Family Ties

WHEN POLITICIANS decline to run for an office, it's common for them to say they want to spend more time with their families. Few people believe them. So there were audible gasps at a meeting of the Republican state committee when Lt. Gov. Mark Schweiker proved that he really did mean it when he announced last year that family considerations influenced his decision not to run for governor next year. Schweiker announced Saturday that he has not changed his mind, even though the resignation of Gov. Ridge to become the nation's director of Homeland Security will make him the incumbent governor of Pennsylvania tomorrow - and therefore a stronger candidate.

Family ties nearly kept Cristina Ferrare's new daytime show, "Home & Family," from finding a home on the Family Channel (weekdays, 11 a.m.). That's because Ferrare's husband, Tony Thomopoulos, is head of the cable net, and he feared that adding his wife's show to the Family schedule would smack of nepotism. Ferrare and "Home & Family" executive producer Woody Fraser were already shopping the show when Thomopoulos began looking for original daytime programming. "I'd sit and listen to [Thomopoulos]

C.T. ALEXANDER was Penn's public-address announcer for the last 50 years. Now that he's retired, it's finally someone else's turn. It just happens that his replacement has the same last name. His son, John, has been spending time in the booth alongside the voice of Franklin Field since he was 12. So this transition has been 35 years in the making. "My earliest memories were going there with my sisters and sitting in the first row," John recalled. "And these ancient security guards, the nicest guys, were like our grandfathers.

"Next Summer," a comedy/drama starring Fanny Ardent, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Claudia Cardinale, Philippe Noiret, Marie Trintignant and Jerome Ange. Written and directed by Nadine Trintignant. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 100 minutes. A European Classics release. If it was good at nothing else, you would have thought that "Next Summer" would have something to say about family life. Directed and written by Nadine Trintignant, the film stars, among others, her husband, Jean-Louis, and her daughter, Marie.

The bone of contention in Lee Grant's Staying Together is the future of a family-owned chicken restaurant. The film is more overstuffed than the birds on the plates. The gentle, wistful theme music that accompanies the film's credits underscores the fact that we are in the presence of something self-consciously life-affirming. In an age where movies teem with burned-out cops and serial killers, it may seem mean-spirited to object to an obviously sincere work about family relationships.

Scott Valentine of the television series Family Ties has agreed to star in Crack Down, an anti-drug public-service video about use of the cocaine derivative known as crack. The tape, made by New York City-based Bennu Productions and targeted for fall distribution, will feature celebrities and lots of advice from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration. Versions for elementary school, high school and adults will be available.

The nomad-like existence that many children in the foster-care system feel was summed up by Jakiera when she was asked why she wanted to be adopted. "Because you don't have to go from house to house," this 13-year-old said. "You live in one house with one family - forever!" Her social worker knows that a family would also help Jakiera emerge from her shell. "Having a family of her own would help her finally relax," the worker says. "She could let down her guard and enjoy being a child without having to worry about how it might affect her life situation.

Golf for Trey Best was nothing more than something to occupy time on a summer Monday morning. The Episcopal Academy senior would play maybe three times a year, finding new ways to keep the game entertaining, like seeing who among his friends and him could hit the longest drive. Golf has suddenly turned from a pastime to a passion for Best. So much so that the 6-foot-1 Best finds himself as the best player on possibly the best team in the area this spring. Best has helped the Churchmen to their best start since 1994, when they won the Inter-Academic League title.

The other Joey Merlino says he just wants a chance to make a living. Sitting at the kitchen table of the bayside home he shares here with his family, Joseph N. Merlino, 30, said all he is asking for is a fair shot. "Tell us what we have to do," the stocky construction company owner said. "Tell us what we can't do. Give us some guidelines. That's all I'm saying. " On Wednesday, the Casino Control Commission is scheduled to consider a hearing examiner's recommendation that Merlino; his mother, Phyllis; his younger brother, Marco; and two construction companies they control be banned from working in the casino industry.

Sandy Clarke sensed that her husband was in trouble before he did. When Bob Clarke left the house on the morning of April 16 for a meeting with Flyers president Jay Snider, Sandy had a vague feeling, a sort of drifting unease, that the meeting would go badly, that something was about to happen to Bob. As far as Clarke was concerned, it was to be just another bull session. He and Snider had not been agreeing on the direction of the franchise. Their last meeting had not gone well, but the problems, he felt, were nothing that couldn't be worked out. "I was prepared for the worst," Sandy said.

NEW YORK - The suicide rate among middle-aged Americans climbed a startling 28 percent in a decade, a period that included the recession and the mortgage crisis, the government reported Thursday. The trend was most pronounced among white men and women in that age group. Their suicide rate jumped 40 percent between 1999 and 2010. The rates in younger and older people held steady. And there was little change among middle-aged blacks, Hispanics, and most other racial and ethnic groups, the report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found.

MY FAMILY'S opinion of me matters more than anything. If I ever do anything to threaten the ties that bind me to kin, I pray I'll have a good reason for doing so. Because, for me, our connectedness is life itself. If that ends, so does life as I know it. I can't attest to the strength of the family ties of alleged Boston bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But the connection was important enough that on Thursday one of the brothers telephoned their uncle, Alvi Tsarni, to plead, "Forgive me. " Was that a way of saying that these killers had a tinge of regret for what they did because of the shame it brought to their family?

It's another week of slim pickings with new DVD releases. Howdy Kids: Saturday Afternoon Western Roundup, Grade B-plus : If you grew up in the 1950s, then this is a three-DVD set you have to own. It's a fun trip back to Saturdays when heroes - who rode horses, flew planes, and even got around in a jeep - ruled the television airwaves. There are 25 episodes of live-action programming originally designed to entertain children. Included are episodes of The Lone Ranger , The Range Rider , The Rifleman , The Adventures Of Rick O'Shay, Fury, The Roy Rogers Show, Annie Oakley, The Adventures of Kit Carson, The Adventures of Champion, The Cisco Kid, Sergeant Preston of the Yukon, Sky King, Red Ryder, and Buffalo Bill Jr. Everyone will find a favorite, but two of the standouts are Sky King - whose hero battled bad guys using an airplane - and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon - whose companion was King, a dog billed as a husky but that was really an Alaskan malamute.

When Scott Laughton returned home from the NHL draft two weeks ago, he thought it was finally starting to sink in that the Flyers selected him in the first round. He thought he understood the significance of it. He was wrong. On Day One of the Flyers prospect camp, Laughton's welcome-to-the-Flyers moment came before he hit the ice at 9 a.m. It came in the locker room when he saw the orange Flyers sweater hanging up with his last name on the back above the No. 39. Finally, the magnitude of it all hit him. "It's a surreal feeling," Laughton said.

When Scott Laughton returned home from the NHL draft two weeks ago, he thought it was finally starting to sink in that the Flyers selected him in the first round. He thought he understood the significance of it. He was wrong. On day one of the Flyers prospect camp, Laughton's welcome-to-the-Flyers moment came before he hit the ice at 9 a.m. It came in the locker room when he saw the orange Flyers sweater hanging up with his last name on the back above the No. 39. Finally, the magnitude of it all hit him. "It's a surreal feeling," Laughton said.

The first time Geoff Arnold can remember thinking of his nephew as a ballplayer - and not just as his older sister's only child - is when Langston Galloway was 12 years old, up from Louisiana to attend basketball camp at Drexel, where Arnold was then an assistant coach. "Matt Collier, who is [Drexel coach Bruiser Flint's] assistant now, ran the camp," Arnold said this week. "The camp started at Monday at 9 o'clock. At 10:15, Matt was standing in my office, saying, 'You know this kid can play, right?

C.T. ALEXANDER was Penn's public-address announcer for the last 50 years. Now that he's retired, it's finally someone else's turn. It just happens that his replacement has the same last name. His son, John, has been spending time in the booth alongside the voice of Franklin Field since he was 12. So this transition has been 35 years in the making. "My earliest memories were going there with my sisters and sitting in the first row," John recalled. "And these ancient security guards, the nicest guys, were like our grandfathers.

The FBI is seeking help in finding a fugitive radical who allegedly blinded a police officer with acid during an antiapartheid protest in New York 30 years ago. The FBI is making the appeal here because Donna Joan Borup has family ties to Philadelphia and Horsham. Kelly Langmesser, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in New York, says a new agent has taken over the case and is hoping that Borup has dropped her guard after three decades on the run. According to the FBI, Borup was charged with throwing acid into the face of Port Authority Police Officer Evan Goodstein during a antiapartheid protest at JFK Airport on Sept.

One of the best things about sports is the way it ties together families, across generations and within generations. That's particularly true of baseball, a game of fathers and sons, grandpops and grandsons, big brothers and little brothers. Mark Steen, Ryan Williams, and Roger Hoffmann were eighth graders in the spring of 2007. They couldn't wait to get to high school, especially since each boy watched his big brother help Seneca to the only baseball title in the program's history.

"We're gratified that Boscov's will remain a family business. " - department store chairman Albert Boscov, 81, on the appointment of his nephew Jim Boscov, 61, as vice chairman "I call them the black hole because they suck up everything and nothing comes out. " - Bill Quimby of TollFreeNumbers.com, on Philadelphia-based PrimeTel Communications Inc.'s aggressive acquisition of toll-free numbers for phone-sex services "If this...