Newark

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.

NEWARK - About 30 protesters arrived Friday afternoon to begin an Occupy Newark protest and were greeted by the city's police chief. Chief Sheila Coley, who awaited the group at Military Park across from the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, welcomed the activists by saying they had a right to protest nonviolently. "We're here to make sure you're safe," Coley said. The protesters spoke in the call-and-repeat form of communication, called "the people's mic," developed by Occupy groups around the country that are prohibited from using bullhorns.

Mayor-elect Sharpe James presented a sweeping prescription for change in Newark yesterday, promising safe and clean streets and more jobs in a city that has never fully shaken its down-and-out image. James, 50, a four-term city councilman, was the center of attention inside the patched, ornate City Hall after turning Mayor Kenneth A. Gibson out of the office he has held since 1970. Dynamic in speech and optimistic on tone, James offered a clear stylistic contrast to the businesslike and taciturn Gibson.

A funny thing happened in Newark this week. Kenneth A. Gibson, the man who had been mayor of New Jersey's largest city for 16 years, was defeated by City Councilman Sharpe James. Gibson had succeeded Hugh Addonizio, a high school and college football hero, U.S. congressman and thief. Gibson promised to reduce corruption and get the city back on track. To a large extent, he lived up to his promise. But Ken Gibson forgot about the people. He forgot that because of the city's history, they were suffering from a lack of self-esteem and a persistently poor image.

"I'm gratified that a gaming venue has opened in Philadelphia. " "Well, Newark, is really just because I believe in these guys, right?" "I can promise you, this is my life so I know it's not that dramatic. " "You don't get to sit on the bench in corporate life. You're either working or you're gone. " "They can't say unequivocally that we're going into another recession, but they certainly can't promise a rapid recovery. They're in this limbo state. " "It's a pothole, not a ditch.

In today's Newark, political deals are no longer made in the back room. They are made in the basement. Below the Ivy Hill projects in New Jersey's largest city, two rising young politicians were courting the local Muslim population before Tuesday's nationally watched municipal elections. Cory Booker, 37, candidate for mayor, and Ron Rice Jr., 38, his slate mate for City Council in this neighborhood, sat next to a pale green curtain separating men from women in the makeshift mosque.

QUEEN Latifah returned to her hometown of Newark, N.J., Wednesday night to host a premiere of her latest movie, "Last Holiday. " As she walked along a red carpet in the middle of a parking lot, Latifah said she was happy to be back home. "It just means I don't have to go far to get home from the premiere," said Latifah, who has homes in New Jersey and Los Angeles. "My whole family is here, so it's wonderful. I can celebrate with Jersey for a change. " Mayor Sharpe James gushed about the Newark premiere.

In our Philadelphiacentric view of the world, cities like Newark, N.J., Detroit and Cleveland exist on Earth primarily for the purpose of enabling us to feel good about our city. And so it was with a certain amount of alarm that we read a story the other day about how Newark has hired an architect for a new $140 million concert hall in un-beautiful downtown Newark. After all, it seems like it was only a few months ago that we were writing about how Newark's bond rating was going up at roughly the same time that Philadelphia's was going down.

A majority of New Jersey voters think building an arena in downtown Newark for the Nets and Devils is a bad idea, according to a new poll. The Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll of 820 registered voters, released yesterday, found that 61 percent opposed moving the teams from East Rutherford to downtown Newark. And 51 percent said they would be less likely to attend an event in a new Newark arena than in the Meadowlands. Only 21 percent of respondents said the move to Newark is a good idea, and 17 percent said they would be more likely to attend an event there rather than in the Meadowlands.

Just after sunrise, the bus pulled out of Center City to begin the day-long field trip. Squeezed in the seats of this bus on Monday weren't eager fifth graders heading to a museum or zoo. This bus was chartered for Philadelphia community leaders and development specialists who were embarking on a sightseeing tour . . . of Newark, N.J. And the Philadelphia leaders were hoping to pick up a few successful ideas to use back home. From Newark, you ask? The North Jersey city with a reputation for blight and poverty?

Informed in 2004 that her house in Newark, N.J., was soon to be demolished, the photographer Emma Wilcox exacted a kind of artistic revenge on the city's exercises of eminent domain. She began writing enormous, pithy texts in flour and paint on rooftops throughout the city and photographing them from a helicopter. (She knew, unlike many Internet users, that Google Earth does not function in real time.) Upstairs at the Print Center, where her documentary daytime aerial photographs from the series "Where It Falls" are paired with her mysterious nocturnal street scenes of Newark, from an ongoing series titled "Forensic Landscapes," Wilcox comes across as an activist and a romantic.

Lafayette midfielder Ana White (Strath Haven) was named first team all-Patriot League in women's lacrosse. The Patriot League rookie of the year in 2011, White was named the league's player of the week five times this season when she set a league record with 113 draw controls. White scored 36 goals. Navy's Kathy Young (Villa Maria Academy) also was named first team all-Patriot League at midfield. Melissa Scanzano (Haverford) scored five goals as Cabrini (8-8)

NEWARK, N.J. - In a smoky stairwell, with embers falling from the ceiling and his neighbor slung over his shoulder, Cory Booker encountered his "proverbial come-to-Jesus moment. " The mayor of New Jersey's largest city was carrying out a constituent whom he had rushed into a burning home to save, first pushing aside his security detail who tried to hold him back by his belt. He didn't feel like a hero: "I felt terror," he told reporters Friday, holding a children's fire safety video with his burned, bandaged right hand.

NEWARK, N.J. - Security officials at Newark Liberty International Airport were reviewing an incident in which a traveler breached a checkpoint and caused the evacuation of one of the airport's terminals. The breach occurred Thursday afternoon. The Transportation Security Administration told the Bergen Record that a 64-year-old British man walked past a distracted TSA agent at an exit area in Terminal B. The terminal was evacuated for about an hour. The TSA said the agent had been removed from screening duties pending a review of the incident.

NEWARK, N.J. - The superintendent of the state's largest school district presented the final details Monday of a wide-ranging plan to overhaul its struggling schools. Newark School Superintendent Cami Anderson said the first phase of the plan would focus on the city's most consistently underperforming schools and would involve a combination of new schools, closings, and consolidations meant to ensure more high-quality public school options in the city. On Monday, she announced the district would open eight new schools by September at the sites of closed or consolidated schools.

NEWARK, N.J. - U.S. Rep. Donald Payne the first black congressional member from New Jersey, died of cancer on Tuesday at St. Barnabas Hospital in Livingston. He was 77. The 12-term Democrat was first elected in 1988, after twice losing to former Rep. Peter Rodino, who retired after 40 years in Congress. Payne was elected to a 12th term in 2010. He represented the 10th District, which includes the city of Newark. - Associated Press

NEW YORK - An interstate feud escalated Friday when a New York congressman berated New Jersey Gov. Christie for "trying to score cheap political points" instead of saving lives when he complained that the New York Police Department's monitoring of Muslims across the state line was arrogant and secretive. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, said Christie crossed a line when he mocked Police Commissioner Ray Kelly as "all-knowing, all-seeing," and said the NYPD's intelligence operation in Newark may have been "born out of arrogance.

TRENTON - New York City's Police Department is facing mounting criticism of its secret surveillance of Muslims across the Northeast, with ACLU chapters and other groups demanding an investigation and Gov. Christie accusing the NYPD of arrogantly acting as if "their jurisdiction is the world. " The intelligence-gathering was detailed recently in a series of Associated Press stories that reported that police monitored mosques and Muslims around the metropolitan area and kept tabs on Muslim student groups at the University of Pennsylvania, Rutgers, and other schools in Upstate New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

A Delaware woman was arrested Monday and charged with stealing property from residents of the Chester County retirement community where she works, police said. Shakeana Sims, 25, of Newark, was found with a watch, bank card, and stolen check that belonged to two elderly residents at a Kennett Square retirement community run by the Kendal Corp., police said. Sims works as a nurse's aide for Kendal. The company could not be reached for comment Monday night. The thefts were discovered after Sims was arrested during a traffic stop in Newark about 12:45 a.m., police said.