Lifeline

President Bush's bailout of General Motors and Chrysler prevents an economic calamity, for now, and dumps the responsibility on his successor to enforce the vague terms. In agreeing to lend the automakers $17.4 billion, Bush really had no options. GM and Chrysler would have run out of money by the end of the month, a failure that could have resulted in the loss of up to three million middle-class jobs next year. On top of the two million jobs lost this year, such a blow would have deepened a recession that is already the worst in a quarter-century.

To examine the use and impact of health resources on the Web, researchers in Wisconsin created a whole new site. Although their study is ongoing, one finding is clear: the discussion boards are the best-used section. The Comprehensive Health Enhancement Support System provides interactive education - message boards, detailed medical information, decision-making tools - for patients and their families. It began in 1987 as a long-term controlled study of how consumers use computers for health care; Internet access to the program was added later and quickly became dominant.

Money is tight; jobs scarce; disposable income more limited than usual. These are hard times, but they'll get harder yet. The outlook for nonprofit organizations is bleak. Because in hard times, people contribute less. That, of course, is when more and more people need the help of social welfare agencies. Meanwhile, the new Masters of the Universe in Washington are slicing funds or passing on to the states responsibilities that used to be federal - responsibilities most states are unable or unwilling to shoulder.

GOV. Rendell, back against the wall, against all odds, stuck between a rock and a hard place, - oh, you provide the cliche - has scraped together $18.8 million to temporarily fund Pennsylvania's 40 struggling public transit systems, including $13.3 million for SEPTA. For years, SEPTA has suffered from a chronic condition: lack of dedicated funding. And Harrisburg, in its political pettiness, has treated the disease with Band-Aids and aspirin when more aggressive treatment was warranted.

A Philadelphia-area legislator has proposed a measure requiring local telephone companies to provide basic service at reduced costs to low-income consumers. The "lifeline" telephone bill was filed by state Sen. Clarence Bell (R., Delaware) and was one of several utility-related proposals submitted recently by the senator. According to a Bell aide, the lifeline bill would require that basic telephone service be provided to all consumers in a company's service area. The low-cost service would be available to any consumer whose annual income did not exceed 150 percent of the poverty level as set periodically by the federal government.

Contrasted with the austerity of the rest of Angelina Carnivale's outfit, the pendant on a golden chain around her neck looked positively ostentatious. But the pendant was there to protect her life, not feed any love of luxury. The locket contained a button that Carnivale, 74, newly widowed and a victim of three minor strokes, could push to summon help to her home in Burlington Township. The low-power radio signal that it sends activates a telephone unit in Carnivale's bedroom that is linked by a telephone connection to the emergency room of Zurbrugg Memorial Hospital's Riverside Division, three miles away.

Every time Durick Hayden picked up the phone to make a long-distance call, he regretted it. Not because of the cost. The problem for Hayden, an evangelical Christian living in Tupelo, Miss., was that his carrier, AT&T, supported homosexual rights and television programming he found offensive. So he switched. Not to MCI or Sprint or another major company, but to a small firm that promised to donate a part of Hayden's long-distance bill to conservative religious organizations that shared his views.

Ted Leydon does not wear a turban or long flowing robes, and he is quick to admit that he cannot predict how long someone will live. He also cannot say if or when Mr. or Ms. Right will come along. But the Romanian-born palm reader is pretty good at telling folks if they look like their grandfather or mother, are easygoing or hot-tempered, optimistic or pessimistic. In a palmistry workshop in Phoenixville on Friday night, Leydon also was able to correctly tell Susan Davidson-Fisher that her blood type is Rh negative.

According to gangsta rappers Public Enemy, 911 is "a joke. " According to the occasionally descriptive language of the 1987 Philadelphia Police Study Task Force, 911 is a "tyrannical burden. " Either way you look at it, 911 - the police emergency telephone line - has become the subject of ridicule since its inception in the mid-1960s. The emergency system was proposed by a presidential commission on law enforcement in 1967 as a "universal signal for help. " It was installed in Philadelphia in March 1974.

Low-income New Jersey residents will get help paying natural gas and electric bills under a program approved this week by the state Board of Public Utilities. The revised Universal Service Fund, approved by the board on Thursday, replaces a pilot program in place for the past year for households that qualified under a formula related to federal poverty guidelines. The fund will pay as much as $1,800, compared to $200 in the pilot program. "One of the board's primary responsibilities is to protect ratepayers and to ensure there are programs and services that assist our most vulnerable citizens," the board's president, Jeanne M. Fox, said in a statement that announced the plan.

This week, Israel and Turkey missed a critical chance to repair their frayed relations. Their mistake - in rejecting a promising diplomatic opening - has jolted an already-unstable region. It will also prove costly for both countries. Yet politicians in Jerusalem and Ankara failed to grasp this outstretched lifeline - indeed, tossed it away. The lifeline was held out by the United Nations' Palmer Commission, which just released a long-delayed report about Israel's raid on the Turkish aid ship Mavi Marmara.

BOYNUYOGUN REFUGEE CAMP, Turkey - Syrian troops combing through restive villages near the Turkish border set fire to homes and a bakery Sunday, cutting off a lifeline to thousands of uprooted people stranded in open-air encampments at the frontier. Activists said the military carried out mass arrests and threw up checkpoints in the village of Bdama and surrounding areas to block residents from fleeing across the frontier, as thousands already have done. The torched bakery was said to have been the sole source of bread for those stuck on the Syrian side.

WE START the new month with sunny news about a couple of good men who were under a cloud. Tom Nager has been pulled from the bottom of the well by readers who were touched by my account of his crushing problems and did something. In terms of our total readership, they were relatively few, but a few people pulling together can create great change. Last Friday, with a wad of cash and a stack of checks, I drove to Tom's apartment, in Upper Darby, to escort him to the bank to make a big deposit.

With a prison guard nearby and her ankles shackled, Audrey Manson gave birth to a healthy baby girl she named Serenity Faith Majay. The next day, she held her daughter, changed her diaper - and turned the newborn over to a Mennonite family. By the time Manson was back at Riverside Correctional Facility in Northeast Philadelphia, the Mennonites who had agreed to foster her daughter had settled the baby into their home in Manheim, Pa., where stretches of Lancaster County countryside dwarf urban yards and horse-drawn buggies are a soothing counterpoint to city streets.

After spending 18 months in jail for a crime he didn't commit, Jerome Rogers lost his automotive repair business, and missed nearly two years of his 4-year-old daughter's life. But, Rogers, 46, hasn't given up. He was one of 25 men honored last night during the Father's Day Rally Committee Inc. appreciation reception celebrating the "power of responsible men. " At the reception, the men, who have overcome many different obstacles and completed 18 weeks of group sessions under FDRC's Project Lifeline, received certificates of recognition.

MY BOYS. 10 p.m. Sunday, TBS. JORDANA SPIRO knows how to throw a reporter a lifeline. A few weeks ago, as we talked by phone about TBS' "My Boys," I was trying to find out what NBC's pickup of "Love Bites," a romantic anthology series that Spiro had been cast in, might mean for the future of her cable sitcom, which returns Sunday. What Spiro probably knew then, but which I wouldn't know for another 24 hours, is that NBC, worried that TBS wasn't going to decide on the future of "My Boys" for a few months - after ratings were in for its nine-episode fourth season - was dropping Spiro from "Love Bites.

A local landmark with a storied history of saving lives may itself be rescued when the City Council of this barrier island town votes tonight on whether to acquire the property for use as a museum. "Ocean City doesn't have Independence Hall, but we have our maritime history to tell," said Councilman Roy Wagner, adding that his measure would preserve the old Ocean City Lifesaving Station after more than a decade of legal wrangling. The 1885 structure, at Fourth Street and Atlantic Avenue, is a reminder of what this Cape May County town of duplexes and multiunit condos used to be. It was among a number of stations built on the Eastern Seaboard for the U.S. Life-Saving Service, which patrolled the coast and provided aid after shipwrecks.

The Haiti earthquake has launched a tsunami of sympathy, information and aid through social media such as Facebook, Flickr, Skype, YouTube and Twitter. The lightning worldwide response will likely reinforce what aid workers have known for years: Online media effectively get vital word out, often faster than mainstream media. "We have big presences on Twitter, Facebook, and of course on our blog," said Tom Foley, chief executive officer of the Southeastern Pennsylvania chapter of the American Red Cross, "and I know that today we've dramatically increased the number of people who check in with us through those sites.

A hefty $5 million cultural grant program from PNC Bank not only arrives at a moment of dire need in the Philadelphia region, but also reaches down to give small and suburban-based arts groups a much-needed hand up. The first 23 recipients of the PNC Arts Alive grant initiative were announced in mid-June. The funds will go toward growing audiences and adding performances, and for technology innovation and upgrades. It's not a surprise that the five-year pilot run by the charitable arm of PNC Financial Services will benefit such cultural icons as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and Philadelphia Orchestra.

A fellowship of the unemployed held a party Friday night - a lovely evening for a reunion of laid-off colleagues on a deck top in Center City, with a jazz trio providing the mellow for toasts, hugs, and high-fives. Ten years ago, they and 300 of their colleagues lost their jobs when their company, the original NovaCare in King of Prussia, collapsed with stunning swiftness after 14 years of rapid growth. Yet these people remained connected, a testimony to the strength of the workplace family, with its emotional ties born of long hours, exhilarating growth and tough times.