While there is no districtwide ban on contact sports during recess, local rules have been cropping up. Several school administrators around Attleboro, a city of about 45,000 residents, took aim at dodgeball a few years ago, saying it was exclusionary and dangerous.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., also recently banned tag during recess. A suburban Charleston, S.C., school outlawed all unsupervised contact sports.

"I think that it's unfortunate that kids' lives are micromanaged and there are social skills they'll never develop on their own," said Debbie Laferriere, who has two children at Willett, about 40 miles south of Boston. "Playing tag is just part of being a kid."

Another Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said.

One homeless man was set ablaze in his wheelchair in Spokane, Wash.; another man was beaten with baseball bats in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; a homeless woman was drowned by two young men who rolled her into Tennessee's Cumberland River while she slept.

The hate behind this brutality is not fostered in rural Klan rallies or overseas terrorist camps, but in high school locker rooms and suburban living rooms. While homeless people have often been stereotyped as worthless, depraved, and disposable, prejudice now has a potent new ally: "bum rushing" videos.

This twisted fad has inspired some youths to kill for the "fun" of emulating what they see on a video screen. One group of teens inspired by these videos murdered Michael Roberts, a frail homeless man who succumbed after being relentlessly pummeled by nail-studded two-by-fours and a log in Holly Hill, Fla. Teens buy and trade hundreds of thousands of these videos, making their producers rich. They also film their own assaults, broadcasting them online.

In the first nine months of 2006, 36 of 58 known homeless attackers were teens ages 14 to 19. Such violence seems to be correlated with the rise of bum videos. The number of reported incidents in 2003 nearly doubled, jumping from 36 reported attacks in 2002 to 70 in 2003. The number of nonlethal attacks reached 77 through the end of this September.

In Calgary, Alberta, youths filmed themselves beating and urinating on a homeless man, and screaming out "bum fights!" In Los Angeles, a youth admitted that he, too, was inspired to kill a homeless man with an aluminum baseball bat after viewing a video.

Perhaps most disturbing is not the media's influence on violence and prejudice, but the nation's almost casual acceptance of this violence and the images that derive from it.

If any other minority group reported hate- crime homicide numbers this high there would be a national outcry for justice. A comparison by the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino, and the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH), found that from 1999 to 2005 there were 167 homeless homicides by domiciled attackers. The number of these killings is more than double the number of all other officially tabulated hate- crime homicides combined. The glaring disparity underscores the case for action. But how do we act?

We need to enhance data collection by law enforcement and improve outreach to the homeless community. Homelessness must be added to vulnerable-victim laws and hate-crime legislation.

Officials should work to raise community awareness so neighbors can help eradicate homelessness altogether, not just remove it from their own line of vision. Community education efforts should model the NCH's Faces of Homelessness Speakers' Bureau. The Bureau is made up of of current and former homeless people who give talks to break stereotypes. This year, this panel has made more than 300 appearances, speaking to more than 17,000 people, mostly youths.

Their work is leading the way to stop the dehumanization of those without homes. Without further effort, violence against the homeless will continue. The burden falls on all our shoulders to end homelessness. Until the day when all Americans are housed, the least we can do is ensure their safety.

Michael Stoops is acting executive director of the National Coalition for the Homeless in Washington. Brian Levin is director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at California State University, San Bernardino.

As the Cheyenne ascended after takeoff, an air traffic controller radioed the pilot to warn him about vapor seen coming from the right engine, Gregor said. The pilot radioed back saying he didn't think it was a problem.

The MiG pilot told investigators he thought he had a problem with a landing gear door about 20 minutes into the flight and asked the pilot of the other plane to fly in close for an inspection, Gregor said.

The MiG pilot said the other plane flew under his jet but never reappeared. He radioed air traffic controllers that there may have been a mid-air collision at about 8,900 feet. But Gregor said there was no sign of damage on the jet after it landed safely in Prescott.

Searchers spotted a large column of smoke 16 miles northeast of Prescott and found the Cheyenne destroyed in a crash.

"The plane was completely burned up," said John Ginn, fire district chief for Chino Valley north of Prescott. "The only thing left was a small section of tail and two engines. There was very little discernible."

Scott Reed, a spokesman for the Yavapai County Sheriff's Office, said the medical examiner's office will determine who was on the plane.

"It's fair to say that we have an idea who may have been on the plane, but we can't release names until we have positive identification," he said.

Investigators from the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board will investigate the accident.

"It is clear that many more funeral home directors were involved in this enterprise," Hynes said at a news conference.

The seven entered their pleas in closed courtrooms and their names were withheld, but defense attorneys said that among those cooperating was the director of a funeral home that took parts from the body of "Masterpiece Theatre" host Alistair Cooke, who died in 2004.

The four original defendants in the case pleaded not guilty on Wednesday to enterprise corruption, body stealing and other charges in the new indictment. If convicted, they face up to 25 years in prison. All remain free on bail.

Prosecutors allege Michael Mastromarino, owner of Biomedical Tissue Services of Fort Lee, N.J., and three other men secretly removed skin, bone and other parts from up to 1,000 bodies from funeral homes, without the permission of families. They have accused the former oral surgeon of making millions of dollars by selling the stolen tissue to biomedical companies that supply material for common procedures including dental implants and hip replacements.

They were charged in February with counts including body stealing, unlawful dissection and forgery in a case a district attorney called "something out of a cheap horror movie."

All the defendants pleaded not guilty before being released on bail.

At the time, prosecutors said they had unearthed evidence that death certificates and other paperwork were falsified. In Cooke's case, his age was recorded as 85 rather than 95 and the cause of death was listed as heart attack instead of lung cancer that had spread to his bones.

Other evidence includes X-rays and photos of exhumed cadavers show that where leg bones should have been, someone had inserted white plastic pipes - the kind used for home plumbing projects, available at any hardware store. The pipes were crudely reconnected to hip and ankle bones with screws before the legs were sewn back up.

Foley resigned from Congress last month after his sexually explicit e-mails to young male pages surfaced. His lawyer said shortly after his resignation that Foley was an alcoholic, gay and had been molested as a boy by a "clergyman.'' Foley's civil lawyer, Gerald Richman, said the alleged abuser was a Catholic priest whose name he shared with state prosecutors on Wednesday. Richman did not return phone messaged left Thursday by The Associated Press. Foley's criminal defense lawyer David Roth declined to comment. Earlier this month, Roth said "Mark does not blame the trauma he sustained as a young adolescent for his totally inappropriate'' e-mails and instant messages. "He continues to offer no excuse whatsoever for his conduct.'' Mercieca had worked at Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth in 1967, according to church records. Foley would have been 13 at the time. Mercieca, 72, said he and Foley became fast friends when he moved there from Brazil and "loved each other like brothers,'' the newspaper reported. Mercieca said he taught Foley "some wrong things'' related to sex, though he wouldn't specify what he meant, the newspaper said. It reported the priest said that at the time, he considered the relationship innocent, but he now says he could see how his actions could be called inappropriate. Mercieca said although Foley plans to "expose him to the world,'' he still has "great memories of our trips,'' the newspaper reported. "I wish him well," Mercieca said. "Let bygones be bygones." Mercieca was adamant that his encounter with Foley was an aberration, and that the Catholic Church never had to send him for counseling during his 38 years in the priesthood in Florida, according to the newspaper. "I have been in many parishes, and I have never been'' accused, he said. A Web site for the Diocese of Gozo lists Mercieca as one of its priests. Joseph Calleja, a priest with the diocese, said Mercieca is still an active priest but that he lives at his own home. Gozo, a Mediterranean island, is part of the Republic of Malta.

The next speaker, Bob Livingston, resigned almost at once when the pornographer Larry Flynt threatened to release recordings of Livingston moaning in the company of his mistress, which Flynt had purchased from the scorned woman. Into that vacuum the most powerful figure in the House, the then whip and later majority leader Tom DeLay (nicknamed "the exterminator" for his pest control business), inserted a dull, reliable frontman - Dennis Hastert, known as "coach" for supervising school wrestling in small-town Illinois, his greatest previous distinction.

DeLay was the Republican Stalin, a ruthless consolidator and centraliser. His K Street project forged an iron triangle of lobbyists, special interests and Republicans that he believed would rule forever. But DeLay overreached and was indicted for corruption. Hastert was left to fend for himself.

When the story broke about Mark Foley, the Republican congressman from Palm Beach who lured teenage congressional pages to his townhouse, Hastert lumbered forth like an agitated but dazed bear. "The people who want to see this thing blow up," he said, "are ABC News" - the network that first broadcast the story - "and a lot of Democratic operatives, people funded by George Soros" - a Jewish, Hungarian-born financier who funds liberal causes.

Demonising this rootless cosmopolitan, however, failed to distract attention from a dissolving cover-up. Day after day aides have trooped before the suddenly reassembled ethics committee to testify that Hastert and others had known about Foley for years. In the process a network of mostly closet gay pages has been exposed, who advanced and protected each other while working for politicians whose careers were propelled by gay-bashing. The unmasking of Republican Capitol Hill has excited leaders of the religious right to demand a witch-hunt.

As Christians battle Sodomites under the crashing Republican big tent, several high-wire acts have fallen to earth. Last week Bob Ney, of Ohio, pleaded guilty to bribery, caught in the web of Republican super-lobbyist Jack Abramoff. This week the wacky Curt Weldon of Pennsylvania, renowned for his personal hunt for WMD in Iraq, came under investigation for corrupt practices; the FBI has also raided his lobbyist daughter.

At the White House Karl Rove's assistant, Susan Ralston - formerly Abramoff's assistant - resigned for facilitating favours for and from Rove and others, including Ken Mehlman, Republican national committee chairman. This week another Republican congressman, John Doolittle of California, announced he was turning cooperative witness in the federal investigation.

The concatenation of scandals is shattering the last shards of "revolution". "Reform" has metastasised into the Abramoff scandal, "culture war" into the Foley cover-up. And Hastert has transmuted from omnipotent Brezhnev into ghostly Chernenko, presiding over the final decrepit stage.

Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of How Bush Rules sidney_blumenthal@yahoo.com