The desperate families of two Bay State-bred seafarers at the center of a high-seas hostage-taking by Somali pirates have their faith riding on a guided-missile destroyer the U.S. Navy rushed to the scene to bust up the stalemate.

“The Navy has arrived,” Sarah Moran, the sister-in-law of Capt. Richard P. Phillips, told the Herald last night. Negotiations were still ongoing this morning.

Moran said Phillips, 53, a Winchester native, was still being held captive by the pirates in a lifeboat after pirates apparently released the rest of the ship’s 20-member crew, but Navy officials negotiating with his captors “heard his voice” over a radio.
 

It was unclear what Phillips was saying, she said.

Yesterday’s hijacking 380 miles east of the Somali capital of Mogadishu of the 780-foot cargo ship Maersk Alabama was the first time Somali fortune-seekers successfully attacked an American-flagged vessel in recent history.

“I hope this draws worldwide attention that something has to be done. This isn’t Johnny Depp and ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ This is organized crime,” Capt. Joseph S. Murphy II, a professor of maritime security at Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Bourne, said on behalf of his son, Capt. Shane Murphy, 33, of Seekonk.

Shane Murphy, the Alabama’s chief of security and Phillips’ second in command, had been negotiating with the heavily armed ocean bandits for the return of Phillips, a father of two from Underhill, Vt.

The pirates kidnapped Phillips, whose wife, Andrea, is an Attleboro native, after hijacking the 17,000-ton Alabama early yesterday morning and then returning its control to Murphy and 18 other U.S. crew members.

“Oh dear God, I can’t imagine what life would be like if anything were to happen,” Phillips’ mother-in-law Catherine Coggio, 79, of Vermont said through tears.

“Ironically, there they are bringing food to these damn people,” the Everett native angrily said of the Alabama’s mission to deliver 401 containers of humanitarian food aid to Kenya.

“I don’t understand the ways of the world anymore,” she said.

Joseph Murphy said the pirates used grappling hooks to board the Alabama from its stern after a five-hour struggle to overtake her, then opened fire on the crew.

John F. Reinhart, president and CEO of the Maersk Line, said the ship’s officers are instructed not to resist pirates, but rather to seek the shelter of on-board “safe rooms” if possible.

Coggio said Phillips, a one-time Boston taxi driver, left home less than two weeks ago to meet the Alabama in Dubai. Tuesday he e-mailed her daughter to tell her the Virginia-based Maersk Line “wanted them to tighten up security on their watches” because of the pirates’ plundering of five other vessels in the past week.

Murphy’s wife, Serena, 31, with whom he has two sons - Dylan, 3, and Jaycen, 8 months - said he was able to call her yesterday from the ship once he was back at its helm.

“He said, ‘I just want you to know I’m OK and I love you.’ He said he’s doing the best he can,” she said, cradling Dylan.

Former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican Raymond L. Flynn is giving a thumbs down to Caroline Kennedy as a potential pick for his former diplomatic post, saying the pro-choice values of JFK’s daughter would make the nod “a mistake.”

“It’s imperative, it’s essential that the person who represents us to the Holy See be a person who has a pro-life values. I hope the president doesn’t make that mistake,” Flynn told the Herald yesterday. “She said she was pro-choice. I don’t assume she’s going to change that, which is problematic.”

The Italian press was abuzz yesterday with unconfirmed reports that Kennedy was being eyed by President Obama for the post, an appointment watched closely by U.S. Catholic leaders.
 

Flynn said while he understands the famous Kennedy clan is close to Obama, selecting Caroline could hurt the new president politically as the holiest of weekends approaches.

“Obama picked up 58 percent of the Catholic vote. What does he need a big controversy for on Easter weekend?” Flynn said. “Easter is the season of hope.”

Caroline Kennedy has vanished from the political spotlight after her disastrous bid to win appointment to Hillary Clinton’s New York Senate seat earlier this year.

Former Kennedy staffer Philip Johnston defended Kennedy, saying, “The church is about a lot more than abortion. It’s about human rights and poverty and supporting workers around the world and she is a great symbol of those values.”

According to the Italian publication Panorama, Sen. John F. Kerry asked Obama to consider Caroline Kennedy for the Vatican ambassadorship. Neither Kerry’s office nor the White House would comment yesterday.

Flynn, former Boston mayor and a veteran Democrat, took out several ads during the 2004 presidential campaign scolding then-Democratic presidential nominee Kerry for his pro-choice stance.

“I don’t know how they get out of this. I don’t know how they effectively deal with it now. They need to find someone who is a pro-life Democrat,” Flynn said of the Obama administration. “The president is going to Rome in July and it’s very important that there be an ambassador on the ground at that time.”

Gardaí are questioning two men in relation to the fatal shooting of Roy Collins (35) in Limerick today.

Mr Collins was shot once in the chest at an amusement arcade at the busy Roxboro shopping centre in Limerick over lunchtime.

Gardaí are looking at the possibility the killing was a revenge attack on the Collins family for giving evidence against a leading Limerick gangster.

Two men (aged 19 and 24) were being questioned by officers investigating the shooting, which happened just yards from Roxboro Road garda station.

Inspector Seamus Ruane said a partially burnt-out dark coloured car, believed to have been the getaway car, was found not far from the scene.

“Any witnesses at the scene, we would appeal for them to come forward,” Inspector Ruane said.

“We believe the vehicle was involved in the incident and we have to establish that firmly.”

Mr Collins was working in the arcade, attached to the Steering Wheel pub, when he was shot once in the chest shortly after midday.

He was rushed to the Mid-Western Regional hospital but died a short time later.

Within an hour a squad of armed gardaí, including members of the Regional Support Unit set up last year to tackle the city’s bloody gangs, raided the nearby Ballinacurra area of the city and arrested the two suspects.

They are being questioned by detectives at Roxboro Road and Henry Street Garda stations under section 50 of the Criminal Justice Act.

It is not known how many people were in the amusement arcade but there were a number of customers in the Steering Wheel and gardaí said they would be interviewing everyone in the area.

“There were certainly people in the licensed premises next door, but I don’t know how many people were in the arcade,” Insp Ruane said.

“But there were people around and obviously we’re pursuing that line of investigation.”

NEW YORK - Four hundred years after Henry Hudson sailed his ship Half Moon up a river that would one day bear his name, historians are marking his role in the evolution of a tiny Dutch trading post into a world capital called New York.

The activity includes exhibits by the Museum of the City of New York and the New-York Historical Society, a recreation of the Half Moon's voyage of discovery up the Hudson, and scores of events here and in the Netherlands.

The Englishman's journey under the Dutch flag - Hudson's 17.4-metre ship left Amsterdam on the morning tide of April 4, 1609, and headed west - was yet another attempt by Europeans to find a "northwest passage" to Asia. 

Hudson and his 20 crewmen got only as far as modern-day Albany. But the impact of their voyage continues to this day.

Spurred by Hudson's report of an abundance of beavers, the Dutch sent fur traders to America and by 1621 the newly formed Dutch West India Co. had established a settlement called New Amsterdam where Hudson's river reached the sea.