Last week, a far-reaching discovery was made in a muddy river bottom in Alabama. It is a discovery that speaks to our history, and to the past we as a nation still struggle to understand and, in some ways, come to terms with. This American journey, this grand experiment in “we the people,” is dependent on knowing where we’ve been. It is dependent on facts. (more…)
Tide levels in Peconic Bay are higher nowadays, and this is having profound repercussions in a number of critical areas. READ
On March 3, in the tiny South Carolina hamlet of McClellanville, a man named Frank Snyder died. I know this because Mr. Snyder’s niece emailed me last Tuesday night, March 5, to say he had passed. He was 70 when cancer claimed his life. READ
Why wasn’t William Boken ever arrested in connection with the October 1966 disappearance of Louise Pietrewicz?
On April 20, 1979, a 13-year-old Smithtown boy named John Pius was found dead in a patch of woods behind an elementary school. His death had been remarkably cruel: He had been beaten, and stones the size of marbles had been shoved down his throat. He choked to death.
Among the Suffolk County Homicide Squad detectives whose work resulted in the arrests and convictions of four teenaged neighbors of the dead boy was Anthony Palumbo. (more…)
“I am the child of refugees. Had my father and his parents not been allowed here, I would not exist.” — Billy Joel
The passenger ship St. Louis left the port of Hamburg, Germany, May 13, 1939, with 937 Jewish passengers aboard, including hundreds of children. Its destination was Havana, Cuba, which had given the passengers transit visas and landing certificates to disembark once they arrived. READ
How Tara Scully ended up on the Democratic Party primary ballot for Suffolk County Surrogate Court is a far more important issue than who will next serve on that bench.
In late June, Ms. Scully, an attorney and registered Republican, answered what amounted to a “help wanted” ad posted by Newsday’s editorial board. This remarkable editorial called for someone to run for Surrogate Court who was not handpicked by party bosses in a backroom deal that put forward an approved candidate to be rubber-stamped on Election Day by voters who don’t know any better. READ
We, the members of this grand jury, need you to hear this. We know some of you have heard some of it before. There have been other reports of child sex abuse in the Catholic Church. But never on this scale. For many of us, those earlier reports happened somewhere else, someplace away. Now we know the truth: it happened everywhere.
— from the Pennsylvania attorney general’s grand jury report READ