Thursday on Long Island: Help Build the Honey House

This new, daily Long Island-wide blog will give readers a chance to find out what's happening in up-to-the minute posts from all corners of the region. Find out what's happening in your neck of the woods — and share info you want your neighbors to know about in the comments section.

8:45 p.m.: Brian Ilg, an 8-year-old from Patchogue, was born with epidermolysis bullosa, a terrible blistering skin disorder. A group of nurses who care for Brian are in the running (currently in second place) for a $10,000 grant to help build the "Honey House," a portable medical treatment unit for Brian. Read about Brian here and then take a minute to vote (Friday is the last day to vote!) for "Help Build the Honey House" here: http://goo.gl/vQvCXe
1:06 p.m.: A Glen Cove man was charged with menacing after he sent threatening Facebook messages to a police officer who gave him a traffic ticket. Read the story here.

9:15 a.m.: Police are seeking the public’s help in identifying a man they say stole a donation box from an East Northport church. See the suspect's photo here. 

8:16 a.m.: A drug dealer who fired shots at four detectives was sentenced to 23 years in prison on Wednesday.

According to Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota, Nicholas Hansen, the drug dealer who opened fire on members of the Suffolk County DA's heroin task force on August 11, 2011 at the scene of a drug buy, was sentenced to 23 years in state prison.

A jury convicted the Farmingville man in December of second-degree attempted murder for shooting at police detectives as they surrounded his vehicle at a Holbrook gas station, police said.

Hansen had four ounces of cocaine in his vehicle, police said.

“The most dangerous treacherous police assignment is the undercover investigation of drug dealers — a fact borne out by the violence that erupted in this gas station parking lot when this defendant got out of his car with his pistol drawn,” Spota said. 

Hansen emptied his handgun during the exchange of gunfire, Spota said; his closest target, a New York State Police investigator serving on the task force,who crouched less than 10 feet away, was not hit.

Hansen, 23, was also convicted of multiple counts of criminal use of a firearm, criminal possession of a weapon and criminal sale and criminal possession of a controlled substance, Spota said.

The Suffolk County District Attorney’s heroin task force was created in 2009, and is comprised of detectives and investigators from the DA’s office, Drug Enforcement Administration, New York State Police, the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office, the New York State Division of Parole and the Suffolk County Department of Probation.