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In the big bad world of the Internet, Skout may present the scariest forest of them all for children. The wolf waiting around the bend is no longer hiding in vans or ice cream trucks, but playing with kids on the Internet, waiting to pounce.

Skout is a location-based social networking app for flirting (etc.) with nearby strangers.

After creating a profile — with no step for validating...

Thomas Mallon’s obsession with Richard Nixon goes way back — all the way back to the author’s youth on Long Island.

The year was 1968. Nixon was on a campaign swing through Nassau County and Mallon was a 16-year-old Republican from Sewanhaka High School who got to shake the candidate’s hand right there on Hempstead Turnpike in Franklin Square.

For a historical novelist, which is what...

Each year, hundreds of women abused by a boyfriend or spouse reach out to the Nassau Coalition Against Domestic Violence for legal assistance with divorce, custody and other matters.

But when the nonprofit organization’s money from a federal grant ran out last fall, the coalition was the one that desperately needed help.

The organization had to let go of three lawyers and a court advocate...

The situation sounded dire. The Coast Guard got a call Monday afternoon from the captain of a yacht off the New Jersey shore who said an explosion aboard the good ship Blind Date had forced 21 injured and scared passengers into life rafts — and the boat was going down.

The only problem was, the whole thing was a hoax. And it’s not the only such not-so-funny scam, either. Last year more than...

If solar and wind power are to play a significant role in the nation’s energy future, we have to figure out how to store these clean-but-on-again-off-again energy sources from the time electricity is produced until the time when it’s most needed. That means we need much better batteries. Stony Brook University and Brookhaven National Laboratory are working hard on that problem. Now they have a top-flight...

In just a few weeks, folks in the City of Long Beach longing for a bicycle ride will be able to rent two-wheelers at kiosks scattered throughout the city, for just $4 per hour. It’s a great new idea for a place that offers such a wonderful boardwalk bike route, and it could bring a bit of cash to a municipality whose coffers are empty.

The 16 kiosks will be located in various parts of Long...

If there’s any wonder that pensions are costing New Yorkers a pretty penny and threatening municipalities all across the state, a look at the numbers drives home the point.

While it’s our presumption that the pensions were earned legitimately through the labors of their recipients, the sizes of the biggest payouts are telling and the public has a right to this vital information.

A list...

Ground Zero first-responders with cancer are an important step closer to qualifying for compensation and medical care paid for by the federal government.

Dr. John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, recommended Friday adding 50 types of cancer to the list of diseases covered by the $4.3-billion federal fund established to compensate and treat...

It’s an ugly blow to what can be the most beautiful of sports.

The sudden withdrawal of Kentucky Derby and Preakness champion I’ll Have Another from Saturday’s Belmont Stakes will take a huge toll on a New York industry looking for its first good news in years. It also battered lovers of horse racing, like me, who fear the sport is dying out. We saw a chance for a Triple Crown champion as...

The second judge in a matter of days has found the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional. It’s a fast-growing club. Three other judges who’ve parsed the misbegotten statute reached the same conclusion.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives should give up its doomed defense of the discriminatory law, a task it took up after the Obama administration said in February it would no...