The image of "Vinnie" peers at customers from atop a video monitor at Costello's Ace Hardware on Long Island, its nose and fingers hanging over the screen.

"Vinnie" is named after Costello's Ace Hardware founder Vincent Costello, known to longtime customers as Vinnie.

Des Plaines, Ill.-based National Association of the Remodeling Industry (NARI) released a post-Hurricane Sandy report from its 12 chapters affected by the northeastern storm.

“Those affected by the storm are now trying to piece lives back together,” says NARI National Chairman Michael Hydeck, president of Hydeck Design Build, in Telford, Pa. “The NARI community is proud to come together and support each other in what will be a long and difficult rebuilding process.”

Two New York men have been arrested and accused of stealing $257,000 from Home Depot stores in an elaborate shoplifting scheme involving two shopping carts containing identical items.

Hurricane lamps

Most employers are reluctant to talk about unions and haven’t done it.

They should switch gears, however, and start encouraging supervisors to discuss unions to prevent their workforces from becoming unionized, as long as supervisors are trained on what they should and should not say, said Robert Brody, an attorney with Brody and Associates in New York and Westport, Conn., in a Nov. 8, 2012, firm webcast.