Jacksonville Jaguars defensive assistant Tom Williams has been selected as Yale’s 33rd head football coach, the News has learned.

Williams, 39, will become the first African-American head coach in history of Yale’s football program. The Athletics Department has scheduled a press conference for Wednesday to introduce him as the successor to Jack Siedlecki, who resigned in November after 12 seasons.

Williams has never before been a head coach, but he has extensive experience in college football. Before spending the past two years with the Jaguars, Williams was an assistant for 11 years at Hawaii, Washington, Stanford and San Jose State. (January 5)

Although there were slightly fewer people non-fatally shot in New Haven in 2008 than in 2007, the number of homicides in the city increased by 69 percent, according to figures released by the New Haven Police Department. (January 4)

DENVER — Michael Bennet LAW '93, the superintendent of Denver Public Schools, was named Saturday to the United States Senate seat being vacated by Ken Salazar, currently up for confirmation as Secretary of the Interior. (January 3)

Yale researchers have published a cellular atlas of genetic activity in rice, documenting with unprecedented detail how and when genes are turned off and on within cells of a living organism.  (January 4)

Yale University has today agreed to pay the federal government $7.6 million to settle issues arising from a broad, multi-year investigation of federal research grant accounting going back to 1999.  The settlement covers Yale’s grants with substantially all of its federal sponsors. (December 23)

Many physicians fail to use readily available interpreters with their non-English speaking patients, opting for “getting by” with their own limited foreign language skills or using a patient’s friend or family member, according to research conducted in part by the Yale School of Public Health.  (December 23)

Although Yale's campus is still devoid of most undergraduates, the gymnastics team has been hitting the mats all week. While 2008 provided the gymnasts with many successes, the 2009 season is set to kick off on Saturday. (Women's Gymnastics, January 7)

The 2008-09 Yale men's hockey team (9-4, 4-2 ECAC Hockey), looks for its third straight win in its third consecutive game against a ranked opponent when the Bulldogs head to Hanover to play No. 15 Dartmouth (9-5, 6-3) on Friday night. After the Blue battles at Thompson Arena, Keith Allain's skaters head to the Bright Center at Harvard (4-10-2, 4-5-2) for a Saturday night contest. Both 7 p.m. games can be heard on WYBC AM-1340 (wybc.com). (Men's Ice Hockey, January 6)

Yale will kick off the New Year this weekend after a one-month layoff without any matches and play host to Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, and Stanford. Mark Talbott, former Yale head coach and the brother of current head coach David Talbott, is the head coach at Stanford. (Women's Squash, January 6)

The Flat Belly Diet! reduced dangerous visceral belly fat on average by 33% in 28 days, according to a new study by the Yale University Prevention Research Center at Griffin Hospital in Derby, CT. (January 5)

Montgomery was the second stop in a nationwide centennial concert celebration performed by the Yale University Whiffen poofs -- an a cappella chorus of 14 senior men. (January 4)

Researchers from Case Western Reserve University and Yale University have made a significant advancement in understanding the cause behind why some pregnant women suffer from inflammations in the inner womb without any signs of an infection. (January 7)