MAKING A COMEBACK
The California gray whale today became the first marine animal to be removed from the endangered species list. The gray beauties have been on the "protected" roster since 1967, but recent surveys estimate they now number 21,000 -- about equal to their population before the whalers nearly wiped them out. Though the gray whales' comeback has been declared a success by the government, some environmentalists worry that the move is premature and will send the wrong message to whale-hunting nations such as Norway and Japan.
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RAY KELLY, New York City Police Commissioner, on the arrest of a New Jersey man in one of the nation's most baffling missing-children cases, the disappearance more than three decades ago of 6-year-old Etan Patz.
