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Last Saturday, the Southampton High School robotics team – known as the Marinators — won first place at the FIRST Long Island Regional competition at Hofstra University. They are now eligible to compete at the FIRST Robotics World Championship in Texas next month, though they are waiting on the official invitation. Michelle Trauring reports on 27east.com that over the course of three days, the competition saw 24 total practice matches and 72 qualification matches, which placed the Marinators in 24th out of 50 teams, according to Assistant Principal Dr. Melissa Mitchell, who pioneered the Southampton robotics team in 2023. Then, the top eight teams picked the two teams that they wanted in their alliance for the final matches of the competition. The Marinators couldn’t believe when they heard their team number — 9646 — called by the Kings Park and Southold high schools.

The 35-member Southampton team earned the top spot by designing, engineering and operating a robot capable of performing multiple complex tasks, including shooting balls into a target, retrieving them from the ground and climbing to hang from a bar. They dedicated countless hours to building, testing and refining their robot, working under the guidance of adviser Eric Pflug, who has a background in engineering.

In the final match, the Marinators faced off against a formidable trio — Floyd Robotics from the William Floyd School District, Riptide Robotics from Long Beach High School, and Formosan Sika, a team from New Taipei City, Taiwan.

They snared the win in a stunning victory, scoring 475 points to 292, in just two minutes and 30 seconds.

“It was insane,” Dr. Mitchell said. “It’s like when you see someone win a Super Bowl, literally.”

After cheering on their robots, the three allied teams all celebrated together in the stands — united by their one common goal and a shared love of robotics.

“At that point, you’re one team,” Mitchell said. “That’s the beautiful thing about FIRST Robotics.”

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There are several events this weekend across the east end you may be eager to join or avoid.

The No Kings movement, which began in June of 2025 as a series of rallies across the country coinciding with a military parade held on President Donald Trump’s birthday, is rallying across the country for the third time tomorrow. Local organizers are holding No Kings 3 events on the twin forks in Riverhead, Hampton Bays, Greenport, Sag Harbor and East Hampton. Beth Young reports in EAST END BEACON that concurrently with the Greenport No Kings activities, Slow Food East End is organizing an ICE Cakes not People bake sale to benefit the Latino advocacy group OLA (Organización Latino Americana) of Eastern Long Island at the Hold Fast Stay True Studios at 216 Main Street in Greenport tomorrow from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Meanwhile the 12th annual Jamesport St. Patrick’s Day Parade is scheduled for tomorrow stepping off at 1 p.m. from the Main Road in Jamesport beginning at Washington Avenue.

And the final East End St. Pat’s Parade of the season is in in Montauk this coming Sunday.

The 63rd Annual Montauk St. Patrick’s Day Parade starts Sunday at 12 noon on Edgemere Road. Organized by the Montauk Friends of Erin, they call their gathering a premier East End event, featuring marching bands, floats, and community members, drawing thousands to celebrate.

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The Wall Street bonus pool soared to a record high of $49.2 billion last year, a mighty sum that nevertheless fell short of what New York City budget planners had predicted, the New York State comptroller said in a report yesterday. The growth of the pool came as profits surged on Wall Street and the cost of living soared in New York, where an affordability crisis powered the election of N.Y.C. Mayor Zohran Mamdani last year.

Liam Stack reports in THE NY TIMES that the office of the NYS comptroller, Thomas P. DiNapoli, said Wall Street profits jumped 30 percent last year, to $65.1 billion, and the roughly 200,000 people employed in the securities industry were awarded an average bonus of $246,900 per person.

Ana Champeny, vice president for research at the Citizens Budget Commission, estimated the shortfall in tax revenue from the bonuses would be between $100 and $200 million, but said that was just a drop in the bucket of the $18 billion the state collects each year in income tax.

The report on estimated Wall Street bonuses, which the comptroller’s office releases annually, is based on an analysis of personal income tax withholding trends. The office said the bonuses it tracks are both cash payments for work performed in 2025 and deferred bonuses from past years that have been newly cashed in.

The City of New York was counting on a 15 percent rise in bonuses to produce tax revenues to fill its budget gap. The actual increase was 9 percent, the NYS comptroller said. Rahul Jain, the deputy comptroller for New York City in the state comptroller’s office, told THE NY TIMES that he thought the softer-than-expected growth of the bonus pool would not be “a major problem for the city this year.” “There are other places they can get money from,” he said.

On the whole, Mr. Jain added, the report was “still pretty good news.”

“They were more optimistic about what that growth would be, and that will hurt a little bit.” he said. “But every dollar counts — especially right now.”