problem with the culture in the place," said Cameron Macdonald, general counsel for the Empire Center for Public Policy, a fiscally conservative Albany think tank. "This isn’t just something on the edges ... This is another level of abuse and fraud on the public," Macdonald said. "It’s a shame that taxpayers and commuters should be expected to be paying for security cameras at time clocks in order for the MTA to police its workforce."***Riverhead's Riley Avenue Elementary School hosted Rocket Drones yesterday, bringing an engaging...

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