Will Guinee, Mike Vecchione, Tyler McVicar and Paul Yanakopulos seen here with Director of Guidance Cindy Jacobs, Assistant Principal Jeff Smith, Athletic Director and Head Coach Varsity Hockey Chris Serino, Head Coach Varsity Baseball Steve Freker and Principal Br. Thomas Puccio, CFX, Ed.D (Courtesy of Malden Catholic High School)

Four Malden Catholic High School student athletes recently signed letters of intent with Division I colleges.

Tyler McVicar, of Melrose signed with Elon College of North Carolina, where he will play baseball. Paul Yanakopulos, of Medford, signed with UMass Amherst, where he will play baseball. Michael Vecchione, of Saugus, is committed to University of New Hampshire, where he will play hockey. William Guinee, of Topsfield, is committed to Dartmouth, where he will play football.

Malden Catholic is a college preparatory high school north of Boston, which boasts a 98 percent college placement rate.

Massachusetts will receive more than $3 million in federal funds to help five communities hire more police officers.

The federal funding comes from the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Oriented Policing Services Hiring Program, said Senator John Kerry, in a statement Thursday.

The funds go directly to the communities and may also be used to save police jobs that might otherwise be cut during fiscal crisis.

"When I was a prosecutor, I learned right away the difference cops on the beat make to our safety. This investment will help beef up our numbers and fight crime," Kerry said. "It’s money well invested, especially when cities and towns are facing awful budget crunches and no citizen wants an explosion in crime to be the collateral damage of a tough economy."

The following Police Departments and towns will receive grants:

• Abington: $257,964
• Barnstable: $1,121,905
• Methuen: $744,724
• Oak Bluffs: $275,058
• Saugus: $643,950

Like many others, Kelly MacDonald, 27, a Saugus stay-at-home motherof two boys has shopped on eBay for years. But shopping online for an evening gown has never been this complicated for her.

Though she wasn’t planning on buying a dress online, she saw one on eBay that she simply deemed “breathtaking.” She took note that the international seller had 100 percent positive feedback on this custom made, $175 dollar gowns that could be finished in 6 weeks. Under the assumption of PayPal buyer protection, Kelly placed an order and sent payment for the dress, which arrived two months later. Much to MacDonald’s surprise, the dress was not what she was expecting. The photograph of the dress Kelly would receive was opposite of the dress she did receive.

“It was just huge,” MacDonald said. “The waistline was too high — way above my belly button, so I looked like a dumpling in that dress. The color was different and so were the beads (colorful instead of silver ones). The craftsmanship was so poor; the beads were falling off before I even put it on."

After emailing the seller immediately, her negative comments were well received and the seller requested that she send the dress back, and he would make her a new one. He was only willing to comply if she did not give him negative feedback. After one week passed, the seller notified Kelly of the receipt of the dress and that his dressmaker would make her a new one.

But the buyer seems to have found a “feedback loophole.” The window of opportunity to write feedback is only two months after the purchase of your product. Coincidentally for the seller, Kelly had passed this two month mark. After the seller ignored three messages from Kelly, she finally filed a dispute with PayPal.

According to PayPal, disputes are an opportunity for "resolution of any transaction problems promptly and easily." While in retrospect, such simplicity would be nice, yet for most customers, and especially Kelly, the resolution process was the furthest from easy.

As stated by PayPal, when a customer opens a dispute with them, it is the customer’s chance to: "1. Communicate directly with the buyer to resolve the issue amicably, 2. provide prompt customer service that can gain you repeat business, and 3. avoid the possibility of a dispute escalating to a claim or chargeback."

None of these promises are fulfilled, she said. PayPal tracked the package online, and there was only a note about the package arriving to China. No notification of delivery. When PayPal contacted the seller on the issue, he stated that he never received the package in the first place. When MacDonald realized that the seller had been lying to PayPal, she called USPS and filled a claim with them as well. A long 7 weeks later, she received a letter confirming that the Chinese postal service delivered the package.

Feeling confident that she would finally get her money back, Kelly faxed the letter from USPS over to PayPal. PayPal replied stating that they are unable to track the package online and therefore they do not have clarification on whether or not the package was actually delivered. No proof, no refund. According to PayPal, their policy states that they can only accept online delivery statements, which means that if the statement does not show up on USPS.com, then as far as PayPal is concerned, the package was not delivered.

According to the USPS International Inquiry Department, foreign countries are not required to scan registered mail packages at the delivery and most countries, including China, don’t do so.

Do ample research before sending your money over the wire, and especially be cautious when dealing with other countries and their shipping policies that are most likely to be different than those of the US.

Twilight fans, it is only three days and 11 hours until the long awaited release of “Twilight.” To keep you on your toes, Blast has a special issue for this last week to help sate your “Twilight” needs.

Today we post our interview with Robert Pattinson from the Saugus Hot Topic event.

A review of “Twilight” by myself will be up Wednesday, November 19. Kellen Rice, one of Blast’s bloggers and a critic of the “Twilight” series, will have her own review up later in the week.

Expect a “Top 10 Things the Movie Did Right” and “Top 10 Things the Movie Did Wrong” on Friday, as to avoid spoiling the movie for anyone.

Until then, enjoy our video from the Saugus event with clips of Robert Pattinson himself.

SAUGUS, Mass. — Blast got an opportunity to chat with “Twilight” leading man Robert Pattinson before the fan meet and greet and question and answer session at the Square One Mall in Saugus, Mass.‚ on November 14.

BLAST: Where you prepared for the fact that there were going to be mobs at your last two events and they’d have to get shut down?

RP: No, not at all. It’s not even the last two anymore, it’s been all of them.

BLAST: Since Comic-con. I was at Comic-con, and I remember when you came out there were just cheers.

RP: It hasn’t died down at all. It happened in [Italy], it happened in Mexico. It’s completely ridiculous.

BLAST: What do people at home think about it? Are your parents laughing, thinking you’re the new George Clooney?

RP: Well my sister was. She was just thinking, “Oh, what road did you take?” They think it’s like completely ridiculous.

BLAST: Have you talked to anyone else who’s on tour, like Kristen or Taylor or anyone?

RP: I haven’t actually. Do you how they’re doing? [laughter]

BLAST: They have not had the same response that you’ve had. That’s why I was asking. Are they-

RP: Are they what? Are they pissed off? [laughter] Um, I don’t know. I haven’t actually asked them.

BLAST: The movie’s coming out in less than a week. Is there anything that you’d go back and change about it? Or prepare for it to come out?

RP: No, I wouldn’t change anything about it. I mean, if I was doing it now, knowing it was going to be this audience, I think I probably would have done it differently. I’m not sure how. But I think, at the end of the day, it’s a good thing I went into it thinking it’s a small thing because it essentially is. It’s a small story, it’s an intimate story, and I think it comes across as being very human rather than being a big epic thing, which I think no one would have really appreciated. I think it looked very organic when you look at it. I hope people aren’t expecting to be like some like, “Waah!” like some like huge, you know, “E.T.” thing, because it’s really not. It seems very personal. The book is very personal. Hopefully, hopefully, you know, it will live up to its hype.

BLAST: In previous interviews, you [and Kristen] said that producers said, “Don’t take it so seriously, make it more of a teen flick.” Did you guys make it more of a serious movie or is it going to end up being more of a [teen movie]?

RP: I think the fans of the book would be kind of upset if it was too too serious, because it’s not exactly “War and Peace” or something. I mean, it’s funny. I had Catherine give me a copy of the book with all the instances where Edward smiles and jokes and stuff. They were all highlighted, because I was so determined to make him like the most depressing character in the history of fiction. I think that’s the point. You don’t know how something is coming out, you don’t get in the edit room or whatever. So no, it’s good how it turned out. I think the beginning is how I wanted it to be, and I think it’s better. No girl would ever think the perfect guy would be some kind of manic-depressive.

BLAST: Depends on the girl.

RP: Well yeah. If I was a girl, I’d love it. I love manic-depressive girls. But you know, I don’t really.

BLAST: Are you prepared for the girls out there to be like, “Rob, will you go to prom with me?” because I’ve had a couple say that’s what they’re planning on asking.

RP: When is prom?

BLAST: May? Something?

RP: Well, that’s quite a long way off.

Blast releases a special TWILIGHT EXTRA issue of the magazine on Monday with photos and video from the event, a longer interview with Robert Pattinson, our movie review, and more!

SAUGUS, Mass. — The teenage girl came out of the Hot Topic store, eyes glazed with a silly smile on her face. Her mother ran up to meet her, just as the words started tumbling out of the daughter’s lips.

“He talked to me,” she gasped, as her mother smiled along but tried to calm the teen down.

“She has epilepsy,” the mother explained, “and I don’t want her to seize.”

Then she scooped up her daughter and hurried away, without giving her name, to make room for the next giggling girl.

Fan dedication: defined.

She was just one of hundreds who flocked to the Square One Mall north of Boston on Friday. The object of their fanaticism wasn’t one of the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus, but rather a soft-spoken, spiky-haired Brit named Robert Pattinson.

In the words of one indignant passerby who was turned away from shopping at the barricaded Hot Topic: “He isn’t even famous.”

Though Pattinson, 22, may not be a household name yet, to the fan community of Stephenie Meyer’s vampire “Twilight” series, (and hardcore Harry Potter fans who remember he played Cedric Diggory) he is second to none. Playing the lead male character Edward in the upcoming vampire film “Twilight,” the fan hysteria has reached peak heights.

“At first I thought maybe he wasn’t as good for Edward, but now I think he’s perfect,” said Selys Rivera, 14, of Worcester. “He’s completely perfect for Edward. He’s amazing.”

Pattinson, along with co-stars Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Edi Gathegi and Rachelle Lefavre, is headlining the Hot Topic-sponsored movie tour to promote “Twilight” in the final days before the film’s release on November 21. The Saugus event was Pattinson’s third and final stop on the tour after the event scheduled in San Francisco was canceled after fans mobbed the mall.

Pattinson, Stewart, and the trio of Lautner, Gathegi and Lefavre toured to 13 cities across the U.S. from November 10 through November 15.

“[The hysteria] hasn’t died down at all,” Pattinson told Blast in a brief interview at the Saugus Hot Topic. “It happened in [Italy], it happened in Mexico. It’s completely ridiculous.”

Here in Saugus, the crowd was much tamer than the events in San Francisco and Chicago. Wristbands were given, starting at 9 p.m. Thursday, to the first 500 people who bought the Hot Topic official “Twilight” tour T-shirt. The Saugus police were no-nonsense about the event and were a steady presence around the mall throughout the night.

“We got here at about 9 p.m. yesterday and we were there like all night long,” said Attleboro resident Amanda Pease, 20. “We only left to go to Starbucks.”

At 5 p.m. Friday, a crowd of a couple hundred girls had gathered around a stage that was set up for Pattinson to speak to the fans for the question and answer portion of the event. Some had camped out for more than 20 hours just for the chance to meet their beloved “Edward,” while others had arrived only moments before to wait around until Pattinson spoke at on the stage.

A security presence was felt. A barricade was set up like a moat around the stage to protect Pattinson from the overzealousness of any rabid fan-girls.