January 21, 2006

LAST June, my brother-in-law, Frank E. Williams, took his first trip to Asia. Along with a sales executive who worked for him at Visa Jewelry, Frank traveled to Hong Kong, which is where all the mainland Chinese costume jewelry manufacturers have their showrooms. Frank wanted to see if there was any way he could save his small costume jewelry business in Rhode Island. Frank recently turned 70, but he's one of those people who is happiest when he's busy; as his wife, my sister Rosemary, wrote in an e-mail message to our family, ''forced retirement is probably the only way Frank would consider it.'' He's been in the costume jewelry business since 1957, starting as an apprentice on the shop floor and rising over time to become a salesman, merchandiser and designer. He bought his own company in 1978, and named it Visa.

Cuba is granted liense to parti¼

Since taking charge at Morgan Stanley last summer, John J. Mack has focused much of his time on two problems: jump-starting growth within the firm's lagging retail and asset management businesses and finding an eventual successor. Now he has taken a tentative step toward resolving both thorny issues in one fell swoop.

A transient worker who was staying with a New Jersey family bludgeoned their two sons to death with a hammer, kidnapped the mother at knifepoint, and was apprehended hours later, cold, wet and confused after hiding in a drainpipe, the authorities said on Friday. The police said the murder suspect, Richard Toledo, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, turned himself in early Friday after the woman had managed to escape and he had been cornered in marshy woods by scores of officers, barking bloodhounds and a police helicopter.

On the seventh day of the new Medicare drug benefit, Stephen Starnes began hearing voices again, ominous voices, and he started to beg for the medications he had been taking for 10 years. But his pharmacy could not get approval from his Medicare drug plan, so Mr. Starnes was admitted to a hospital here for treatment of paranoid schizophrenia. Mr. Starnes, 49, lives in Dayspring Village, a former motel that is licensed by the State of Florida as an assisted living center for people with mental illness. When he gets his medications, he is stable.