Taxi Driver

PONTRESINA, Switzerland - I had not realized how many helpful hands await a man traveling alone with a small child. At JFK Airport, an Australian woman and her grown son volunteered to roll my caravan of luggage to the check-in counter, freeing me to push my 21-month-old son, Ryan, in his stroller. My biggest concern was that I not lose Ryan's security blanket, which he named Meeno, in the measured confusion of boarding an international flight. The woman at the Swiss International counter efficiently worked through my check-in with toddler, stroller, and overstuffed bags; at the gate, another Swiss employee motioned us coach-class boys into the business-class line for immediate boarding, ahead of captains of industry and upgraded poseurs.

TORONTO - Albert Brooks became a father at 51 and a villain at 64. He highly recommends both. The Daily News spoke with the veteran multi-hyphenate (comedian/writer/director/actor) at the Toronto International Film Festival, where he jovially talked about his new movie, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn's "Drive," in which Brooks plays a gangster who's 10 percent empathy and 90 percent ruthlessness. It's a big change of pace for the longtime funnyman, who became famous as a stand-up comic, but has a long list of movie credits, including "Taxi Driver," "Broadcast News" and "Finding Nemo," plus his own written-and-directed movies such as "Modern Romance," "Lost In America" and "Defending Your Life.

MILTON David Stackhouse had his own way of ministering to people: He drove them in his cab. "My son knew the Lord," said his mother, Estella Stackhouse. "He accepted Christ at an early age and was baptized at Mount Carmel Baptist Church. "He did not attend on any regular basis, however. As I think about it, he was engaged in a type of ministry of his own as he served his taxi customers. " His customers must have loved him and his message because they kept coming back. Milton had customers who continued to call him over the 35 years he drove for various taxi companies.

ATLANTA - Nick Charles, the former taxi driver who became CNN's first sports anchor and served in that role for nearly two decades, died Saturday after a two-year struggle with bladder cancer, the cable network reported. He was 64. He died peacefully at his New Mexico home, his wife Cory, a CNN International producer, told the network. Nicholas Charles Nickeas grew up in Chicago, working late-night jobs in high school to help his family, according to CNN. He eventually went to Columbia College Chicago to study communications and drove a taxi to help pay his tuition.

A 14-year-old girl claims that the taxi driver who took her from her grandmother's house in North Philadelphia to her parents' house in Juniata Park on Tuesday night made an unthinkable detour when he parked on a dark street and sexually assaulted her, police said. The girl told police that she called for a cab about 9:50 p.m. to pick her up at her grandmother's house on Sydenham Street near Venango, said Special Victims Unit Lt. Anthony McFadden. While en route to Juniata Park, she claims, the cabbie pulled over in Northeast Philadelphia and assaulted her, police said.

Police are looking for the driver of a blue-and-white taxi that struck a man crossing Aramingo Avenue in Port Richmond early Thursday and fled after stopping briefly. The injured 26-year-old man was reported in stable condition at Temple University Hospital. Police said he was crossing Aramingo Avenue in the middle of the 3300 block shortly after midnight when he was hit by the northbound cab. The taxi stopped briefly and then drove off northbound on the avenue, police said, adding that the cab probably had some front-end damage.

Two Philadelphia men are in custody in connection with the robbery and assault of a 26-year-old man who was followed home to New Jersey after winning about $2,000 at SugarHouse Casino in October. Christopher Featherstone, 22, of the 4500 block of North Mole Street, and David Riley, 20, of the 2100 block of South Opal Street, were arrested in Philadelphia Thursday. They face felony charges in Philadelphia and Cinnaminson, where the Oct. 16 crime occurred. Police are still looking for a man who has yet to be identified.

In the 21/2 years that David Falck ran Guppy's Coffee in the Bryn Mawr train station, patrons say, he managed to create a special community as he transformed the sparse waiting room into a welcoming sit-down cafe. He introduced normally harried commuters to one another, doted on caffeine-fueled students, and conversed about books and events with retirees. Mr. Falck, 50, died Friday, Dec. 3, of melanoma at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse. He was diagnosed with a recurrence of the disease in mid-October.

Facing possible death penalties if convicted of first-degree murder, three men have pleaded guilty in exchange for varying prison terms in the April 13, 2008, robbery and shooting of a man entering a North Philadelphia mosque for morning prayer. Jury selection was to have begun Monday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for Walter White, Joel McCleary, and Steven Mack, all 22. Instead, one by one - Mack, then McCleary, and finally, on Thursday, White - pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in the shooting of Quadii Soulimani, as well as conspiracy and multiple robbery counts.