New Brunswick

The province of New Brunswick, which issued its own stamps before joining the Canadian confederation, is renowned for two postal events. On Sept. 6, 1851, New Brunswick issued its first stamps, in the values of 3 pence, 6 pence and 1 shilling. The stamps were diamond-shaped and depicted the royal crown of Britain surrounded by roses, a shamrock and a thistle - the heraldic flowers of England, Ireland and Scotland. The stamps were in regular use until 1854, when the letter rate to Britain was reduced from 1 shilling, 3 pence to 7 1/2 pence.

It's a bit of a drive to New Brunswick, but The Frog and the Peach is such a splendid place that it's worth the effort. Open four years, the charming restaurant offers a remarkably inventive and beautifully executed cuisine, although it is expensive enough to consider taking out a second mortgage before you go; still, it is perfect for special occasions. The relatively small dining rooms are decorated all in white - white brick walls and woodworking, white utility pipes, white tablecloths and napkins and candles on the tables.

A report on New Jersey gaming that reimagines Atlantic City doesn't look to Las Vegas or New York for inspiration. It looks to one of its own: New Brunswick. The authors of the report say the 35-year transformation of the small central New Jersey city, the home of Rutgers University, offers a model for turning around the struggling Shore resort. In the mid-1970s, pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson created a process for redevelopment through public-private partnerships - most significantly, through a tax-exempt development company specifically for New Brunswick.

Rutgers University is ready to party, and president Richard L. McCormick hopes tens of thousands come to join him on Saturday. On Rutgers Day, the first such event in the university's history, people of all ages will be invited to the New Brunswick and Piscataway campuses to join in nearly 400 social, cultural, and intellectual events designed to teach people about the multifaceted school. Walk through a soil tunnel. Have your hands decorated by a henna artist. Sing Broadway classics along with the Livingston Theatre Company.

This is my kind of bass fishing. With few if any other boats on the St. Croix River, roaring engines and sophisticated electronics are conspicuous by their absence. The only competition is between you and the fish. It was here, 27 years before, that I learned to fully appreciate the fighting qualities of the smallmouth bass. I've caught a lot of them in a lot of places since, but it is still New Brunswick and smallmouth in my word- association game. So it was a long-delayed sentimental journey I undertook, combining a fishing trip to three separate spots with a family vacation.

For more than five hours, I had cast with my fly rod into the river - casting as a cold drizzle soaked my hands and neck, casting as a brisk wind spun the anchored canoe from side to side, casting as my back and shoulders stiffened, casting as I glumly realized that I had skied in warmer weather than this. Then something happened that instantly made everything worth it. A splash shot up from where my silvery fly was drifting downstream. On what must have been my millionth cast, my reel started spinning madly, the line tearing out toward the disturbance in the water.

A man wanted in a string of sexual assaults in New Brunswick, N.J., bears some striking similarities in description and demeanor to the man who raped two women in Fairmount Park, killing one of them, Philadelphia police said yesterday. The six New Brunswick attacks, starting Sept. 20, 2001, have been linked through DNA. The two attacks in Fairmount Park also were connected through DNA. Police had not, by last night, begun comparing the DNA to determine whether all eight cases were related.

Pleasantville enjoyed its best outside-shooting game of the Group 2 boys' basketball tournament last night, and the results were predictable. The Greyhounds rolled to a 97-61 victory over Central Jersey champion New Brunswick in a state Group 2 semifinal game at Manalapan High. Pleasantville (28-0) will play Boonton on Sunday at Rutgers for the state title. Boonton beat Pascack Hills, 53-43, in the other state semifinal game last night. It will be the Greyhounds' first trip to the finals since 1979, when they lost to Orange.

Paul Wiedeman knows all about getting to the state finals, having accomplished that feat as a player and a coach. "You have to work for it," the Haddonfield boys' basketball coach said. "You have to seize the moment, and they did that tonight. " But the moment nearly seized the Bulldogs last night when center Brian Zoubek had to take a seat on the bench with foul trouble in a state Group 2 semifinal game against New Brunswick. But junior guard Derek Heckendorn carried the gritty Bulldogs down the stretch as they earned a 62-53 victory.

We are knee-deep in bathtub-warm salt water. We swing nets along the ocean bottom like shortstops scooping up ground balls. We're halfway up the coast of the Canadian province of New Brunswick, a place that is not on many swimmers' radar. Most people think a dip in these waters would be suitable only for polar bears. But people do come to swim at the beaches of Kouchibouguac National Park, heavily promoted as the warmest salt water north of the Virginia shore. (And if you pronounce it "koo-she-BOO-gwack" you might pass as a local.

(Seedings in parentheses) At Pine Belt Arena, Toms River, N.J. No. 4 Atlantic City vs. No. 5 Ewing, 6 p.m. No. 3 Plainfield vs. No. 6 Asbury Park, 8 p.m. At Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. No. 2 St. Joseph of Metuchen vs. Plainfield-Asbury Park winner, 6 p.m. No. 1 St. Anthony vs. Atlantic City-Ewing winner, 8 p.m. At Izod Arena, East Rutherford, N.J. Semifinal winners, 8...

T of C Boys' Schedule (Seedings in parentheses) At Pine Belt Arena, Toms River, N.J. No. 4 Atlantic City vs. No. 5 Ewing, 6 p.m. No. 3 Plainfield vs. No. 6 Asbury Park, 8 p.m.   At Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. No. 2 St. Joseph of Metuchen vs. Plainfield-Asbury Park winner, 6 p.m. No. 1 St. Anthony vs. Atlantic City-Ewing winner, 8 p.m. ...

FORMER PHILLIES reliever Rheal Cormier was selected to the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame yesterday. The best of Cormier's 16 big-league seasons came with the Phillies in 2003, when he was 8-0 with a 1.70 ERA, 67 strikeouts and 54 hits in 84 innings. His 683 games pitched for St. Louis (1991-94), Boston (1995, 1999-2000), Montreal (1996-97), the Phillies (2001-06), and Cincinnati (2006-07) are the second-most appearances ever by a Canadian, behind Paul Quantrill (841). Cormier, from Moncton, New Brunswick, represented Canada in a number of international events, including the 1987 Pan Am Games, the 1988 and 2008 Olympics and the 2006 World Baseball Classic.

Wallace McCain, 81, a billionaire frozen-food mogul and philanthropist who helped turn a small Canadian french fry plant into the global McCain Foods empire and later went on to control meat processor Maple Leaf Foods Inc., died Friday in Toronto after a 14-month battle with pancreatic cancer. Mr. McCain was a cofounder of McCain Foods and chairman of Maple Leaf Foods. This year, Forbes magazine listed him as No. 512 on its annual list of the world's billionaires, estimating his personal net worth at $2.3 billion.

The broadcast images of massive crowds clashing with soldiers and police across Egypt this week come from the other side of the world, too far away to worry most people here. But for Hoda Mitwally, Rafik Saddik, Basem Hassan, and other Egyptian Americans, the scenes of rioting, looting, and arrests hit home. "As a human being, and someone who strongly believes in human rights and justice for all, I feel that this is something that all people should get behind," said Mitwally, a 21-year-old Rutgers University student.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Rutgers University held a silent vigil Sunday night to remember a student who committed suicide after his sexual encounter with a man in his dormitory room was secretly streamed online. The tribute to 18-year-old freshman Tyler Clementi drew a few hundred people, many holding candles, to the school's campus in New Brunswick. Prosecutors say Clementi's roommate and another student used a webcam to broadcast the encounter on the Internet. Clementi jumped off the George Washington Bridge into the Hudson River three days later.

  A New Jersey father accused of tossing his 3-month-old daughter to her death off a bridge pleaded not guilty Tuesday, as a judge ordered him to have no further contact with the child's mother. Shamsid-Din Abdur-Raheem sat silently as his attorney entered the plea in state Superior Court in New Brunswick. The 22-year-old Galloway Township resident is charged with murder and five other counts related to the infant's abduction and death. He remains jailed after failing to post $2.7 million bail.

NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J. - Middlesex County Prosecutor Bruce Kaplan on Thursday announced the arrest of a New Brunswick man in a 20-year-old homicide case. Steven Parkey Jr., 40, is charged in the October 1990 death of Nikki Adams, 15, of New Brunswick, whose body was found by a cleaning person in an Edison motel room. She had been stabbed multiple times. Parkey was arrested Wednesday and charged with murder and weapons offenses. He pleaded not guilty during a brief court appearance Thursday and was held on $2 million bail.

John E. Irving, 78, who helped turn his family's lumber business into Atlantic Canada's largest conglomerate, died Wednesday in St. John, New Brunswick. No cause of death was given. Along with his father, K.C. Irving, and his brothers James and Arthur, John E. Irving helped direct an expansion of the family's business after World War II that led it to dominate the economy of their home province. Today the family is among Canada's wealthiest and controls about 300 companies, with interests in oil refining, retailing, and distribution as well as lumber, paper, steel, hardware, trucking, shipbuilding, shipping, railroads, printing, and consumer products.