And another thing …

Maine officials are irate that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which proposes listing Atlantic salmon as an endangered species in eight Maine rivers, plans to spend just $1.2 million to save what it calls the last truly wild remnants while it lavishes $6.2 million on artificial stocking in New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and Connecticut, where wild runs are extinct. If that has Maine officials peeved, wait until they see the kind of money USFWS wants to put into its Pterodactyl Program.

A Manhattan judge has halted New York University’s plans to demolish a row of Greenwich Village houses, including one where Edgar Allan Poe once lived. NYU, which uses the old buildings for administrative offices and wants the lot to expand its law school, says the objections by preservationists are misguided, since Poe lived there for only a few months in 1845 and the house in question has been remodeled numerous times, diminishing its historical value. Besides, the thumping from under the floor is driving everyone nuts.

In one recent news story, we learn that the three most powerful computers in the world are at the three Department of Energy laboratories – Sandia, Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos. In a second, we’re told that, although New England’s heating oil inventories are 45 percent lower than they were a year ago, DOE can’t predict whether the region will relive the fuel shortage it shivered through last winter. In a third, we proudly note that DOE has successfully defended its title at the Federal Agency Computer Solitaire Championships.

With Maine set to vote in November on legalizing video lottery terminals – electronic slot machines – it might be instructive to look at Detroit, which has just concluded its first year of casino gambling. The two Motor City joints take in about $2 million a day, the city’s take for the year was about $50 million, Gamblers Anonymous of Detroit says it saw a 200 percent rise in demand, calls to the state’s toll-free compulsive gambling help line shot up from 1,800 a month to more than 5,200, several churches have started special collections for tapped-out families, sales of Michigan Lottery tickets, which support school funding, have plummeted and one distraught player recently shot himself to death at the blackjack table. Overall, call it a draw.s

Two weeks ago, Anthony Feliciano of Martinsburg, W.Va., was a hero: When an armed robber leveled a sawed-off rifle at a co-worker, the 7-Eleven clerk tackled and disarmed the assailant. Now Mr. Feliciano is an unemployed hero: He’s been fired for violating company policy that prohibits employees from doing anything but just handing over the cash. “No asset in a 7-Eleven store is worth defending with an employee’s life,” officials said in a statement. No doubt the asset staring down the barrel of that sawed-off rifle takes a different view.

Though the target of nationwide ridicule for the enormous and inexplicable cost overruns in the Big Dig, Boston is giving the mega-project game another try with a new $660-million ballpark for the Red Sox. The new $770-million ballpark will replace the 88-year-old Fenway and will seat 44,000 fans. The new $880-million ballpark is expected to ready for Opening Day in 2003.