Mails

An e-mail exchange between the Evesham mayor, council and town officials in March violated the New Jersey public meetings law, the Burlington County Prosecutor's Office said today after a nearly six-week investigation. Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said in a written opinion that the discussion involved township business and should have taken place at a public meeting. He declined to press charges, which could have meant a $100 fine for each public official. Instead, Bernardi said it would be better to issue a warning and educate officials about refraining from using e-mails and texts to debate town issues.

The Justice Department revealed yesterday that it has launched a criminal investigation into how thousands of pieces of White House e-mail wanted by an independent counsel and congressional committees came to be missing. The development came as three computer specialists testified before a House panel that presidential aides threatened them with jail terms if they divulged information about the missing e-mails sought by former independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr and others probing White House fund-raising practices during the 1996 election.

Joe Paterno's family called Monday for the public release of e-mails written by Pennsylvania State University administrators in response to a 2001 allegation of child sex-abuse lodged against Jerry Sandusky. The documents - parts of which have been leaked over the last month - allegedly show that the late head football coach and a handful of other Penn State officials decided against notifying outside authorities after graduate assistant Mike McQueary walked in on Sandusky and a 10-year-old in a sexual position that year.

An official nose count has started in the Phoenixville Area School District. Big white envelopes marked "Important Census Information Enclosed" are scheduled to arrive in mailboxes this week, according to Al Funk, district business manager. Although school officials keep a running tally of births, deaths and people who have moved in and out of the borough, a census has to be conducted about every four years, Funk said. "We have to confirm (the figures) for tax purposes, especially for the occupation tax," he said.

CBS3 anchor Alycia Lane says she is "mortified" over a gossip item in yesterday's New York Post that she had sent private e-mails and suggestive "bikini" photos to NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen, which were intercepted by his wife. The story, which Lane said was not what it appeared, quickly became the talk of a celebrity-starved town and even mushroomed into national fodder as scandal-sniffing bloggers inveighed against Lane. In an exclusive interview yesterday with The Inquirer, Lane insisted she was not a home-wrecker.

Row upon row of lawyers, about 50 of them, sat one afternoon this week in a windowless room on the 13th floor of a Center City office building. They were checking clients' e-mail. It was just another day for the staff of Legal Logistics, a new and fast-growing division at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius L.L.P. that assists the firm's litigators with "discovery" - the task of sifting through piles of evidence ahead of cases or regulatory hearings and sharing the findings with the opposition.

Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban says forward Josh Howard realizes his comments about the national anthem were wrong and the player has apologized. In his online blog, Cuban also responded to e-mails he has received commenting on the player's remarks by saying Howard "will work with us" and "beyond that, it's a private issue. " Cuban posted a number of the inflammatory replies on his blog Thursday night, with the apparent e-mail addresses of the senders. But by last night, Cuban's remarks dubbed "Thanks for the advice on Josh" had been removed from the blog and replaced with a posting saying "I made my point.

Kevin Baker let the Internet work for him in the fall. The 6-foot-5 La Salle soccer goalie e-mailed Holy Cross coach Elvis Comrie to tell him what he was up to during the season and how the Explorers were doing. Comrie sent an e-mail back to the senior, telling him that he liked his background and that he would come down from Worcester, Mass., to take a look at him. Baker's move paid off. The all-Catholic League goaltender accepted a grant-in-aid package based on need to play soccer for the Crusaders next fall.

The phone call to Keith W. Eckel, a longtime member of Pennsylvania State University's board of trustees, was succinct. "The coach died. And you will, too," the male voice said. The Lackawanna County farmer said he wasn't afraid and didn't report the call to police, but was saddened that someone would stoop to an anonymous threat over the board's decision to fire iconic football coach Joe Paterno in November after his onetime top assistant, Jerry Sandusky, was indicted on child-sex-abuse charges.

In my Dec. 21 column, I wrote about Upper Deck's new baseball card set, Yankee Legends. I said the cards were cool and the Yankees franchise was among the few in sports capable of carrying such a set nationwide. I even acknowledged that the Yankees mystique had finally gotten to me and that I was actually beginning to follow their fortunes. Two weeks ago the industry-insider magazine Card Trade listed several hobby shops - in places such as Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts and Texas - that had cited the set in its "what's hot" report card.