Family Friend

Slain taxicab driver Hafiz Sarfaraz was just trying to work hard to support his family. The All City Taxi employee was finishing his nightshift about 12:30 a.m. Wednesday when he was shot multiple times in West Philadelphia, family friends said. He was pronounced dead an hour later at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, according to police. "It doesn't make any sense," said Alex Friedman, manager of All City Taxi. "We're all mourning for our fellow driver and business associate.

After their $500,000 Bucks County home burned to the ground one winter night in 1995, it did not take long for James and Barbara Saracino to settle back down to the good life, this time just outside the old-money borough of Yardley.James Saracino, 47, was an insurance agent for State Farm Insurance Cos., just like his father and a brother. Barbara Saracino, 44, was a family physician with a devoted clientele. Just three months after their two-story, brick-veneer Colonial in Northampton was destroyed, they bought a $750,000 nouveau French chateau in flamingo-pink stucco for themselves and their two curly-haired young daughters.

Summoned by a lifelong desire to excel, Derek "Rudy" Valentino entered the Schuylkill on Saturday in an amateur sprint triathlon to test and push himself. The 40-year-old Prospect Park mail carrier also wanted to show his two sons that hard work gets rewarded, a family friend said. His wife and one son gathered on the riverbank to cheer his efforts in the sprint race, a shorter version of a triathlon, which involves swimming, biking, and running. But Valentino disappeared after he went into the water at 8:22 a.m. Saturday.

Two-year-old Brendon Lawler gets airborne at the beach in Wildwood with some help from a family friend. If he's up for beach weather, he should get more of it today, with highs again in the 90s.

A 13-year-old boy identified as a Northeast Philadelphia youngster drowned yesterday when he fell off a Conrail bridge into Pennsauken Creek about 1 1/2 miles south of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge, authorities said. A hospital spokeswoman confirmed the victim as Brian Rose, 13. Police said the teenager was playing on bicycles with friends and apparently was performing bike jumps on the rail span when he fell into the creek near where it flows into the Delaware River. Once in the water, he became entangled in debris.

AUSTIN L. HOGAN liked to kick back on the rooftop deck of his Society Hill condominium overlooking the Delaware River and burn through books at a scary pace. "He would devour a book in an hour and a half," said his wife, Margaret Leyden. "It was frightening. " Not only books but newspapers, local, national and even international, would fall into the maw of his insatiable greed for information and amusement. And he often would turn from the printed page to his Kindle. "He read everything," his wife said.

More than three decades ago, a political unknown named Richard Hughes struck a populist chord among New Jersey voters and defied the odds to win election and become one of the state's most popular governors. In the last week, his stepson Michael Murphy may have felt a jolt of deja vu. A flurry of media attention and plaudits for his television commercials have raised Murphy's profile just days ahead of Tuesday's Democratic gubernatorial primary. Could the long shot be catching up?

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. - Edward Kean, chief writer for TV's old "Howdy Doody Show," has died at age 85, a family friend said yesterday. Kean was the primary writer for the show and penned the theme song to which millions of American children sang along each week during the show's run on NBC from 1947 to 1960. Family friend Del Reddy said yesterday that Kean died Aug. 13 at a nursing-care facility in Oakland County's West Bloomfield Township from complications of emphysema. Reddy said the New York City native wrote the song "It's Howdy Doody Time," which was sung during the show's opening.

A 3-year-old boy who suffered a severe head injury last month in a West Philadelphia apartment died Tuesday, and an autopsy was being conducted Wednesday night to determine whether his death was a homicide. Jaquinn Brewton died 10 minutes after being taken off life support, said his mother, Ashley Brewton, 28, who was at his bedside. Jaquinn was staying at the apartment of a family friend and her boyfriend in the 4700 block of Chestnut Street when he was injured June 29. The woman told police that the boy had fallen down stairs.