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From the Associated Press

ROME – Allies of the Italian government have pledged to patch up ties with the Catholic church, after a newspaper in Premier Silvio Berlusconi’s media family attacked a Catholic editor who had demanded he answer allegations in a sex scandal over young women.

Lawmaker Fabrizio Cicchitto, a leader in Berlusconi’s Freedom People party, told Sky TG24 TV Sunday it would be the conservative coalition’s “aim and task to work hard so that there are no lacerations or fractures in relations between the government and the Catholic church.”

Support from Catholic voters is considered crucial for any Italian government to come to power, and good ties with the Vatican are courted by many politicians.

Umberto Bossi, whose Northern League party is the lynchpin of the 15-month-old government, told reporters on Saturday he would go to the Vatican to personally try to shore up ties.

The apparent fraying in relations centers on the scandal that has swirled around Berlusconi since his wife announced this year she was divorcing him for what she said was his “infatuation” with young women. Allegations have included that women were paid to attend parties at his Sardinian villa, while a high-class prostitute said she spent a night with him at his Rome residence.

Berlusconi has denied paying women for sex, and dismisses the scandal as a plot by left-leaning media.

But many, including the daily newspaper Avvenire of Italy’s Catholic Bishops Conference, have demanded more answers from the 72-year-old conservative billionaire media mogul.

On Friday, Milan daily Il Giornale, which is owned by Berlusconi’s family, alleged the Catholic paper’s chief editor had a homosexual scandal in his past. The paper alleged that Dino Boffo had been fined several years ago for harassing the wife of a man in whom he was purportedly interested.

Later that day, the premier scrapped his planned participation in a centuries-old Catholic pardon-seeking ceremony in the earthquake-struck town of L’Aquila, after the Vatican called off his dinner there with Pope Benedict XVI’s top aide, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone.

Berlusconi’s cancellation was widely seen as done out of embarrassment for the Milan paper’s report. Many had viewed his planned participation in the ceremony for pardoning sins as a public relations stroke to boost his popularity with Catholics and his standing with the Vatican.

Boffo denied the allegations against him in an editorial on Sunday.

Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, president of the bishops conference, called Il Giornale’s allegations “disgusting,” and expressed “esteem” for Boffo.

The Vatican has not commented directly about Il Giornale’s report, but its newspaper L’Osservatore Romano carried the bishops conference’s statement professing “full trust” in Boffo.

Berlusconi on Sunday sought to distance himself from the flap, insisting he had had no contact with Il Giornale’s editor over the anti-Boffo article, Italian media reported.

The center-left opposition was left in tatters after Berlusconi swept to his third term as premier in spring 2008 elections, and it is unclear how much political capital it can make of the scandal involving the premier. Italians tend to view politicians’ private lives as none of their business.

From The Associated Press

BRUNSWICK, Ga. – A frantic caller told authorities he had just come home to find several relatives apparently beaten to death and another barely breathing, according to a 911 tape released Monday from the weekend attack at a mobile home park in southeastern Georgia.

“My whole family is dead!” screamed Guy Heinze Jr., 22. “It looks like they’ve been beaten to death. I don’t know what to do, man.”

When authorities arrived Saturday morning, they found seven people dead and two clinging to life. One of the survivors died Sunday, raising the death toll to eight.

Police have refused to say how they were killed or why and have said they don’t know if the killer or killers are still in the area. Heinze was arrested on drug and other charges but police have not called him a suspect in the slaying.

On the 911 call, made from a neighbor’s home, Heinze said his father, uncle and cousins were among the dead. He also pleads with a 911 operator to send help for one of two survivors whose face was “smashed in” but was still breathing. Heinze says the survivor is his cousin Michael and that he has Down syndrome.

“Michael’s alive, tell them to hurry!” Heinze said. “He’s breathing! He needs help!”

Police on Sunday said one man rescued at the scene, 19-year-old Michael Toler, had died at a Savannah hospital. The lone remaining survivor was in critical condition, police said.

Police have said the killer was not among the dead or the last survivor. They also said they have no evidence to suggest that suicide was involved.

Neighbor Margaret Orlinski, who called 911 after Heinze came screaming to her home, told a 911 operator that a baby also lived in the mobile home where the victims were found.

“I know there’s a little baby,” Orlinski says on the recording. “Shoot, there’s a little babe. I don’t know if the baby was in there or not.”

Heinze doesn’t mention a baby on the 911 recording. Police have declined to give ages of the victims, but Glynn County Police Chief Matt Doering has said there were “no infants” among them.

Police have arrested Heinze, the 911 caller, on suspicion of tampering with evidence, lying to police and illegal possession of prescription drugs and marijuana. He was jailed Sunday.

Asked if Heinze was involved in the slayings, Doering said: “I’m not going to rule him out, but I’m not going to characterize him as a suspect.”

Police acknowledged they don’t know if the killer was still out there, urging residents to be aware and cautious.

“The person or persons responsible for this still remain unknown to us,” Doering said Sunday, adding the killer could have fled to another county or even another state. “I cannot tell you if they are at large. I simply do not know.”

The uncertainty has created fear among some in the town.

Resident Toni Mugavin said she wonders if she needs to sleep with a gun under her pillow, afraid the killer is still on the loose. Mugavin expressed frustration with the lack of information about what happened.

“There’s no manhunt, no suspect,” said Mugavin, 50. “There’s nothing specific they’re telling us.”

Earlier, Doering said it was the worst murder case he had ever encountered in his 25 years with the county that includes Brunswick, a city of about 16,000 people between Savannah and Jacksonville, Fla., along Georgia’s southeastern coast.

The slayings happened in a mobile home park on the grounds of a historic plantation, nestled among centuries-old, moss-draped oak trees. The park consists of about 100 spaces and is near the center of New Hope Plantation, according to the plantation’s Web site.

The 1,100-acre tract is all that remains of a Crown grant made in 1763 to Henry Laurens, who later succeeded John Hancock as president of the Continental Congress in 1777.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation was conducting autopsies Sunday on four of the victims. GBI spokesman John Bankhead said Glynn County police would be in charge of releasing any results, and Doering refused to comment on them. He said autopsies on the remaining four victims were to begin Monday.

Doering defended his vague statements about the case, saying he didn’t want the public to know details that might compromise what he called a “tedious” investigation.

Still, the dearth of information has frustrated residents, said Mary Strickland, who owns The Georgia Pig, a popular local barbecue place.

“We got a lot of people who panic and the more information you put out there, the better you make them feel,” Strickland said

From The Associated Press

NEW YORK – Goofy videos weren’t on the minds of Len Kleinrock and his team at UCLA when they began tests 40 years ago on what would become the Internet. Neither was social networking, for that matter, nor were most of the other easy-to-use applications that have drawn more than a billion people online.

Instead the researchers sought to create an open network for freely exchanging information, an openness that ultimately spurred the innovation that would later spawn the likes of YouTube, Facebook and the World Wide Web.

There’s still plenty of room for innovation today, yet the openness fostering it may be eroding. While the Internet is more widely available and faster than ever, artificial barriers threaten to constrict its growth.

Call it a mid-life crisis.

A variety of factors are to blame. Spam and hacking attacks force network operators to erect security firewalls. Authoritarian regimes block access to many sites and services within their borders. And commercial considerations spur policies that can thwart rivals, particularly on mobile devices like the iPhone.

“There is more freedom for the typical Internet user to play, to communicate, to shop — more opportunities than ever before,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a law professor and co-founder of Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. “On the worrisome side, there are some longer-term trends that are making it much more possible (for information) to be controlled.”

Few were paying attention back on Sept. 2, 1969, when about 20 people gathered in Kleinrock’s lab at the University of California, Los Angeles, to watch as two bulky computers passed meaningless test data through a 15-foot gray cable.

That was the beginning of the fledgling Arpanet network. Stanford Research Institute joined a month later, and UC Santa Barbara and the University of Utah did by year’s end.

The 1970s brought e-mail and the TCP/IP communications protocols, which allowed multiple networks to connect — and formed the Internet. The ’80s gave birth to an addressing system with suffixes like “.com” and “.org” in widespread use today.

The Internet didn’t become a household word until the ’90s, though, after a British physicist, Tim Berners-Lee, invented the Web, a subset of the Internet that makes it easier to link resources across disparate locations. Meanwhile, service providers like America Online connected millions of people for the first time.

That early obscurity helped the Internet blossom, free from regulatory and commercial constraints that might discourage or even prohibit experimentation.

“For most of the Internet’s history, no one had heard of it,” Zittrain said. “That gave it time to prove itself functionally and to kind of take root.”

Even the U.S. government, which funded much of the Internet’s early development as a military project, largely left it alone, allowing its engineers to promote their ideal of an open network.

When Berners-Lee, working at a European physics lab, invented the Web in 1990, he could release it to the world without having to seek permission or contend with security firewalls that today treat unknown types of Internet traffic as suspect.

Even the free flow of pornography led to innovations in Internet credit card payments, online video and other technologies used in the mainstream today.

“Allow that open access, and a thousand flowers bloom,” said Kleinrock, a UCLA professor since 1963. “One thing about the Internet you can predict is you will be surprised by applications you did not expect.”

That idealism is eroding.

An ongoing dispute between Google Inc. and Apple Inc. underscores one such barrier.

Like some other mobile devices that connect to the Internet, the iPhone restricts the software that can run on it. Only applications Apple has vetted are allowed.

Apple recently blocked the Google Voice communications application, saying it overrides the iPhone’s built-in interface. Skeptics, however, suggest the move thwarts Google’s potentially competing phone services.

On desktop computers, some Internet access providers have erected barriers to curb bandwidth-gobbling file-sharing services used by their subscribers. Comcast Corp. got rebuked by Federal Communications Commission last year for blocking or delaying some forms of file-sharing; Comcast ultimately agreed to stop that.

The episode galvanized calls for the government to require “net neutrality,” which essentially means that a service provider could not favor certain forms of data traffic over others. But that wouldn’t be a new rule as much as a return to the principles that drove the network Kleinrock and his colleagues began building 40 years ago.

Even if service providers don’t actively interfere with traffic, they can discourage consumers’ unfettered use of the Internet with caps on monthly data usage. Some access providers are testing drastically lower limits that could mean extra charges for watching just a few DVD-quality movies online.

“You are less likely to try things out,” said Vint Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist and one of the Internet’s founding fathers. “No one wants a surprise bill at the end of the month.”

Dave Farber, a former chief technologist at the Federal Communications Commission, said systems are far more powerful when software developers and consumers alike can simply try things out.

Farber has unlocked an older iPhone using a warrantee-voiding technique known as jail-breaking, allowing the phone to run software that Apple hasn’t approved. By doing that, he could watch video before Apple supported it in the most recent version of the iPhone, and he changed the screen display when the phone is idle to give him a summary of appointments and e-mails.

While Apple insists its reviews are necessary to protect children and consumer privacy and to avoid degrading phone performance, other phone developers are trying to preserve the type of openness found on desktop computers. Google’s Android system, for instance, allows anyone to write and distribute software without permission.

Yet even on the desktop, other barriers get in the way.

Steve Crocker, an Internet pioneer who now heads the startup Shinkuro Inc., said his company has had a tough time building technology that helps people in different companies collaborate because of security firewalls that are ubiquitous on the Internet. Simply put, firewalls are designed to block incoming connections, making direct interactions between users challenging, if not impossible.

No one’s suggesting the removal of all barriers, of course. Security firewalls and spam filters became crucial as the Internet grew and attracted malicious behavior, much as traffic lights eventually had to be erected as cars flooded the roads. Removing those barriers could create larger problems.

And many barriers throughout history eventually fell away — often under pressure. Early on, AOL was notorious for discouraging users from venturing from its gated community onto the broader Web. The company gradually opened the doors as its subscribers complained or fled. Today, the company is rebuilding its business around that open Internet.

What the Internet’s leading engineers are trying to avoid are barriers that are so burdensome that they squash emerging ideas before they can take hold.

Already, there is evidence of controls at workplaces and service providers slowing the uptake of file-sharing and collaboration tools. Video could be next if consumers shun higher-quality and longer clips for fear of incurring extra bandwidth fees. Likewise, startups may never get a chance to reach users if mobile gatekeepers won’t allow them.

If such barriers keep innovations from the hands of consumers, we may never know what else we may be missing along the way.

From The Associated Press

LOS ANGELES – Wildfire threatened 12,000 suburban homes and rained ash on cars as far away as downtown Los Angeles on Sunday, spreading in all directions in hot, dry conditions. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger urged those in the fire’s path to listen to authorities and get out.

Firefighters fixed their attention on the blaze’s fast-moving northern front as more evacuations were ordered.

While thousands have fled, two people who tried to ride out the firestorm in a backyard hot tub were critically burned. The pair in Big Tujunga Canyon, on the southwestern edge of the fire, “completely underestimated the fire” and the hot tub provided “no protection whatsoever,” Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said Sunday.

The two individuals made their way to firefighters and were airlifted out by a sheriff’s rescue helicopter. They received adequate notification to evacuate from deputies but decided to stay, Whitmore said.

One of the two was treated and released and the other remained hospitalized in stable condition. A third person was burned Saturday in an evacuation area along Highway 2 near Mount Wilson, officials said. Details of that injury were not immediately known.

“There were people that did not listen, and there were three people that got burned and got critically injured because they did not listen,” Schwarzenegger said at a news conference at the fire command post.

The blaze was only about 5 percent contained and had scorched 55 square miles in the Angeles National Forest. Mandatory evacuations were in effect for neighborhoods in Glendale, Pasadena and other cities and towns north of Los Angeles. Officials said air quality in parts of the foothills bordered on hazardous.

At least three homes deep in the Angeles National Forest were confirmed destroyed, but firefighters were likely to find others, Dietrich said.

Firefighters hoped to keep the blaze from spreading up Mount Wilson, where many of the region’s broadcast and communications antennas and a historic observatory are located. Flames were within two miles of the towers Sunday, fire officials said.

For the third straight day, humidity was very low and temperatures were expected in the high 90s. Some 2,000 firefighters were battling the blaze.

Mandatory evacuations were also in effect for neighborhoods in Altadena and for the communities of Acton, La Canada Flintridge, La Crescenta and Big Tujunga Canyon.

There was some progress Sunday, as a small number of La Canada Flintridge residents living west of the Arroyo Seco were told they could go back to their homes.

But more evacuations were ordered in the small town of Acton in the Antelope Valley, and school districts in La Canada Flintridge and Glendale announced that classes were canceled Monday because of the fire.

The fire traveled six to eight miles overnight, burning as actively after dark as it did during the day, said Forest Service Capt. Mike Dietrich. Dietrich said he had never seen a fire grow so quickly without powerful Santa Ana winds to push it.

“The leading edge, the one they’re really focused on, is that northern edge. It’s moving pretty fast up in that direction,” said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Randi Jorgenson. “But the fire’s growing in all directions. All fronts are going to be areas of concern today.”

Fixed-wing aircraft and a DC-10 jumbo jet were dropping water and flame retardant on the fire.

At the fire command post, Schwarzenegger praised firefighters for successfully protecting subdivisions in the foothills.

Rob Driscoll and his wife, Beth Halaas, said they lost their house in Big Tujunga Canyon. By Sunday morning they were desperate for more information and came to the command post to get answers.

“Our neighbors sent us photos of all the other houses that are lost,” Halaas said, her voice breaking as her young son nestled his sunburned face in her arms. “We’ve heard as many as 30 houses burned.”

Driscoll said 15 of his neighbors who live on private property within the forest were still waiting for word on their homes. Fire officials assured them teams were working to survey the damage.

At least 12 evacuation centers were set up at schools and community centers in the area.

The center at Crescenta Valley High School filled up after evacuation orders came down at about 2 a.m., but by Sunday afternoon fewer than two dozen people remained. Residents trickled in to get information and snacks.

Debbie and Mercer Barrows said their house was saved but they lost their scenic view of a hillside to the flames.

“That’ll grow back,” said Mercer Barrows, a TV producer.

The Barrows didn’t consider staying in their home because there’s only one way in to their La Crescenta neighborhood.

“It depends where your house is, if you can see what’s coming. If you’re up next to steep and heavy brush like we are, forget it,” Barrows said.

The fire, which broke out Wednesday afternoon, was the largest and most dangerous of several burning around southern and central California and in Yosemite National Park.

A second fire in the Angeles National Forest was burning several miles to the east in a canyon above the city of Azusa. The 3.4-square-mile blaze, which started Tuesday afternoon, was 95 percent contained Sunday. No homes were threatened, and full containment was expected by Monday.

A wildfire on the Palos Verdes Peninsula on the south Los Angeles County coast was 100 percent contained, according to county fire officials.

Southeast of Los Angeles in Riverside County, a 3.8-square-mile fire in a rural area of the San Bernardino National Forest was 75 percent contained as it burned in steep, rocky terrain in Beeb Canyon. No structures were threatened.

To the north, in the state’s coastal midsection, all evacuation orders were lifted Sunday after a 10-square-mile fire burned near the Monterey County town of Soledad. The blaze, 80 percent contained, was started by agricultural fireworks used to scare animals away from crops. The fire destroyed one home.

In Mariposa County, a nearly 7-square-mile fire burned in Yosemite National Park. The blaze was 50 percent contained Sunday, said park spokeswoman Vickie Mates. Two people sustained minor injuries, she said.

Park officials closed a campground and a portion of Highway 120, anticipating that the fire would spread north toward Tioga Road, the highest elevation route through the Sierra.

About 50 homes in the towns of El Portal and Foresta were under evacuation orders and roads in the area will remain closed through Monday, Mates said.

From The Associated Press

AMSTERDAM – It’s not green cheese, but it might as well be.

The Dutch national museum said Thursday that one of its prized possessions, a rock supposedly brought back from the moon by U.S. astronauts, is just a piece of petrified wood.

Rijksmuseum spokeswoman Xandra van Gelder, who oversaw the investigation that proved the piece was a fake, said the museum will keep it anyway as a curiosity.

“It’s a good story, with some questions that are still unanswered,” she said. “We can laugh about it.”

The museum acquired the rock after the death of former Prime Minister Willem Drees in 1988. Drees received it as a private gift on Oct. 9, 1969 from then-U.S. ambassador J. William Middendorf during a visit by the three Apollo 11 astronauts, part of their “Giant Leap” goodwill tour after the first moon landing.

Middendorf, who lives in Rhode Island, told Dutch broadcaster NOS news that he had gotten it from the U.S. State Department, but couldn’t recall the exact details.

“I do remember that (Drees) was very interested in the little piece of stone,” the NOS quoted Middendorf as saying. “But that it’s not real, I don’t know anything about that.”

He could not immediately be reached for comment Thursday.

The U.S. Embassy in the Hague said it was investigating the matter.

The museum had vetted the moon rock with a phone call to NASA, Van Gelder said.

She said the space agency told the museum then that it was possible the Netherlands had received a rock: NASA gave moon rocks to more than 100 countries in the early 1970s, but those were from later missions.

“Apparently no one thought to doubt it, since it came from the prime minister’s collection,” Van Gelder said.

The rock is not usually on display; the museum is primarily known for its paintings and other works of fine art by masters such as Rembrandt.

A jagged fist-size stone with reddish tints, it was mounted and placed above a plaque that said, “With the compliments of the Ambassador of the United States of America … to commemorate the visit to The Netherlands of the Apollo-11 astronauts.” The plaque does not specify that the rock came from the moon’s surface

It was given at the opening of an exhibition on space exploration.

It was on show in 2006 and a space expert informed the museum it was unlikely NASA would have given away any moon rocks three months after Apollo returned to Earth.

Researchers from Amsterdam’s Free University said they could see at a glance the rock was probably not from the moon. They followed the initial appraisal up with extensive testing.

“It’s a nondescript, pretty-much-worthless stone,” Geologist Frank Beunk concluded in an article published by the museum.

He said the rock, which the museum at one point insured for more than half a million dollars, was worth no more than euro50 ($70).

Van Gelder said one important unanswered question is why Drees was given the stone. He was 83 years old in 1969 and had been out of office for 11 years. On the other hand, he was the country’s elder statesman, the prime minister who helped the Netherlands rebuild after World War II.

Middendorf was treasurer of the Republic National Committee from 1965 until 1969, when President Richard Nixon dispatched him to the Netherlands.

WEST HAVEN, Conn. – After a five year absence, the University of New Haven football team returns to the gridiron in 2009 as a member of the Northeast-10 Conference. The Chargers have spent the entire 2008 and 2009 calendar years to recruit over 80 student-athletes that make up the 2009 roster. One student-athlete returns from the ’03 squad, another recently celebrated his 43rd birthday and 19 student-athletes hail from the state of Connecticut.

Leading the way for the Chargers will be a core of student-athletes that reported last fall to begin the process of rebuilding the program. Nearly 15 coaches have helped to recruit and guide the student-athletes through the development process. The 2009 roster boasts 43 freshmen, 35 sophomores and seven upperclassmen.

Under first-year head coach Peter Rossomando, the Chargers will feature multiple different offensive and defensive schemes. On the offensive side, UNH will often showcase one tailback and three-or-more receivers. On the defensive side, the Chargers will display multiple three-man fronts. While captains will not be selected for the 2009 season, two Connecticut natives will find themselves in leadership rolls as the season unfolds. Seymour High School graduate, Ryan Osieski will lead the team as the starting quarterback, while Weaver High School graduate and the 2007 Hartford Courant Defensive Player of the Year, Reheem Stanley will anchor the UNH defense at nose guard.

Offense
Osieski leads a talented pack of quarterbacks in the 2009 season. With experience at the University of Louisville as a walk-on freshman last fall, Osieski earned the starting quarterback position after strenuous spring and offseason workouts. Battling for the backup position is a trio of Brice DeRosa, Bernard Risco and Ronnie Nelson.

Leading the way in the backfield will be second-year running back, Mike DeCaro. A 2008 graduate of Cypress Bay High School in Weston, Fla., DeCaro will often be the only back in the Chargers’ single-back formations. Others in the backfield will be a pair of sophomores, Andrew Nass and Victor Jones, and two highly touted freshmen, Brian Alston and Scott Lowery. Nass graduated from Hasbrouck Heights High School in New Jersey in 2008 and spent last season at Iona College, while Jones is a second-year player from Patterson, New Jersey. Alston rushed for over 2,000 yard in high school in Robbinsville, N.J. and Lowery was selected to the Bergen County All-Star Team at Paramus Catholic High School (N.J.).

The Chargers wide receiver corps will be anchored by a solid core of second year players, Chris Ruffin and Sharieff Hall, who were both part of the Chargers spring roster. Hall played the 2008 season at Bethune Cookman University in Daytona Beach, Fla., while Ruffin played his prep ball in New York with the Harlem Hellfighters and led the state in receptions in 2007. The third part of the wide receiving trio will be sophomore Demetrius Washington-Ellison who played at the University of Maine last season. The transfer was a 2007 All-State performer at Rahway High School in New Jersey. Adding to the receiving corps depth is another second-year player in Kareem Cutler. An All-State honoree, Cutler played at Charlestown High School (Mass.). One of the Chargers’ great stories this season is senior wide receiver Devin Robinson, who will add senior leadership to the team. Robinson played for the Chargers in 2003 and returns this season to complete his final year of eligibility. A variety of freshman, including Josh Smart, will add strength to the position as they develop throughout the season.

The offensive line will be spearheaded by sophomore left guard David Stedman and sophomore center John Irwin. Stedman helped lead the Hasbrouck Heights Aviators to the New Jersey State Championship during his high school career. Irwin, who started with the Chargers last fall, attended Burlington Township High School in New Jersey. Completing the left side of the line will be the third sophomore, Lance Chapman. Chapman was a three-year letter winner at South Glenns Falls High School in New York. After starting two seasons at Stonehill College, junior transfer Branden Naraine adds experience at the right tackle position for UNH. The right guard position will most likely be filled by either Zach Conklin or Robert Pysz, who may share playing time throughout the season. Conklin, a freshman from Otisville, N.Y., was an All-State selection in high school, while Pysz, a transfer from Iona College, helped guide Seymour High School to the 2007 Connecticut State Championship. Also vying for playing time on the offensive line will be freshmen James Malloy, Sami Caygoz, Greg Waters, Ryan Mousley and Thierry Andris.

The battle for the Chargers’ tight end position is a tight one. Four players will all see significant playing time at the position, including second year players Kameel Lashley, Jake Stark, Zachary Vonder Linden and Brandon Ruberti. Prior to UNH, Lashley played at Brighton High School and earned a place in the Shriners All-Star game, while Ruberti earned All-Conference and All-Area honors at Daniel Hand High School. A converted linebacker, Vonder Linden was an All-County selection at Vernon Township High School in New Jersey. Stark earned All-Sussex County honors at Kittatinny Regional High School in Newton, New Jersey two years ago.

Defense
Anchoring the defensive line at nose guard this season will be sophomore Reheem Stanley. Stanley was not only the Courant Defensive Player of the Year, but also a two-time All-Conference selection at Weaver High School. A freshman and sophomore duo, Angelo Cupo and Ahmet Basci will start at the defensive end positions. Cupo, from Coral Springs, Fla., prepped at North Broward and earned Second Team All-Sun Sentinal honors. Basci has helped lead the Chargers since last fall and came to UNH after completing three All-League seasons at Fair Lawn High School in New Jersey. Forty-three year old sophomore, Wayne Parks will back up Stanley at the nose guard position. Parks, also a firefighter in Fairfield County, joined the team last year and has helped play a leadership role on the defensive side of the ball. Chidoziem Ezemma and Alex Quinn will also vie for playing time at the defensive end positions.

Leading a group of second-year players at the inside linebacker positions will be Cody Wallace out of New Milford, Connecticut. Wallace was an All-State and a two-time All-Conference selection and has been one of the team leaders since last fall. The second inside linebacker position is highly contested between Akaki Ramishvili, Joshua Turner and Moses White who will all be competing for quality playing time.

The outside linebacker position is one of the deepest positions on the team, if one exists. Robert Hill, Brian LaSure and Rich Long will all be seeing significant playing time at the two positions. Hill, a sophomore, spent last season at Dean Junior College. LaSure will be a junior, after transferring from Southern Connecticut State in the offseason. LaSure saw action in nine games during his tenure with the Owls. Long is another one-year transfer from Iona College. Richard Roberts and Tom Herd will also be vital parts to the outside linebacker corps, competing for playing time and adding depth. Roberts played at Woodland Regional High School in Prospect, Conn., while Herd was an All-Sussex County Interscholastic League selection at Sparta High School (N.J.).

The Chargers’ secondary will feature two second-year players at the corner positions and a group of five competing for playing time at the two safety positions. Desmond Anderson and Jon Jackson will be the Chargers starting cornerbacks. Anderson, a transfer from Becker College, played in nine games last season. Jackson was a team captain for the two-time state champions of Bunnell High School in Stratford, Conn. Josh Smith and Ronnie Driesse-Darden are two outstanding freshmen that will also be pushing for playing time on the corners. Spearheading the strong safety position this season will be second-year player Mike Gomes, of Brockton High School in Massachusetts. Anthony Fils, Lenroy Neysmith, David McKinnie and Tyler Parker will all compete for playing time at the free safety position this season.

Special Teams
Taking a majority of the kicking and punting responsibilities this season will be freshman Michael Herrera. Herrera, from Tamarac, Fla. was a two-time All-Broward County selection at J.P. Taravella High School. Splitting some of the place kicking duties, with Herrera, will be junior Stephen Ward from Urbana High School in Ijamsville, Maryland.

With outstanding breakaway speed and ability to see the field, wide receiver Sharieff Hall will be returning kicks for the Chargers this season. Also returning kickoffs will be quarterback Bernard Risco.

Long snapping duties will be the responsibility of sophomore defensive back Mike Gomes and freshman offensive lineman Greg Waters.

Schedule
Projected to finish ninth in the Northeast-10 Conference Preseason Poll, the Charger football program looks to improve from their preseason positioning with wins over a variety of new and old opponents. The team officially returns to the field on Saturday, September 5, 2009 when they travel to Lincoln University (Pa.). The Lions, like the Chargers, took a 47-year hiatus before the program returned a season ago and went 1-9. Six days later the Chargers open their NE-10 schedule when they travel to Worcester, Mass. to take on Assumption College.

The Chargers home opener is in week three, when they host Bentley University at the new DellaCamera Stadium. Homecoming will return to the West Haven campus in week four when UNH hosts Stonehill College on Saturday, September 26. On October 2 at 7 p.m. the Chargers renew their cross-town rivalry with NE-10 preseason favorites, Southern Connecticut State University at Jess Dow Field, with conference records on the line for the first time in the rivalry. NE-10 preseason No. 2 American International College travels to DellaCamera Stadium the following week and New Haven takes a road trip to Merrimack College on October 17.

Pace University, St. Anselm College and a non-conference game with Ohio Dominican round out the Chargers’ final three Saturdays.

From The Associated Press

Americans tired of having their dinners interrupted by phone calls touting car warranties or vacation packages will soon get some relief.

The Federal Trade Commission said Thursday it is banning many types of prerecorded telemarketing solicitations, known as robocalls. Currently, consumers must specifically join a do-not-call list to avoid them. Starting Sept. 1, telemarketers will first need written permission from the customer to make such calls.

“American consumers have made it crystal clear that few things annoy them more than the billions of commercial telemarketing robocalls they receive every year,” said Jon Leibowitz, chairman of the FTC.

Violators will face penalties of up to $16,000 per call.

Don’t expect phone solicitations to disappear completely, though.

Calls that are not trying to sell goods and services to consumers will be exempt, such as those that provide information like flight cancellations and delivery notices and those from debt collectors.

Other calls not covered include those from politicians, charities that contact consumers directly, banks, insurers, phone companies, surveys and certain health care messages such as prescription notifications. The FTC said those don’t fall under its jurisdiction.

And calls made by humans rather than automated systems will still be allowed, unless the phone number is on the National Do Not Call Registry.

But the FTC said the ban should cover most robocalls, forcing marketers to turn to more expensive live calls, or ramp up efforts in direct mail, e-mail and TV ads.

The ban is part of amendments to the FTC’s Telemarketing Sales Rule announced a year ago.

Because the ban has been known, telemarketers already have been phasing out robocalls, said Tim Searcy, chief executive of the American Teleservices Association, a trade group whose members include telemarketers.

He said the public won’t see much of a change.

“For the consumer, the behavior is going to look the same Sept. 1 as it did Aug. 31,” he said.

Searcy also said the ban will do little to stop calls touting illegal scams.

People who get an unauthorized call can file complaints with the commission online or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP.

“If consumers think they’re being harassed by robocallers, they need to let us know, and we will go after them,” Leibowitz said.

From the Associated Press

BOSTON – Heavy rain and dangerous rip currents from a weak tropical system emptied East Coast beaches for a second straight late-summer weekend, while a Pacific hurricane grew stronger Saturday and threatened the Mexican coast.

Jimena, the 10th named storm of the Pacific season, quickly became a Category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph (130 kmh).

Fueled by warm Pacific waters, Jimena could be a major Category 3 hurricane by Sunday as it tracked north-northwest at 12 mph about 655 miles (1,055 km) off the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula. It was 270 miles (435 km) south of Manzanillo, Mexico.

Farther out in the Pacific, Tropical Storm Kevin formed with top winds of 45 mph (75 kph). The storm’s center on Saturday afternoon was about 1,065 miles (1,720 kilometers) southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. The storm could get stronger as it moves to the west-northwest, forecasters said.

Remnants of Tropical Storm Danny spun miles offshore in the Atlantic, causing mostly rain in the East. National Hurricane Center forecasters said Danny had been mostly absorbed by a low pressure system associated with a cold front over North Carolina.

“We were expecting that that was going to happen sooner or later. It happened a little bit sooner,” said senior hurricane specialist Lixion Avila. “Basically Danny has been swallowed by the big low.”

In Boston, heavy rain fell on hundreds lining sidewalks as the funeral procession of Sen. Edward Kennedy passed through the city. A flood watch remained in effect for parts of Massachusetts as beaches were ordered closed and public ferry services in and around Boston were canceled. Cape Code and nearby islands were expecting 40 mph winds later Saturday.

“We getting a number of reports of 2 to 4 inches of rain in the area,” said Kim Buttrick, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Taunton, Mass. “Wind isn’t a factor now, but a wind advisory is in effect for the islands until this evening.”

Towns along the Connecticut shore were prepared for the storm and had sandbags and water pumps placed on standby.

Large waves kept most people out of the water at beaches along the New Jersey shore Saturday, the second straight weekend marred by a tropical storm system.

Waves as high as 6 to 8 feet were reported up and down the Jersey coast by late Saturday morning, and forecasters said the waves could be slightly higher as the day progressed. But those conditions were expected to improve during the overnight hours into Sunday, when wave heights were expected to return to normal.

No injuries were reported, though authorities in Fair Lawn, N.J., rescued nine people trapped in five vehicles along a flooded street.

In North Carolina, tropical storm watches for the coast were discontinued, but people were urged to be cautious near the water.

The dangers of storm-agitated seas were demonstrated when a young boy disappeared Friday in rough surf off North Carolina. His mother reported seeing him go underwater off the town of Corolla, not far from the Virginia line. His body board washed ashore without him.

The Coast Guard and local authorities spent hours looking for the 12-year-old boy but called off the search Friday evening and didn’t expect to continue searching Saturday.

Coast Guard spokesman Lt. j.g. Scott Hembrook said the waves in the area were about 4 to 6 feet tall.

In New York’s Long Island, Nassau County’s health department closed 20 beaches Saturday because of heavy rainfall. Suffolk County closed two beaches and advised against bathing at 64 more.

Storm water runoff often leads to sewage discharges and elevated bacteria levels on Long Island sound.

Health officials say the beaches will be reopened once tidal cycles have flushed the area.

It is not surprising to find a person’s home filled with guest rooms, master bedrooms, dining areas, and an emergency exit just out the window with a latter dangling down to the first story of the building. But what is shocking is that a small Prairie Dog only 12 to 15 inches long can actually incorporate many rooms with different purposes in their underground tunnels. For instance, Black-tailed Prairie Dogs build large towns that may cover less than half a square mile. These towns are divided into neighborhoods which are in turn divided into households owned by separate families. A family usually consists of one male and a few females along with children who at times greet each other by nuzzling or by giving each other a quick kiss. Each burrow contains a nursery, bedrooms lined with dried grass, bathrooms which they clean periodically, and a listening room near the entrance which is filled with a mound of dirt to prevent floods inside the burrow and to also keep a lookout for predators.

                Black-tailed Prairie Dogs live in Plains ranging from Southern Canada all the way through North America and into the northern part of Mexico. They are considered one of the most abundant rodents and are listed as pests among farmers due to the fact that their main source of food is plants although they sometimes eat insects. Their lifespan range to about 3 to 4 years and during these few years they may produce about 3 to 8 offspring at a time. Prairie Dogs are so named for the barking calls that they make when there is danger and what is interesting is that each bark has a distinct sound depending on what predator is nearby whether it is an owl or a badger. As soon as the call is heard, other Prairie Dogs immediately hide in their burrow.

DID YOU KNOW? The largest reported population among Prairie Dogs was recorded in the 1900’s where a large town consisted of 400 million of these rodents found in Texas. The Prairie Dogs  occupied about 100 by 250 miles of land.