Hurricane Earl took aim at North Carolina on Thursday and is on track to lash its barrier islands with dangerous winds and pounding surf before cutting a path up the U.S. East Coast.If you hear a distant fanfare this weekend as you huddle around the last barbecue of summer, chances are it is Labor Day signaling the start of the home stretch to the Congressional mid-term elections. From here on out, we’ll see more ads, more posturing, more mudslinging, and great herds of political pundits thundering across the land with all the enthusiasm and grace of buffaloes in a rut. And no one will be more aware of all that than a man whose name is not on any ballot, and yet has everything on the line: President Barack Obama.An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames on Thursday and unleashed a mile-long oil sheen into the Gulf of Mexico, in the region’s first major offshore disaster since BP’s oil spill began in April.Coming fresh off of “The Real Housewives of New Jersey” reunion (did you all catch that horror show? One word: cray-cray) is the announcement that Bravo is set to release yet another Real Housewives franchise, “The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills,” next month.Hollywood loves a good formula, and this fall movie season is rife with tried-and-true plot setups that will give you deja vu.From Baltimore to Lancaster avenues and along Market Street in between, University City is abuzz from the arrivals of college students and professors back after summer vacation.Tiger Woods fans have put up with the philandering, the text messages and the domestic spats. Now comes what may be the hardest thing of all to tolerate: losing.While breast-enhancing surgery has become almost a norm for American women, men are also heading to the plastic surgeon’s office more often — to have their man-boobs (moobs) removed. If you are what you eat, then most Cape Codders would be a clam — or maybe a lobster roll A land named for a type of fish should abound with chances to sample tasty seafood, and Cape Cod does not disappointSo you squandered an estate note on a bachelor’s degree, then trudged through more entry-level hardships and thankless internships than should be legally permissable, only to backslide into a self-esteem shattering, résumé-derailing grind, several tax brackets below your dignity. 
BOSTON. The owners of a rival social networking Web site are trying to shut down Facebook.com, charging in a federal lawsuit that its founder stole their ideas while they were students at Harvard.
The three founders of ConnectU say Mark Zuckerberg agreed to finish computer code for their site, but repeatedly stalled and eventually created Facebook using their ideas.
The lawsuit’s allegations against Zuckerberg include fraud, copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets. It asks the court to shut down Facebook and give control of the company and its assets to ConnectU’s founders.
A hearing on a motion to dismiss the lawsuit is scheduled for today in U.S. District Court here.
A spokeswoman for Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook declined comment, citing the pending litigation.
In court filings, Facebook’s attorneys say ConnectU has no evidence for “broad-brush allegations” against Zuckerberg, and deny he pilfered his ideas for Facebook from his fellow Harvard students.
“Each of them had different interests and activities,” they wrote. “Only one of them had an idea significant enough to build a great company. That one person was Mark Zuckerberg.”
Facebook and ConnectU connect college students and others online. Both allow users to post profiles with pictures, biographies and other personal information and create extended networks of people at their schools or jobs or with similar interests.
ConnectU originally filed suit in September 2004, but it was dismissed on a technicality in March and immediately refiled.
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