Neither last month's generally cold weather nor the New Year's Eve snowstorm foretell a brutal winter in 2009, most long-range forecasters said yesterday.

For 100-year-old Ruth Zagon and 105-year-old Hilde Miller, there seems to be no special formula for turning 100 plus years old.

An allegedly defamatory statement made by an attorney in a letter making a settlement offer to an adversary met the publication requirement of a defamation action, a New York state judge has ruled.