Boston Globe

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

In mid-June, I wrote about Patricia Smith, a wonderfully talented African-American columnist, who resigned at the Boston Globe's request because she had fabricated people and quotations in four columns. In short, she lied. And although her falsehoods were elegantly and eloquently constructed, they violated the basic rule that separates journalists from novelists: you must write only truth. Deviate from that, and you'll lose your readers' trust. In the weeks that followed, a Globe investigation turned up 48 other questionable columns, in which researchers were unable to verify Smith's sources.

Rep. Bud Shuster (R., Pa.), responding to a report in yesterday's Boston Globe that he was being investigated by a federal grand jury, said he was unaware of any investigation. According to the Globe, a grand jury is looking into allegations that Shuster used his influence, in exchange for campaign contributions, to help two Boston businessmen entangled in a Massachusetts highway project. Shuster, of Everett, Bedford County, is the chairman of the U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, which handles federal transportation spending and policies.

The New York Times will buy the company that owns the Boston Globe for $1.1 billion under an agreement approved yesterday by the boards of both companies, the New York paper reported in today's issues. The largest in newspaper history, the sale would end family control at one of the last major independent papers in the country. It was to be announced in today's Globe as well. For now, terms of the sale ensure that the two newspapers will remain separate. According to sources at the Globe, the negotiations included contracts guaranteeing the employment of senior management.

Two months after forcing out one columnist for making up material, the Boston Globe yesterday found itself in a standoff with another columnist, Mike Barnicle, who refused to resign after editors discovered he had used several jokes from a book by comedian George Carlin. The writer's defiance - and the Globe's refusal to reconsider its position - captured the attention of this city, where Barnicle has enjoyed a wide following for 25 years, holding himself out as the feisty voice of what he has described as the "everyday working man. " "What I did was stupid," he said yesterday in one of several television interviews he gave outside his suburban home.

Mike Barnicle, the Boston Globe's lead columnist for the last 25 years, met with his publisher yesterday, two days after Barnicle refused to resign over a bunch of George Carlin jokes that Barnicle used without attribution in his column Sunday. Neither Barnicle nor the publisher, Benjamin B. Taylor, would comment after the meeting, and a newspaper spokesman said it was "not possible" that the Globe would back off its position that Barnicle must go. Later in the day, Thomas G. Stemberg, the chief executive officer for Staples, the office-retail chain, released a letter he had sent to the Globe saying that Barnicle's departure would make the Globe "a less attractive advertising vehicle.

If there's a reason to end interleague play, this is it. The next few days figure to test our collective patience and sanity. Brace yourself: Boston fans are coming. The Phillies will begin a three-game series with the Red Sox on Tuesday. Over the course of the season, the Fightin's do all sorts of promotional giveaways, everything from hats to bobbleheads. This would be a good time for a different kind of freebie: maybe noise-canceling headphones or, if those aren't enough and more drastic measures are needed, surplus World War II-era cyanide pills.

Mike Arbuckle is among those mentioned as possible candidates for Boston's general manager vacancy, yesterday's Boston Globe reported. Arbuckle, the Phillies' assistant general manager for scouting and player development, surfaced as a candidate a day after Yankees vice president Gene Michael withdrew his name from consideration. Hired in 1992 as the Phillies' director of scouting, Arbuckle was promoted a year ago to assistant GM. He interviewed with Toronto last November for the Blue Jays' GM post.

LEAVING NO BASES COVERED The program for the House of Representatives for the week of Jan. 23, 1989, is as follows: Monday, Jan. 23. HOUSE NOT IN SESSION. Tuesday, Jan. 24. HOUSE MEETS AT NOON - NO LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS. Wednesday, Jan. 25. HOUSE NOT IN SESSION. Thursday, Jan. 26. HOUSE NOT IN SESSION. Friday, Jan. 27. HOUSE MEETS AT 11 A.M. - NO LEGISLATIVE BUSINESS. - Tony Coehlo, U.S. House of Representatives majority whip, letter to members with the schedule for a week preceding probable automatic pay increase.

Patriots coach Bill Belichick has denied suggestions by a former employee that his club taped St. Louis' walkthrough before Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002. Belichick told the Boston Globe yesterday that in his entire coaching career, he has never seen recordings of another team's practice before playing that team. "I have never authorized, or heard of, or even seen in any way, shape, or form any other team's walkthrough," he said. "We don't even film our own. We don't even want to see ourselves do anything, that's the pace that it's at. Regardless, I've never been a part of that.

Still ticked off about the way his tenure as the Boston Red Sox' skipper ended, Terry Francona says he will not be a part of next week's team festivities celebrating the 100th anniversary of Fenway Park. On Wednesday, Francona, now a baseball analyst for ESPN, told the Boston Globe: "I'm sure they'll have a great event and I was part of a lot of that stuff there, but I just can't go back there and start hugging people and stuff without feeling a little bit hypocritical. " He's not kidding.

JOHN LACKEY will undergo reconstructive elbow surgery and miss the 2012 season, the latest setback in his rough year with the Boston Red Sox. General manager Ben Cherington made the announcement yesterday during a news conference at which he was introduced as the successor to Theo Epstein, who left to become president of baseball operations with the Chicago Cubs. Lackey, a righthander, was 12-12 with a 6.41 ERA in the second year of a 5-year, $82.5 million contract. The Boston Globe reported after the season that he and fellow starters Josh Beckett and Jon Lester drank beer and ate fried chicken in the clubhouse during games in which they were not pitching.

SOME PEOPLE blame their problems on alcohol. Not Red Sox pitcher Jon Lester. He says Boston's season-ending demise was all on the team, bombing its last 27 games of the season. It wasn't the beer being swigged in the clubhouse by starting pitchers on days off during a few games . . . or the fried chicken. "There's a perception out there that we were up there getting hammered, and that wasn't the case," Lester told the Boston Globe . "Most of the times it was one beer, a beer.

A Trenton-area man pleaded not guilty in Boston today to smuggling about five pounds of cocaine into the country inside several pair of shoes on a flight from the Dominican Republic. Carlos J. Lanns, 24, of Hamilton, allegedly carried 2.17 kilograms of cocaine in his checked luggage on a JetBlue flight that landed Monday night at Logan International Airport, said Massachusetts State Police. The cocaine, valued at more than $200,000, had been wrapped in plastic and secreted inside the insoles of eight pair of shoes, police said.

ASDRUBAL CABRERA hit a pair of two-run homers to lead the visiting Cleveland Indians to a 9-6 win over the Boston Red Sox last night. The Sox may have suffered an even bigger loss before the game. Boston righthander Clay Buchholz was diagnosed with a stress fracture in his lower back and may miss the rest of the season, according to reports. ESPNBoston.com, Comcast Sports New England and the Boston Globe all reported the news. Buchholz (6-3, 3.48 ERA) was moved from the 15-day to the 60-day disabled list Sunday to make room for new acquisition Erik Bedard.

If there's a reason to end interleague play, this is it. The next few days figure to test our collective patience and sanity. Brace yourself: Boston fans are coming. The Phillies will begin a three-game series with the Red Sox on Tuesday. Over the course of the season, the Fightin's do all sorts of promotional giveaways, everything from hats to bobbleheads. This would be a good time for a different kind of freebie: maybe noise-canceling headphones or, if those aren't enough and more drastic measures are needed, surplus World War II-era cyanide pills.

Bill Taylor 2d, 78, a former publisher of the Boston Globe who was the fourth in his family to serve in that role at the newspaper and then negotiated its historic sale to the New York Times Co., has died. The Times said he died Sunday at his Boston home of brain cancer. He had been battling a brain tumor since 2009. Mr. Taylor served as publisher of the Globe for 19 years and oversaw the paper as it won nine Pulitzer Prizes. In 1993, he helped negotiated the $1.1 billion sale of the Globe to the Times Co. Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of the Times, said Mr. Taylor positioned the Globe to become "a beacon of integrity in the world of journalism.

The Flyers have the momentum. Overcoming a two-goal deficit to win Game 6 and then scoring a convincing Game 7 victory will do that for a team. The Boston Bruins have the motivation. Becoming the first team in NHL history to blow a series lead of three games to none and a three-goal lead in Game 7 will do that for a team, too. Welcome to The Rematch. In one corner stand the Flyers, villains to the Bruins and their fans for the humiliation they brought to Boston with last year's historic comeback.

No shot, New York Major League Baseball denied a protest filed by the New York Yankees this week after a loss to the Boston Red Sox. The Yankees claimed there was no evidence of an injury when Boston starter Josh Beckett was pulled in the fifth inning Tuesday night. Reliever Manny Delcarmen was given all the time he needed to get ready, rather than the standard eight warmup pitches. New York wound up losing, and Boston put Beckett on the disabled list the next day. The protest was turned down Thursday by MLB president Bob DuPuy.