The family stories on these pages emerged from readers' letters and interviews with writer Katie Thomas. Though the accounts were edited for clarity and to fit the format of "Our Family Album," our goal throughout was to present them in the voices of the Long Islanders you will meet in this section. The families, old pictures and documents in "Our Family Album" were photographed by Tom Ferrara, with additional photography by Bill Davis, John H. Cornell Jr. and Viorel Florescu.

A few thoughts in the aftermath of that Syracuse University basketball ...

With the exception of a single clipped response, he looked reporters in the eye and spoke in complete and expansive sentences, painful as that might have been. And there was no macho nonsense about him. No bravado. No posturing. Boeheim searched me out one day before the season began and predicted that I'd really like Jonny Flynn, and he was right.

As for Boeheim, I'll grant him his despair and/or anger. But he's the head coach, the figurehead, the spokesman. And he's been on the job for 32 seasons now. So, he decorated himself in little glory by refusing to field any questions after the game he called the "most disappointing" of his career had ended. We all slip here and there, I know. And Boeheim slipped on Saturday. He had a duty to speak on behalf of his program and he didn't, and it made for bad form.

In Africa, Bush wants AIDS plan renewed

But Bush seemed surprised that Obama's name would come up during this victory-lap journey that is celebrating some of his only foreign policies that make him popular."It seemed like there was a lot of excitement for me, wait a minute. Maybe you missed it," he joked during a news conference, speculating that a question about Obama was put to Kikwete instead of him because it was well known that "I wouldn't answer."Kikwete appeared to get the hint, declining at Bush's side even to discuss the prospect of a man with African roots becoming president of the United States."I don't think I can venture into that territory, either," Kikwete said. "The U.S. is going to get a new president, whoever that one is. For us, the most important thing is, let him be as good friend of Africa as President Bush has been." Bush's term ends next January.The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR, has raised the number of Africans on anti-retroviral treatments from 50,000 to 1.2 million.Democrats want to strip requirements that one-third of the money go to abstinence-until-marriage programs and that some groups sign anti-prostitution pledges.Some Democrats also say that Bush's request for $30 billion over the next five years, twice his original commitment of $15 billion, is too little, and would merely continue the program at the current year's ramped-up levels.

Community update

State Blvd.; 421-1320.

HESSEN CASSEL BRANCH: "Paws to Read," read to trained reading dog, 5 p.m. Mondays; "Smart Start Storytime," preschoolers and caregivers, 6:30 p.m. Tuesdays and 10:30 a.m. Wednesdays; "Teen Tuesdays," middle- and high-school students, games and crafts, 3:30 p.m.

Exclusive: Brett Morgen's Chicago 10

We didn't deliver our final film until September and I did a little bit of work on it--I took a few minutes out--but about five weeks ago we were doing a screening at USC for students and I was like, "I better sit in and watch this because I have to start talking about the film again." CS: Are you still happy with the movie and do you think it stands up a year later, especially with the changing climate in the country? Morgen: Listen, I totally stand by the film that we made and since the premiere at Sundance, I read most of the blogs and reviews of the film and sometimes you read that stuff and you read criticism of it and you go, "Damn, I would like to go back and fix that." The criticisms of the film were suggesting I would make a film that I would never make. Some people would occasionally have issues with the music, or the lack of context, those two areas primarily and those were things that I knew would polarize audiences.

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