Arsenal face Chelsea without Fabregas (AFP)

LONDON (AFP) â€" Arsenal face Chelsea in the Premier League on Sunday without their captain, Cesc Fabregas, and goalkeeper Manuel Almunia.

World Cup winner Fabregas is recovering from the hamstring injury he sustained almost two weeks ago and is not rated fit enough to take part.

The 23-year-old midfielder is also sidelined for Spain's upcoming Euro 2012 qualifiers against Lithuania and Scotland.

Almunia also remains sidelined after missing the midweek Champions League win at Partizan Belgrade with an elbow injury, meaning Lukasz Fabianski is again set to deputise.

Manager Arsene Wenger also confirmed on Friday that left-back Kieran Gibbs will be out for two to three weeks with a calf injury.

Wenger confirmed: "Fabregas is not fit to play in this one and nor is Almunia.

"We lost Gibbs as well on Tuesday night with a calf problem...he is out for two to three weeks."

Thomas Vermaelen (Achilles), Nicklas Bendtner (groin), Aaron Ramsey (leg), Theo Walcott and Robin van Persie (both ankle) are still out, but Abou Diaby returns to the squad after an ankle problem.

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Koreas agree to 1st family reunions in 1 year (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea â€" Red Cross officials from the two Koreas agreed Friday to hold reunions for families separated by the Korean War amid mixed signals from North Korea on easing tensions over the sinking of a South Korean warship.

One hundred families from each country will attend the meetings from Oct. 30 to Nov. 5 at a hotel and reunion center at the North's scenic Diamond Mountain resort, Unification Ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-joo said.

The two Koreas also agreed to another round of Red Cross talks in the North's border city of Kaesong on Oct. 26-27 to discuss ways to hold reunions regularly as well as other unspecified humanitarian issues, the ministry said.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency confirmed the agreement, noting in a dispatch from Pyongyang that the reunions will bring "great joy" to all Koreans.

Millions of families were separated following the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty, leaving the two countries technically at war. There are no mail, telephone or e-mail exchanges between ordinary citizens across the heavily fortified border.

So far, more than 20,800 separated families have been reunited through brief face-to-face meetings or by video following a landmark inter-Korean summit in 2000.

The reunions, which have not been held for a year, could help restore calm between North and South Korea. Their relations have been especially tense since the March sinking of a South Korean warship that killed 46 sailors. An international investigation blamed the attack on North Korea, but Pyongyang denied involvement.

Last month, North Korea freed the crew of a South Korean fishing boat seized in August and later proposed staging the reunions as part of a conciliatory gesture toward Seoul.

The South Korean Red Cross subsequently announced plans to send 5,000 tons of rice and other aid to help the North recover from recent flooding in its northwest.

Despite those positive signs, the North warned during separate military talks with South Korea on Thursday that it might fire artillery on South Korean activists who disperse anti-North leaflets.

The North warned that its artillery units were "getting fully ready to strike the spotted centers for scattering leaflets," North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency reported late Thursday.

North Korean defectors and South Korean activists regularly float leaflets across the heavily fortified border in a campaign to urge North Koreans to rise up against leader Kim Jong Il.

The North regularly threatens military retaliation against the South, though the threat to fire artillery at the leaflet launch sites appeared to be a first. Seoul's Defense Ministry said it had no comment.

Kim Yong-hyun, a North Korea expert at Seoul's Dongguk University, dismissed the talk as typical North Korean rhetoric, and said the country was unlikely to risk worsening inter-Korean ties by carrying it out. "It is an empty threat," Kim said.

Park Sang-hak, a North Korean defector in Seoul who is a key organizer of a campaign to send leaflets via balloons, also brushed off the threat and said his group will send them on Oct. 10, the 65th anniversary of the founding of the North's Workers Party.

"I don't care about the North's threats and blackmail at all," Park said, noting that the leaflets will be critical of Kim's recent move to hand over power to his youngest son.

Kim earlier this week promoted his youngest son, Kim Jong Un, to four-star general and gave him key political posts aimed at an eventual succession in what would became the country's second hereditary power transition. The elder Kim took over the authoritarian country in 1994 after the death of his father, national founder Kim Il Sung.

Separately, some 50 South Korean activists burned pictures of Kim Jong Il and his son as well as a North Korean flag in central Seoul. Some held signs reading: "Down with Hereditary Succession."

Meanwhile, the United States and South Korea ended five-day military exercises in the Yellow Sea off the west coast of the Korean peninsula, near where the South Korean ship sank, according to Seoul's Defense Ministry.

___

Associated Press writer Sangwon Yoon and Seulki Kim in Seoul contributed to this report.

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Contador blames bad meat for positive doping test (AP)

PINTO, Spain â€" Three-time Tour de France champion Alberto Contador blamed contaminated steak Thursday for his positive doping test, vowing to clear his name and not let cycling's latest drug scandal "destroy everything that I have done."

The Spanish rider was provisionally suspended after a World Anti-Doping Agency lab in Germany found a "very small concentration" of the banned substance clenbuterol in his urine sample on July 21 at the Tour, according to a statement from cycling governing body UCI.

"It is a clear case of food contamination," Contador told a news conference in his hometown near Madrid, during which several times he appeared close to tears. "I am sad and disappointed but hold my head high."

"I think this is going to be resolved in a clear way," he added. "With the truth behind you, you can speak loud and clear, and I am confident justice will prevail."

Contador said the beef was brought across the border from Spain to France during a rest day during the Tour at the request of the team's cook.

Contador said the beef was brought by a Spanish cycling organizer, Jose Luis Lopez Cerron. Cerron said earlier Thursday on Spanish radio that he was a friend of the team chef, who had complained of poor quality meat at the hotel where the team was staying.

Lopez Cerron said he bought filet mignon for the team in the Spanish border town of Irun on his way to Pau, France, to watch a few stages of the tour.

Contador said he ate the meat on July 20 and again on July 21. He called the UCI's suspension of him "a true mistake."

Clenbuterol is sometimes given to cows, pigs and other animals to increase their growth rate.

Contador said he learned of the positive test on Aug. 24 and met with UCI doctors two days later.

"On the 26th we talked at length about how all this had happened. The UCI itself told me to my face that it was a case of food contamination," Contador said.

He said he has been in conversations with the UCI ever since "to handle this the most appropriate way possible and analyze it and see clearly that it is a case of food contamination in which I am the victim."

Contador said it would have been better for cycling's image if the case had not been made public.

"It's almost normal for people to doubt this sport now," he said.

But he added: "The idea of anyone questioning my Tour victory does not worry me. I am not going to let something like this destroy everything I have done."

Contador beat Andy Schleck of Luxembourg by 39 seconds in winning his third Tour in four years.

"What a crazy day in cycling with the news about Contador," Schleck said on Twitter. "I only heard about it in the press. I hope he is innocent and I think he deserves the right to defend himself now."

The allegations are the latest to a hit a sport whose credibility has been battered by doping scandals. Within hours of Contador's case becoming public, the UCI announced that two Spanish riders failed drug tests during the Spanish Vuelta in September â€" runner-up Ezequiel Mosquera and David Garcia. The UCI said they tested positive for hydroxyethyl starch, which increases blood volume.

The UCI said the amount of clenbuterol in Contador's sample was "400 time(s) less than what the antidoping laboratories accredited by WADA must be able to detect."

Both Contador's A and B samples tested positive, and the cyclist has been "formally and provisionally suspended," the UCI said.

With seven-time Tour champion Lance Armstrong now back in retirement, Contador is cycling's biggest star, so it could be devastating for the sport if the Spanish rider is found to have cheated.

The UCI's statement gave no indication of whether Contador will be stripped of his latest Tour title or be banned.

"The UCI continues working with the scientific support of WADA to analyze all the elements that are relevant to the case. This further investigation may take some more time," the statement said.

The company that runs the Tour said race organizers were awaiting the UCI's definitive decision and offered no further comment in a short statement.

If Tour officials strip Contador of his title, he would be just the second cyclist so punished. The first was American Floyd Landis, who was stripped of his 2006 Tour title after a positive test. For years, Landis denied doping but admitted this spring that he used performance-enhancing drugs.

Contador said he and four other Astana teammates ate the beef that was brought in from Spain but that he was only one that underwent a doping test on July 21.

Contador said that since he was the Tour leader at that point, he underwent three doping controls before the July 21 test that was positive. He said nothing awry turned up in the earlier tests.

"This is something strongly in my favor," Contador said.

He said that in tests over the two days after his positive result, the clenbuterol level first went down drastically, then was virtually negligible.

Contador insisted the amount of the drug found in his urine was so small it could not have been administered and had to come from food, and that in any case was so tiny it would be useless as a performance-enhancer.

Contador said the UCI knows where the meat was purchased in Spain, but he would not name it so as to protect its reputation.

Having invested millions of dollars in recent years in what is widely regarded as the one of the most stringent anti-doping regimes anywhere, cycling authorities hoped to be turning the corner on widespread doping by riders that had long made a mockery of the sport and repeatedly sullied the Tour, its showpiece race. Although just 27, Contador is already the greatest rider of his generation. His victories at the Tour starting in 2007 and at other major races were seen as a possible break from cycling's dirty past.

"This is serious and this case needs to be clarified," Pierre Bordry, the outgoing leader of France's anti-doping agency, told RTL radio. "Clenbuterol is a forbidden substance, whatever the amount which is detected. If they really found it, it's forbidden."

WADA director general David Howman told The Associated Press that testing positive for even the most minute amounts of clenbuterol could be enough to sanction an athlete, although he declined to discuss the specifics of Contador's case.

"The issue is the lab has detected this. They have the responsibility for pursuing. There is no such thing as a limit where you don't have to prosecute cases. This is not a substance that has a threshold," said Howman, reached by telephone as he was changing planes in Dubai on his way to the Commonwealth Games in India.

"Once the lab records an adverse finding, it's an adverse finding and it has to be followed up."

"Clenbuterol is a substance that has been used for over 20 to 30 years," he added. "It is not anything new. Nobody has ever suggested it is something you can take inadvertently."

Douwe de Boer, a Dutch anti-doping expert hired by Contador to study his test, said the rider told him that smaller traces of clenbuterol also were found in his urine in the two days after the positive result but were so minute that the UCI classed them as negative.

All of Contador's tests before July 21 were negative, De Boer said. The July 21 test was conducted on a rest day at the Tour, when the race was near France's border with Spain.

"My conclusion is that it is very likely that this extra-low concentration (of clenbuterol) entered his body without him knowing it and one of the scenarios is contaminated meat," de Boer said in a telephone interview. He said the UCI's "lack of speed" in deciding whether to sanction Contador suggests the cycling body is "seriously" considering the contaminated food argument.

Clenbuterol has anabolic properties that build muscle while burning fat. It is commonly given to horses to treat breathing problems. In medicine, it is used to treat asthma. In similar ways to stimulant drugs such as amphetamine or ephedrine, it can increase the heart rate and body temperature.

Athletes and body builders are thought to use it in combination with other performance-enhancers such as growth hormone and steroids to build and define muscles. It is listed by WADA as an anabolic agent that is prohibited for use by athletes at all times, both in and out of competition.

Contador's positive test distracted attention from cycling's world championships in Australia. Some riders there were not yet ready to condemn Contador.

"I 100 percent give Alberto fully the benefit of the doubt," said British rider David Millar, himself banned for two years in 2004 after admitting to using the banned blood-booster EPO. "It doesn't make much sense in that it was a rest-day control and it's a micro-dose ... Alberto gets controlled every day when he's in the yellow jersey and that would have come up the day before or after the race."

____

Ciaran Giles reported from Pinto, John Leicester from Paris. AP Sports Writers Stephen Wilson in London, Samuel Petrequin in Paris, John Pye in New Delhi and Neil Frankland in Geelong, Australia; and Associated Press Writers Daniel Woolls in Madrid and Jan Olsen in Copenhagen contributed to this report.

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N.Korea publishes first photo of heir apparent (AFP)

SEOUL (AFP) â€" Secretive North Korea finally put its heir apparent on show to the world Thursday, releasing a photograph of a chubby and serious-faced Kim Jong-Un seated close to his ailing father Kim Jong-Il.

Analysts said the issuance of the first-ever official photo confirms the young man's status as leader-in-waiting of the impoverished but nuclear-armed communist nation.

Official media published the photo of the son, as part of a large group of leading ruling party officials, two days after the party had bestowed powerful posts on Jong-Un at its highest-level meeting for 30 years.

Hours later, South Korean TV carried North Korean video footage showing a man who closely resembles the son applauding vigorously with other delegates during Tuesday's party conference.

The heir apparent is a mystery to the outside world. Even his exact age of unclear, although he is thought to be about 27. The only photos previously seen outside the tightly controlled state have been images taken during his time as a schoolboy in Switzerland.

"He takes after his grandfather Kim Il-Sung but he is short and stout like his father," Yang Moo-Jin of Seoul's University of North Korean Studies told AFP.

"The publication of his picture is tantamount to a declaration that Jong-Un is the heir apparent. It is also a signal that the junior Kim is launching official activities."

Official media did not say where Jong-Un was seated in the group photo but he was the only youthful face.

"We believe he is Kim Jong-Un," said South Korean unification ministry spokeswoman Lee Jong-Joo, speaking of the young man dressed in a dark blue Mao-type suit and seated next but one to his 68-year-old father.

The United States and other nations are scrambling for more information about what would be the second dynastic succession, after leader Kim took over from his own father Kim Il-Sung.

US Central Intelligence Agency Leon Panetta will arrive in South Korea Saturday to exchange information about the succession, Yonhap news agency reported.

The son's name was never mentioned by official media until this week, when the leader made him a four-star general just before the party meeting.

Analysts say the North will likely seek to ease overseas tensions as it prepares for an eventual power transfer, even though the father appears still in control despite a stroke two years ago.

But the first inter-Korean military talks for two years ended without progress Thursday as Seoul demanded an apology from Pyongyang for the deadly sinking of a South Korean warship.

South Korean officers "strongly urged North Korea to admit to, apologise for and punish those responsible for the attack on the Cheonan warship", Seoul's defence ministry said in a statement.

The North refuses to accept the findings of a multinational investigation which blamed the March sinking and the death of 46 sailors on a North Korean torpedo.

No date was set for the next round of talks, Yonhap quoted a ministry official as saying.

After months of high tension over the ship, the North has lately made apparent conciliatory gestures to South Korea and the United States.

But it still vehemently denies involvement in the naval tragedy and condemns joint US-South Korean anti-submarine naval exercises which are being staged in the aftermath of the sinking.

South Korean officials "remain unchanged in their ulterior intention to harm the (North), backed by their American master," cabinet newspaper Minju Joson said Thursday, accusing Seoul of trying to spark a nuclear war with the latest joint drill this week.

Defence Minister Kim Tae-Young told a forum Seoul has detected signs of possible provocations by North Korea, especially in 11 border areas where the South has set up propaganda loudspeakers as part of reprisals for the sinking.

They have not yet been switched on.

Kim said Pyongyang "seems to be mainly focusing on forming a platform for power succession and easing its food shortage and economic troubles."

A North Korean ruling party delegation left Thursday on a visit to the country's only major ally China, state media said.

According to South Korean media the delegation was likely to brief Chinese officials on the party meeting.

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McCourt divorce case set to conclude Wednesday (AP)

LOS ANGELES â€" A judge will hear closing arguments Wednesday in the divorce trial of Jamie and Frank McCourt that could decide the ownership of the Los Angeles Dodgers.

At issue is whether a postnuptial marital agreement signed by the couple in 2004 is valid under California law. The 10-page document gives Frank McCourt the team, the stadium and the surrounding land and provided Jamie McCourt a half-dozen luxurious homes.

However, during the trial it was revealed the couple unwittingly signed two different versions, one that included the Dodgers as Frank McCourt's separate asset, and three that didn't.

The couple's attorney, who advised them and helped draft the agreement, testified he swapped out the addendum that went from excluding the Dodgers from Frank McCourt's separate property to including the team and failed to tell the couple.

Superior Court Judge Scott Gordon has 90 days to decide whether Frank McCourt is the team's sole owner or if the pact should be thrown out and the couple's assets divided under California's community property law. He also could order the sale of the team.

The McCourts, armed with a cadre of high-powered lawyers, have met at the negotiating table several times, the most recent coming on Friday with no resolution. Both sides are expected to resume mediation on Oct. 9 and Oct. 10, according to court spokesman Allan Parachini.

Jamie McCourt was fired in October as the team's CEO, a job that paid her a $2 million salary. She filed for divorce the same month, citing irreconcilable differences. The couple have been married since 1979 and have four grown sons.

She lost her initial bid to be reinstated as the team's chief executive but was awarded $225,000 a month in temporary spousal support along with having her estranged husband pay more than $400,000 a month for the couple's six homes and a condominium. She had been seeking nearly $1 million a month; Frank McCourt had offered her $150,000.

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NKorea unlikely to alter strategy toward world (AP)

SEOUL, South Korea â€" North Korea's ailing leader Kim Jong Il has laid the groundwork for a transition of power to his youngest son but it remains to be seen if the reclusive nuclear-armed regime will soften its combative stance toward the international community.

The impoverished nation has long used both carrots and sticks to get what it wants: offering dialogue and promises to dismantle its nuclear program to get aid, and when it runs into resistance, conducting missile and atomic tests and threatening to destroy rival South Korea.

Analysts see little prospect of that strategy changing, although some speculate that Pyongyang could seek a period of calm â€" after a turbulent past two years â€" to minimize confrontation with the outside world as it enters a time of transition in its top ranks.

This week's elevation of Kim Jong Il's youngest son, Kim Jong Un, as a four-star general and to a key position in the ruling communist party at a political convention signaled that the little-known 20-something is on track to eventually succeed his 68-year old father, believed to have suffered a stroke in 2008.

Underscoring Kim Jong Il's intent to consecrate his family's dominance and usher the dynasty into a third generation was the promotion of his 64-year-old sister, Kim Kyong Hui, to the same military rank and into the party's political bureau. She is married to another key party figure, Jang Song Thaek, who holds the No. 2 position in the powerful National Defense Commission, led by Kim Jong Il.

Those family figures could help smooth the transition to Kim Jong Un, who remains a virtual unknown â€" unmentioned even in North Korean state media until this week. He is believed to be in his late 20s, to have studied in Switzerland and have a fondness for NBA basketball.

The North Korean media provided no hints of what kinds of discussions may have taken place at Tuesday's party convention â€" the country's biggest political gathering since the 1980 anointing of Kim Jong Il as successor to his father, the nation's founder Kim Il Sung, who died in 1994.

The front page of the main Rodong Sinmun newspaper Wednesday featured a large photo of Kim Jong Il, according to footage of a newsstand from broadcaster APTN in Pyongyang. The paper also carried photographs and biographical details of senior officials appointed at the party's conference.

"The party meeting was a historic event and the Korean people highly acclaim our respected Gen. Kim Jong Il as general secretary of the Worker's Party of Korea," Pyongyang resident Kim Song Guk said, according to the footage.

The North's Korean Central News Agency said Wednesday that Kim Jong Il had a photo session with newly elected key central figures in the party leadership and conference delegates, including Kim Jong Un and Kim Kyong Hui. It was not clear if any photos of the event were released.

Gauging what is happening in the opaque regime is notoriously difficult, but what is clear is that North Korea faces huge problems: chronic poverty that leaves it reliant on foreign aid to feed its 24 million people, and a stricken economy with apparently unresolved questions about whether to embrace or shun free markets.

Despite its impoverishment, North Korea has active nuclear and missile programs that are the key focus of security concerns in Northeast Asia. The United States has more than 20,000 troops in South Korea, which remains in a technical state of war with the North, after their 1950-53 conflict ended with a truce and not a formal peace treaty.

Pyongyang has used its military assets â€" and its unpredictability â€" to get what it wants internationally in the past â€" a strategy it is likely to stick to.

"The best way to squeeze aid from the outside world is to use contradictions between the great powers and a bit of nuclear blackmail," said Andrei Lankov, an expert on North Korea at Seoul's Kookmin University. "This is absolutely a rational policy and it has worked quite fine for the last few decades and I don't see that they would ever consider changing it in the near future."

Yoo Ho-yeol, a North Korea expert at Korea University in Seoul, said he believes no major changes are in store as "Kim Jong Il remains undiminished," but added that the country will likely enter into a period of seeking to tone down tensions in order to focus on stabilizing the succession.

"They'll think it's more urgent to smoothly settle down the succession process rather than having another adventure," Yoo said.

North Korea has been embroiled in a standoff with South Korea over the March sinking of a South Korean naval vessel that killed 46 sailors. An international investigation led by Seoul concluded a North Korean torpedo was to blame, although Pyongyang denies it.

Yoo predicted the North would seek to improve ties with the United States and return to six-party talks aimed at getting the North to dismantle its nuclear programs. Pyongyang pulled out of the talks â€" which also include South Korea, Japan, Russia, China and the U.S. â€" after an international uproar last year over a suspected long-range missile test it conducted, which was followed by the country's second nuclear test.

North Korea has already expressed its willingness to rejoin the disarmament talks but Washington has said the North must first take specific moves to demonstrate its sincerity.

"The North wants to improve relations with the U.S. as it is a must for it to revive its economy," said Chon Hyun-joon, a research fellow at the state-run Korean Institute for National Unification in Seoul. "But it won't make a unilateral surrender and it wants to get concessions in return for positive steps."

North Korea has set an objective of achieving the status of a "powerful and prosperous nation" in 2012, the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il Sung.

But its economy has hit the skids since the collapse of the Soviet Union robbed it of a key source of aid and ensuing economic mismanagement and natural disasters made conditions worse.

It desperately needs reform, but Lankov said the North Korean leadership knows that path is risky and thus will continue doing what it does best: alternating between threats and concessions to secure economic benefits to help shore up the regime.

"It's rational politics because they cannot afford Chinese-style reform," he said. "In their particular case reforms are likely to lead to instability, domestic instability."

___

Associated Press writers Jean H. Lee, Kwang-tae Kim, Hyung-jin Kim and Sangwon Yoon contributed to this report.

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Gould's late FG for Bears beats penalty-prone Pack (AP)

CHICAGO â€" Still doubting the Bears? Jay Cutler threw for 221 yards, Brian Urlacher forced a key fumble and Chicago took advantage of a team-record 18 penalties by the Packers to beat Green Bay 20-17 on Monday night.

Robbie Gould won it with a 19-yard field goal with 4 seconds left. The Packers' James Jones lost a fumble on a hit by Urlacher in the final minutes. Then Morgan Burnett was called for pass interference on Earl Bennett, setting up the winning kick.

Chicago is 3-0 and alone atop the NFC North. The Packers fell to 2-1.

"It's fun, that is all you can ask for," Cutler said. "The defense did a great job, we struggled the whole game, felt like we kind of were killing ourselves."

The Bears kept insisting they were contenders through a sloppy preseason and less-than-inspiring opening win over Detroit. Since then, they turned heads with a win at Dallas last week, and stamped themselves as contenders by beating Green Bay â€" with lots of help from the Packers.

The Bears had tied it at 17 on a 25-yard field goal by Gould when Urlacher jarred the ball out of Jones' hands after the receiver caught a pass from Aaron Rodgers near midfield. Tim Jennings recovered, giving Chicago the ball on the Packers 46 with 2:18 remaining.

Soon after, another penalty cost the Packers in a big way.

On second down at the 33, Cutler tried to hit Bennett deep along the right sideline and Burnett basically hammered him, wiping out an interception by Nick Collins and putting the ball at the 9.

Three plays later, Chicago walked away with a wild win and the only undefeated record in the NFC.

"We didn't play our best game and won. That's got to be a good sign," coach Lovie Smith said.

As for the Packers?

"It was an uncharacteristic game on offense for us, well, just as a team," Rodgers said. "Way too many penalties."

Devin Hester delivered his first touchdown return in three years when he ran back a punt 62 yards in the fourth quarter, giving the Bears a short-lived 14-10 lead.

Rodgers threw for 316 yards and a touchdown and also scored on a 3-yard run that gave the Packers a 17-14 lead in the fourth period. Jermichael Finley had nine catches for 115 yards, but the sloppiness simply caught up with the Packers in the end.

Cutler completed 16 of 27 passes with a touchdown and interception. Johnny Knox had four catches for 94 yards.

Chicago held its longtime rival to 63 yards rushing, but the Bears had only 77 themselves. That turned it into an air game for much of the night.

Hester had just put the Bears ahead by four in the opening seconds of the fourth quarter when the Packers responded with a 62-yard touchdown drive.

A roughing-the-passer penalty on Henry Melton gave them a first down at the 3. Rodgers, who cramped up a few plays earlier, rolled to his right and lunged into the end zone, making it 17-14.

Then the Packers basically gave it away.

Frank Zombo got called for a helmet-on-helmet hit against Cutler on the next drive that erased an interception by Nick Barnett. On second down, Collins got called for a late hit on Matt Forte after a 15-yard reception, putting the ball on the Packers 29.

Gould made the 25-yard field goal to tie it with 3:59 left.

Hester's return eased the sting after the Bears again were stopped at the goal line for the second time this season when choosing not to go for the field goal. It happened late in the third quarter after Julius Peppers blocked Mason Crosby's 37-yard field goal.

The Bears took over on the 18 and marched to the Packers 1, only to come up short again. Cutler fired a 5-yard pass to a kneeling Bennett between defenders on third down, and the officials ruled Tramon Williams touched Bennett before he leaned over the goal line.

So coach Lovie Smith had to decide to kick the tying field goal or go for the touchdown.

Just as he did in the opener, he went for the end zone. This time, Desmond Clark dropped a potential TD pass and Chicago came away empty-handed.

Hester, however, showed his old explosiveness. He took a punt at the 38, broke up the right sideline and didn't stop until he reached the end zone in a familiar scene, albeit one that hadn't played in a while. It was 12th time he's returned a kickoff or punt for a touchdown and the first since Dec. 30, 2007.

"We've been waiting for Devin to come back and he was back tonight," Smith said. "Of course it was outstanding on that one touchdown run, but even before that it just felt like every time he went back there he had a chance to score."

The Bears wore throwback 1940s jerseys to honor the Monsters of the Midway. They also honored George Blanda, who died Monday, with a moment of silence before the game.

And they made a surprising move, holding out defensive tackle Tommie Harris for reasons that were not immediately clear.

A three-time Pro Bowl pick, Harris was benched for a game last season and suspended for one in 2008 because of detrimental conduct. He has also been limited by knee and hamstring injuries over the past four years, although he was not listed on the Bears' injury report leading up to Monday's game.

He has insisted he is healthy, but he is also off to a slow start.

Notes: Bears LS Patrick Mannelly set a club record by playing in his 192nd game, moving head of Steve McMichael. ... The Bears held out struggling receiver Devin Aromashodu, while left tackle Chris Williams and safety Major Wright sat out with hamstring injuries.

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