Time to Change: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy...

Time to Change: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) reportedly has acknowledged to a friend, Sen. Orrin Hatch, that he should stop drinking but made no promises. The Utah Republican said in the Boston Herald: “I said, ‘It’s time to change. It’s time to quit drinking.’ . . . He said, ‘I know.’ . . . He knows sooner or later he must come to grips with these things.” A Kennedy spokesman late last week declined to comment.

Abuse Uncovered: A former Miss America said her millionaire father pulled a gun and threatened to kill himself and her if she revealed that he sexually assaulted her for 13 years. Late last week, Marilyn Van Derbur Atler, who was Miss America 1958, told more than 500 people at a Denver church that her father victimized her from age 5 to age 18. Her father, Francis Van Derbur, died in 1984. Van Derbur said she went public to help families make the crime of incest “speakable.”

Save It: Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis says she’s “passionate about preservation” of architecture and heritage. In a letter to Parade magazine, Onassis encourages people to think about saving architecture as part of preserving the environment: “We are the only country in the world that trashes its old buildings, old neighborhoods. Too late we realize how much we need them.”

Barking Up Wrong Tree: Many pet owners might consider their dog a member of the family, but Brazilian Labor Minister Antonio Magri apparently takes the notion literally. Magri, known for his frequent foot-in-mouth statements, was asked by a radio interviewer in Rio de Janeiro why his wife had used a government van to take the family dog to the vet. “Anybody would have done it,” Magri sniffed. “A dog is a human being like anyone else.”