Some 300 police officers filled out the pews of St. Bernard of Clairvaux Church in Bridgewater this morning for the Diocese of Metuchen's seventh annual Blue Mass. The Mass honors law enforcement officials in the Hunterdon, Middlesex, Somerset, and Warren, the four counties served by the diocese.

"You who are in law enforcement have a very difficult job," Bishop Paul Bootkoski told the congregation. "You see the best in society and you see the worse in society."

Matt Rainey/The Star-LedgerPerth Amboy police Capt. Ben Ruiz prays during the "Blue Mass" held at St. Bernard of Clairvaux Church in Bridgewater today.

A Hunterdon County man who slit his dog's throat won't repeat the violence, his defense attorney said today.

George Kerr, 52, was sentenced last week to two years' probation and a week in jail, which he already has served, after pleading guilty to a third-degree charge of animal cruelty for killing Annie, a bully-breed mix, almost a year ago.

After unsuccessfully seeking a new trial, a Pennsylvania man now plans to appeal his conviction for sexually abusing a young girl three times in her former home in Raritan Township.

A public defender who represented Timothy Paziora, 57, of Williamsport, Pa., said his client remains adamant he is innocent, despite a jury conviction over the summer.

HIGH BRIDGE -- The Union Forge Heritage Association has received a $24,500 Recreational Trails Program grant from the state in order to create a 5.25-mile trail around the borough.

The project, which will be known at the Taylor Steelworkers Historical Greenway, will begin at the Columbia Trail and will pass a number of local landmarks including Lake Solitude, the Solitude House museum and the Union Forge before ending up at Springside Farm. It will incorporate the existing Nassau Trail.

HIGH BRIDGE -- Attorney John Paff is challenging the borough school board's policies on closed door meetings, or so-called "executive sessions." He's filed a complaint with the state's Government Records Council.

Patti Sapone/The Star-LedgerAdam Lane has pleaded guilty to killing Monica Massaro, 38, in her Bloomsbury home last year.

More than an hour into an interview at a Massachusetts jail last year, detectives following up on a woman's murder in a small New Jersey borough finally put the question to trucker Adam Leroy Lane.

"Adam, tell us what happened on the night when you were in New Jersey and stopped at the rest stop off Route 78," asked State Police Detective Geoffrey Noble.

What followed was a blunt, terrifying confession by Lane, who took detectives down the path he walked on the night of July 29, 2007 -- from the rest stop into neighboring Bloomsbury, where Lane jiggled a number of doorknobs until he found one unlocked, entered it and murdered Monica Massaro in her bed.

The county will soon send juvenile offenders to the Morris County Juvenile Detention Center in Morris Township. Until now, those youths have gone to Warren Acres in Warren County, but that facility is set to close on Jan. 1.

Hunterdon's two Congressmen -- one a Democrat and the other a Republican -- voted for the proposed $700 billion bailout that failed Monday in a 228-205 vote in the House of Representatives.

After the vote, the stock market plummeted by a record 777 points, or 7%. Estimates projected that up to a trillion dollars in value was lost.