NightBlogger

The holes blown in New York budgets by Wall Street’s meltdown could reverberate through the Northeast region and beyond, after several years in which the financial capital’s strong performance helped drive national growth. New York state and New York City are preparing to address big budget deficits. And that is bad news for the wider U.S. economy, especially as other powerhouse states reel from job losses and sizable deficits. Next door in New Jersey, tax revenue fell short of projections by $258 million for the first four months of the fiscal year, and state officials there last week said Trenton’s budget deficit could reach $1.2 billion, triple the previous prediction. Neighboring Connecticut’s budget deficit, meanwhile, could hit $6 billion over the next two years. More

LINDSEY TANNER, AP
Surprising research suggests that childhood cancer is most common in the Northeast, results that even caught experts off guard. But some specialists say it could just reflect differences in reporting.

The large government study is the first to find notable regional differences in pediatric cancer. Experts say it also provides important information to bolster smaller studies, confirming that cancer is rare in children, but also more common in older kids, especially among white boys.

The study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is based on data representing 90 percent of the U.S. population. It found that cancer affects about 166 out of every million children, a number that shows just how rare childhood cancers are. More