15 sets of twins are graduating from one New York high school
A high school in the suburbs of New York City will be seeing double on graduation day this weekend: Among the nearly 500 students in its graduating class, 30 are twins.
It's a tight knit group. Some of the students at Long Island's Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School have known each other since kindergarten, their parents meeting through a local twins club. Some even still plan family vacations together.
These days, some of the twins are on a group text chain, which has helped them cope with their newfound notoriety as graduation day approaches.
'Honestly when we're together, the room is electric,' said Sydney Monka, as she attended graduation rehearsal with the other twins earlier this week. 'We're all very comfortable around each other and we all have these shared experiences so we're all bouncing off each other. It's really cool.'
They're twins but not identical
Save for the shared last names, though, the pairs may be hard to spot as they walk the stage Sunday at their high school graduation, held at Hofstra University in Hempstead.
The students are all fraternal twins — meaning born from different eggs and sperm — so none of them are identical. Many of the twins are different genders.
That doesn't make the bonds any less tight, says Bari Cohen, who is attending Indiana University in the fall.
'Especially for boy-girl twins, a lot of people think it's just, like, siblings, but it's more than that, because we go through the same things at the same time,' she said of her brother, Braydon Cohen, who is headed to the University of Pittsburgh.
Most, when prodded, give a playful shrug at the curious phenomenon in the high school, which is located in an affluent, largely white district about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Manhattan.
'I guess there's just something in the water,' said Emily Brake, who is attending the University of Georgia, echoing a common refrain among the twins.
'We're all just very lucky. I think it's just a coincidence,' added her sister, Amanda Brake, who will be attending Ohio State University.
Others acknowledge there's more than Mother Nature at work.
Arianna Cammareri said her parents had been trying for years to have kids and in vitro fertilization was their last option. Back then, it was more common than it is now for IVF babies to be twins or triplets.
There also may be a genetic component at play.
'There's a few twins in our family, like I have cousins that are twins, so I guess that raised the chances of having twins,' added the incoming freshman at Stony Brook University, also on Long Island.
Other schools with large sets of twins
Large cohorts of twins are not unusual at Plainview-Old Bethpage. The high school had back-to-back graduating classes with 10 sets of multiples in 2014 and 2015, and next year's incoming freshmen class has nine sets of twins, according to school officials.
Among the other schools around the country with big sets of graduating twins are Clovis North High School in Fresno, California, with 14 pairs, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, with 10 pairs.
Last year, a middle school in suburban Boston had 23 sets of twins in its graduating class, though that's still far shy of the record for most multiples in the same academic class. New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, had a whopping 44 twin pairs and a set of triplets in 2017, according to Guinness World Records.
After graduation
Most of the twins at Plainview-Old Bethpage are heading off to different colleges.
An exception is Aiden and Chloe Manzo, who will both attend the University of Florida, where they'll live in the same dormitory on campus and both study business, though with different majors.
'We're going to see each other a lot,' Chloe said wryly.
'Deep down, my mom knew it would be easier if we went to the same school,' she added. 'You know, like moving in, graduation, going to sports games.'
Some were apprehensive about living far from their longtime partner in crime.
Emma and Kayla Leibowitz will be attending Binghamton and Syracuse University, respectively. The fifth generation twins say they're already making plans for frequent visits even though the upstate New York schools are some 80 miles (130 kilometers) apart.
'I think it's gonna be really weird because we really do everything together. She's my best friend. I really can't do anything without her,' said Emma.
'We're sleeping over every weekend. I'm coming for football games — like all of it," said Kayla.
Others were looking forward to getting some breathing room.
Sydney and Kayla Jasser said they're both studying fashion design — but at different colleges. Sydney is attending the University of Delaware while Kayla will be attending Indiana University.
'We could have went to the same college, but we just wanted to be able to be independent since we've been with each other forever,' Kayla said. 'It's good to get out there and have our own experiences.'
___
Follow Philip Marcelo on X at twitter.com/philmarcelo.
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The Independent
11 hours ago
- The Independent
15 sets of twins are graduating from one New York high school
A high school in the suburbs of New York City will be seeing double on graduation day this weekend: Among the nearly 500 students in its graduating class, 30 are twins. It's a tight knit group. Some of the students at Long Island's Plainview-Old Bethpage John F. Kennedy High School have known each other since kindergarten, their parents meeting through a local twins club. Some even still plan family vacations together. These days, some of the twins are on a group text chain, which has helped them cope with their newfound notoriety as graduation day approaches. 'Honestly when we're together, the room is electric,' said Sydney Monka, as she attended graduation rehearsal with the other twins earlier this week. 'We're all very comfortable around each other and we all have these shared experiences so we're all bouncing off each other. It's really cool.' They're twins but not identical Save for the shared last names, though, the pairs may be hard to spot as they walk the stage Sunday at their high school graduation, held at Hofstra University in Hempstead. The students are all fraternal twins — meaning born from different eggs and sperm — so none of them are identical. Many of the twins are different genders. That doesn't make the bonds any less tight, says Bari Cohen, who is attending Indiana University in the fall. 'Especially for boy-girl twins, a lot of people think it's just, like, siblings, but it's more than that, because we go through the same things at the same time,' she said of her brother, Braydon Cohen, who is headed to the University of Pittsburgh. Most, when prodded, give a playful shrug at the curious phenomenon in the high school, which is located in an affluent, largely white district about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Manhattan. 'I guess there's just something in the water,' said Emily Brake, who is attending the University of Georgia, echoing a common refrain among the twins. 'We're all just very lucky. I think it's just a coincidence,' added her sister, Amanda Brake, who will be attending Ohio State University. Others acknowledge there's more than Mother Nature at work. Arianna Cammareri said her parents had been trying for years to have kids and in vitro fertilization was their last option. Back then, it was more common than it is now for IVF babies to be twins or triplets. There also may be a genetic component at play. 'There's a few twins in our family, like I have cousins that are twins, so I guess that raised the chances of having twins,' added the incoming freshman at Stony Brook University, also on Long Island. Other schools with large sets of twins Large cohorts of twins are not unusual at Plainview-Old Bethpage. The high school had back-to-back graduating classes with 10 sets of multiples in 2014 and 2015, and next year's incoming freshmen class has nine sets of twins, according to school officials. Among the other schools around the country with big sets of graduating twins are Clovis North High School in Fresno, California, with 14 pairs, and Eleanor Roosevelt High School in Greenbelt, Maryland, with 10 pairs. Last year, a middle school in suburban Boston had 23 sets of twins in its graduating class, though that's still far shy of the record for most multiples in the same academic class. New Trier High School in Winnetka, Illinois, had a whopping 44 twin pairs and a set of triplets in 2017, according to Guinness World Records. After graduation Most of the twins at Plainview-Old Bethpage are heading off to different colleges. An exception is Aiden and Chloe Manzo, who will both attend the University of Florida, where they'll live in the same dormitory on campus and both study business, though with different majors. 'We're going to see each other a lot,' Chloe said wryly. 'Deep down, my mom knew it would be easier if we went to the same school,' she added. 'You know, like moving in, graduation, going to sports games.' Some were apprehensive about living far from their longtime partner in crime. Emma and Kayla Leibowitz will be attending Binghamton and Syracuse University, respectively. The fifth generation twins say they're already making plans for frequent visits even though the upstate New York schools are some 80 miles (130 kilometers) apart. 'I think it's gonna be really weird because we really do everything together. She's my best friend. I really can't do anything without her,' said Emma. 'We're sleeping over every weekend. I'm coming for football games — like all of it," said Kayla. Others were looking forward to getting some breathing room. Sydney and Kayla Jasser said they're both studying fashion design — but at different colleges. Sydney is attending the University of Delaware while Kayla will be attending Indiana University. 'We could have went to the same college, but we just wanted to be able to be independent since we've been with each other forever,' Kayla said. 'It's good to get out there and have our own experiences.' ___ Follow Philip Marcelo on X at
The Independent
2 days ago
- The Independent
Bird flu devastated this duck farm — now it's making a comeback
The discovery of scores of dead and lethargic birds during a barn inspection in January signalled a devastating blow for Doug Corwin and his family's commercial duck farm on Long Island. Within days, Crescent Duck Farm, a century-old institution and the last duck farm remaining in a New York region once synonymous with the culinary delicacy, became a casualty of the global avian flu outbreak. The farm was forced to cull its entire flock, a fate shared by numerous other farms across the US, contributing to a significant surge in the prices of eggs and other agricultural commodities. For Corwin, a 66-year-old fourth-generation farmer, the immediate aftermath was a stark reminder of the fragility of his family's legacy. Now, with ducks hatched from eggs spared from the initial slaughter, Crescent Duck Farm is cautiously embarking on the arduous task of rebuilding. Corwin's ambition extends beyond merely restoring the farm to its 100,000-bird capacity. He is determined to preserve the unique lineage of fowl that has allowed his family's enterprise to thrive for over a century, even as other Long Island duck farms fell by the wayside. Yet, the shadow of another potential outbreak looms large. Corwin lives with the constant worry that a second wave of avian flu could finally spell the end for his family's enduring legacy. "All I know is I don't want to be hit again," Corwin said. "If I go through this twice, I'm done as a duck farmer." For months, Corwin and his reduced staff have been thoroughly sanitising the farm's dozens of barns, clearing out hay and debris, and replacing feeders, ventilation systems, wooden and metal structures and more. At the end of May, the first wave of roughly 900 young ducks arrived from a nearby farm where they had been carefully raised in quarantine these last few months. Another batch of 900 arrived last week and some 900 more will soon make their way to the roughly 140-acre (55-hectare) farm in Aquebogue, which is tucked among the vineyards and agricultural lands of Long Island's North Fork, about 80 miles (129 km) east of Manhattan. By the end of next summer, Corwin hopes the first ducks will be ready to be processed and brought to market. But he says he won't rush the reopening. It will be many more months — if ever — before the operation, which processed about 1 million ducks for consumption annually, returns to full capacity, he said. 'I keep telling people I'm running a high hurdle race,' Corwin said. 'I've got a lot a lot of steps to get back to where we were.' Since 2022, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has been detected in all 50 states, leading to more than 1,700 recorded outbreaks affecting nearly 175 million birds, according to the most recent tally from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The outbreak at Corwin's farm shows how this strain has inflicted more damage on a wider range of species than past variants, said Dr. Gavin Hitchener, director of Cornell University's Duck Research Laboratory, located a short drive away in Eastport. Ducks have generally been less prone to serious illness and death than chickens and turkeys, he said. H5N1 is also vexing American cattle farmers after the virus jumped from fowl to cattle last year. 'Something has changed in the virus' makeup that has made it more virulent,' Hitchener said. With no end to the bird flu pandemic in sight, Corwin worries he won't be able to weather another outbreak. The farm received federal compensation for its euthanised ducks, but it wasn't nearly close to the market value of the birds — never mind the expense of rebuilding in a high cost region that also includes the Hamptons, he said. Corwin hopes the federal government will, at long last, require poultry operators to vaccinate their livestock against bird flu. It's an uphill climb, given the Trump administration's deep skepticism of vaccines and the long-standing opposition of far larger, industrial poultry operations, he acknowledged. 'I would sleep an awful lot better at night. But right now I'm very nervous,' Corwin said. 'We're just playing with deck chairs on the Titanic.' The ducks newly arrived on the farm are crucial to its revival. Fully grown and approaching breeding age, the cohort of white Pekin ducks were all that survived from the more than 15,000 eggs state officials allowed the farm to spare from the winter culling after they tested negative for bird flu. That means they and their progeny carry on the unique genetic makeup the farm has honed over generations of selective breeding to build its reputation. Established in 1908 by Corwin's great-grandfather, Crescent Duck Farms has been the island's lone commercial duck operation for the better part of a decade. But in the early 1960s, Long Island boasted more than 100 farms producing about two-thirds of the nation's duck output. 'I feel I owe it to the ancestors of farmers who've been here all these years and have come this far to just make a go of it,' Corwin said. 'I want to make Long Island proud.'
Daily Mail
2 days ago
- Daily Mail
Disturbing look inside the toxic New York town where chemical disaster led to devastating deformities
Void of people and carpeted with barren patches of grass and crumbling tarmac roads, the ghost town of Love Canal has somewhat of a haunting feel. But locals say when you learn about its dark history, the deserted community in Niagara Falls, New York, will leave an even more chilling imprint. In the 1940s and 50s, the neighborhood of Love Canal was the site of what the EPA deems 'the most appalling environmental tragedies in American history ' - and the fallout still looms over the area today. From 1942 to 1953, the Hooker Chemical Company, which produced industrial chemicals, dug canal in the town as a chemical waste dump, under government sanction. Approximately 22,000 tons of waste were buried in the area. In a bid to transform the dumping site, in the 1950s it was sold to the Niagara Falls City School District and developed into a 'charming' rural neighborhood. However, it was discovered that the industrial waste had not been cleaned up sufficiently and, as a consequence, many residents were hit with a range of miscarriages, birth defects and diseases like cancer. An administrator for the EPA, Eckardt Beck, visited the site in 1979 and explained that one woman he met had two grandchildren with birth defects. One of her granddaughters was 'born deaf with a cleft palate, an extra row of teeth, and slight retardation', while one of her grandsons was born with an eye defect. Beck said that another two men he met also had children with birth defects - and as he wandered the streets, he described spotting 'puddles of noxious substances' and experiencing 'a faint, choking smell'. 'Children returned from play with burns on their hands and faces,' the EPA worker added. Hooker Chemical Company closed in 1968, but to this day, some say the toxic waste continues to impact those living in the surrounding areas of Niagara Falls. In a Facebook group about the town, Sally Ann wrote: 'The sad thing is that people believe that it's all 'fixed' and the chemicals don't go past the fence. 'It's still leaking into the ground. There are still active tank trucks that are pulling chemicals out of the ground. 'The part of the 102nd street dump on the river is visible from my dad's dock on Cayuga Island and I can see it from there. Everyone that lives around here is sick. 'My mother died from a rare autoimmune illness and my father has three different kinds of cancer. This is not coincidental. 'It's sad what they did to this area so many years ago. The repercussions will last forever.' In the same Facebook thread discussing Love Canal's fate, Susan Rufrano Waitzman revealed how her aunt lived in the town and got mouth cancer, which resulted in the palate of her mouth being removed. Heidi Czewicz Barnett described how she had equally haunting memories of the place, writing: 'Lived on the corner of Colvin Boulevard and 97th Street. One of the original built houses. 'The fumes in the basement were so bad my mother used to pass out because of it and would always fall down the stairs to do laundry. 'Sister had boils all the time. My father used to watch contractors dig foundations for new homes and would ask what the green stuff was coming out of the ground. 'They told him to mind his own business. I myself came across some white rock that I thought was chalk and gave me a chemical burn all over my body. It's terrible.' Love Canal, which sits on a three-block patch of land on the eastern edge of Niagara Falls, is named after its founder, William T. Love. He had visions of building a dream community, with a man-made canal utilizing current from the river to supply it with energy. But the project was ditched in 1910 due to economic fluctuations and the EPA report notes that 'in the 1920s the seeds of a genuine nightmare were planted [and] the canal was turned into a municipal and industrial chemical dumpsite.' It is believed that 82 different compounds were dumped into the land Love Canal encompasses and 11 of these are suspected carcinogens. After leaving the site, the Hooker Chemical Company covered the 16-acre hazardous waste landfill with a 2ft bed of clay. On top of this, around 100 homes were built, along with a public school. But after residents started complaining about chemical leaks and strange substances surfacing in their yards and basements that they said were leading to health problems, an investigation was launched. Tests revealed that there were high levels of toxic chemicals in the soil, air, and water, prompting government action. As a primary organizer of the Love Canal Homeowners Association, Lois Gibbs helped to bring wide public attention to the environmental crisis in Love Canal. Both of her young children started to suffer from health issues, including asthma and seizures, after moving to the town. After much campaigning, on August 7, 1978, the then-New York Governor Hugh Carey announced that the state would purchase the homes of residents affected by the Love Canal chemical contamination. This decision came after a public health emergency was declared due to the hazardous waste site. The state's purchase aimed to facilitate the relocation of families from the most contaminated areas. In his 1979 report, EPA worker Beck noted that he was 'very pleased' with how the Love Canal relocation initiative was actioned. However, he concluded: 'But this is not really where the story ends. Quite the contrary. 'We suspect that there are hundreds of such chemical dumpsites across this nation. 'Unlike Love Canal, few are situated so close to human settlements. But without a doubt, many of these old dumpsites are time bombs with burning fuses - their contents slowly leaching out. And the next victim cold be a water supply, or a sensitive wetland.
