A hurricane expert says Long Island residents should remain alert should the track of the storm suddenly veer west off its current course.

The dangerous category 4 storm is expected to hit near North Carolina’s Outer Banks late Thursday then turn north and run parallel to the coast, passing eastern Long Island. The eastern half of Long Island is under a tropical storm watch.

On Saturday afternoon, Andy Murray conducted television interviews, chatted with John McEnroe, signed hats, giant tennis balls, programs and somebody’s arm and somehow managed, through this madness, to monitor his fantasy soccer team (name: Formality) via cellphone.

He seemed relaxed, pleasant and happy, except with Formality’s seventh-place standing in the league. Yet the scene seemed at odds with Murray as commonly portrayed: the sour, dour Scottish tennis player who wears both Adidas and a perpetual frown.

New York voters overwhelmingly do not want a mosque to be built near the New York City site of the September 11, 2011 terrorist strikes, according to a new poll out Tuesday.

By a 71-21 percent margin, those surveyed by Quinnipiac University agreed that the project’s backers “should voluntarily build the mosque somewhere else” to accommodate the feelings of relatives of those killed in the attacks.

Justin Bieber fans in New York were given bad news when Bieber had to reschedule his appearance at the New York State Fair due to illness.

According to the official website of the New York State Fair, Justin Bieber fans with tickets to see Bieber at the August 29 concert will have to wait a few days until Justin Bieber is back on his feet. The official statement on Justin Bieber revealed, “Due to an illness, Justin Bieber has rescheduled his Sunday, Aug. 29 concert at the New York State Fair to Wednesday, Sept. 1, at 7 p.m.”

The government’s star witness against four men charged with trying to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down military planes told a jury Friday that one defendant told him that he hated Jews and Americans and that he wanted to be a martyr and “do something to America.”

Shahed Hussain said he was standing by his car outside a Newburgh, N.Y., mosque in June 2008 when he was approached by James Cromitie, the alleged ringleader of the plot that was doomed from the start because an important facilitator — Hussain — was working for the FBI all along.

The agency that owns the World Trade Center site in New York City is expected to approve a deal to help pay for two towers a developer plans to build there.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is to vote Thursday on the tentative deal reached in the spring with developer Larry Silverstein.

The Empire State Building’s owner lost his bid to stop a new skyscraper from rising in the neighborhood when the New York City Council approved zoning and land use changes Wednesday that pave the way for the 1,190-foot tower.

The project, called 15 Penn Plaza, is still in the planning stages. Developer Vornado Realty Trust has not set a date for its construction and has yet to sign a major commercial tenant.

Four men charged with trying to blow up New York synagogues and shoot down military planes were caught on videotape plotting and praying together before setting out to launch the attack, a prosecutor said Tuesday in opening statements at their trial.

“You will see them pray for success,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Adam Hickey told jurors in federal court in Manhattan.

The imam behind the controversial mosque and Islamic center near New York City’s ground zero said Sunday that he hopes the project will develop “an Islamic approach that allows for harmony and understanding among all religions and other ideas.”

The remarks from Abdul Rauf, who has rarely spoken to the media since his proposal for an Islamic center set off a firestorm of controversy this summer, came while the imam is on a State Department-sponsored trip to the Middle East.

The imam leading plans for an Islamic center near the Manhattan site of the Sept. 11 attacks said Friday he hopes to draw attention during his trip in the Middle East to the common challenges to battle radical religious beliefs.

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who is on the first leg of a 15-day Mideast tour funded by the U.S. State Department, refused to discuss the political firestorm over the plans for an Islamic cultural center about two blocks from the World Trade Center towers.