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MISINFORMATION: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT Today’s misinformation is from two letters submitted within a few days of each other. This always makes us think that people have been listening to the same misinformed talking heads. The first letter reads, “I don’t have the answers as to why we are exporting oil to other countries. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to keep it here and stop importing more expensive...

The resignation of Gregory Jaczko as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission is a mixed blessing for the nuclear industry. It’s good because plant operators would  just as soon see him gone, but it's bad because he’s not really leaving until his successor is nominated. In a presidential election year, that’s one button that President Barack Obama is unlikely to push, though he should.

Obama...

Everybody likes schoolteachers -- or at least, everyone should -- but New York's teachers aren't doing themselves any favors by lobbying lawmakers to keep teacher evaluations secret. The teachers are worried that evaluations arising from a new system adopted earlier this year will damage teacher morale by becoming public. One proposal, supported by the New York State United Teachers union, would...

Should children conceived using frozen sperm from a deceased father be entitled to collect Social Security survivor benefits? The U.S. Supreme Court said no — if they’re born in Florida. But the answer could be different for children born in another state.

 That’s a nonsensical fact of artificially inseminated life that Congress needs to change. Karen and Robert Capato got married...

A recent, petty snit between New York Police Department Commissioner Ray Kelly and FBI director Robert Mueller is just the sort of thing that undermines homeland security. They need to knock it off.

One urgent recommendation from the 9-11 Commission was more collaboration among the alphabet soup of intelligence, local law enforcement and homeland security agencies.

Their turf-guarding...

The sentencing Monday of Dharun Ravi to a 30-day jail term today provided little closure, for the nation and for the family of Tyler Clementi. Dharun was convicted in March of second-degree bias intimidation and invasion of privacy after he used a remote webcam to watch Clementi, his roommate at Rutgers University, kissing another man. Clementi struggled with the realization that such a private...

Hundreds of parents -- calling themselves a stroller brigade – plan to wheel their charges through the nation’s capitol on Tuesday. They want a ban on suspected cancer-causing chemicals used in babies’ changing table pads, nursing pillows and crib mattresses. Newsday said in an editorial last year that these flame-retarding chemicals produce “only a tiny gain in safety but an increased risk of cancer...

We punish people for entering the country illegally. Now Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) wants to punish people for leaving the country legally. But only if they’re rich and leaving denies Washington a cut of their fortune. Class warfare? Extortion? Maybe. But let’s just call it absurd.

The object of the senator’s ire is Eduardo Saverin, the very rich co-founder of Facebook who became filthy...

For athletes who get hit too hard, too often, and suffer repeated concussions, the brain damage is stunningly similar to what happens to the brains of young Americans exposed to a more intense level of combat, such as roadside bomb explosions in Iraq and Afghanistan.

That’s the finding of a new study published Wednesday in a peer-reviewed journal, Science Translational Medicine. The result...

MISINFORMATION: SETTING THE RECORD STRAIGHT

Ever submitted a letter to the editor and wondered why it wasn’t published? Sometimes – not always – it’s because Newsday’s research revealed that the information in the letter wasn’t quite accurate. So, the letter disappears into a void, which may leave writers wondering what happened. That's why we're introducing this regular feature, Misinformation,...