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Two Long Island groups will receive a total of $4.9 million to buy and renovate properties into homes for people with disabilities, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development announced Wednesday. Almost $3.2 million has been allocated to Options for Community Living, a Smithtown-based nonprofit that helps people with special needs. The money will go to buying and fixing five group homes that will each serve three low-income residents with chronic mental illness, according to the group's proposal to HUD. The funds will also pay for support services for the residents. The other agency, Brookville-based AHRC Nassau, is slated to get more than $1.7 million. The nonprofit will buy two properties and turn them into group homes for disabled people who have reached 21, aging out of their current residences before they can live independently. Each home will accommodate six people and a live-in staff manager.

Manhattan-based Verizon Communications said Wednesday it planned to begin making high-definition versions of MSG and MSG+ sports channels available to its FiOS customers by mid-December. The announcement comes after the Federal Communications Commission last week upheld an earlier ruling ordering Madison Square Garden to sell high-definition versions of its MSG and MSG+ regional sports channels to Verizon. A federal appeals court also denied MSG's request to stay the ruling last week. The decision also allows AT&T access to the programming. The rulings stem from a complaint Verizon and AT&T filed against MSG and Bethpage-based Cablevision. Cablevision owns Newsday. Cablevision and MSG plan to petition the court again for a stay. "A forced sharing of offerings only deters companies from investing and innovating," Cablevision said yesterday in a statement. Verizon spokesman John Bonomo said it would be "astonishing" if a Long Island company continued to deny Long Islanders the MSG programming. -- Carrie Mason-Draffen

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Citigroup may cut 3,000 jobs