Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored for the fifth time in four days and defenseman Ryan McDonagh snapped a second-period tie to lift the New York Rangers to a 3-2 victory over the Washington Capitals on Sunday.
Kobe Bryant hit a baseline jump shot with 4.2 seconds left and the Los Angeles Lakers wrapped up a six-game road trip by holding on to beat the Raptors 94-92 on Sunday, their eighth victory in nine meetings with Toronto
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
Miami coach Al Golden says the worst is behind him, but his headaches figure to continue now that former booster Nevin Shapiro, now in jail, says his involvement with the Hurricanes program will result in stiff penalties.
Eleven shots separated Phil and Tiger Sunday at Pebble Beach as Lefty secured his 40th Tour win. Jason Sobel had hole-by-hole reports.
The United States completed a 5-0 rout of Switzerland in the Davis Cup on Sunday, with 19-year-old Ryan Harrison and John Isner winning closing singles matches.
Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Tessa Worley of France fought off gusting winds to win a second consecutive World Cup giant slalom Sunday in the Andorran Pyrenees. Overall leader Lindsey Vonn was more than a second behind and finished eighth.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
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Ex-Duke rape prosecutor reports to jail Sept. 7: Mike Nifong, the former prosecutor at the center of the Duke rape case, will now get to spend some time behind bars himself. WNCN's Shirley Min reports. |
RALEIGH, N.C. - Former Durham County prosecutor Mike Nifong walked out of jail Saturday morning after completing a 24-hour contempt sentence imposed by a judge for lying to the court about critical DNA evidence in the Duke lacrosse rape case.
Nifong left the county jail shortly after 9 a.m., where he was greeted with cheers and applause by a crowd of about 20 supporters waiting for him in the lobby. As they did Friday when Nifong reported to jail, they surrounded the disgraced and disbarred prosecutor as he moved through a crowd of reporters to a waiting car.
“Other than that, I just want to go home and spend some time with my family,” he said, refusing to speak with reporters who peppered him with questions.
The veteran prosecutor, who spent his entire career as an attorney in the Durham County district attorney’s office, won indictments last year against three Duke lacrosse players, charging them with raping a woman hired to strip at a March 2006 team party.
The players — Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and Dave Evans — were declared innocent earlier this year by state prosecutors, who concluded no crime could have occurred. North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said the students were victims of Nifong’s “tragic rush to accuse.”
Nifong was later disbarred for more than two dozen violations of the state’s rules of professional conduct, including withholding exculpatory DNA evidence and making numerous inflammatory comments about the lacrosse players to the media. He resigned as district attorney in July.
Last week, Superior Court Judge W. Osmond Smith III found that Nifong “willfully made false statements” to the court in September when he insisted he had given defense attorneys all results from a DNA test that helped exonerate the players.
The test had found DNA of multiple men, none of whom were lacrosse players, on the accuser. Nifong insisted during his contempt trial that he didn’t intentionally lie about the evidence, but acknowledged giving defense attorneys a report on the testing that was incomplete. A defense attorney eventually deciphered the omitted information amid nearly 2,000 pages of test data.
The three players are seeking a $30 million settlement from the city of Durham and reforms in the legal process, two people close to the case told The Associated Press on Friday. If the terms aren’t met, they will sue early next month, the sources said on condition of anonymity because the proposed settlement wasn’t complete.
Both sources stressed to the AP that the money must be accompanied by legal reforms, with one saying the roughly $10 million for each family would be paid out over five years.
The crowd waiting for Nifong was smaller than Friday morning, when he reported to start his sentence, and many of the faces of his supporters were the same. As the group led Nifong outside, several voices rose from the crowd in a show of support for the circling TV cameras.
“God is so good to you, Mike,” one woman said. “He loves you so much.”
The only heckles Saturday came from those passing by, one of whom shouted, “They’re hiring at McDonald’s, Mike. Get you a job. Thanks for costing us millions of dollars.”
But Nifong also received calls of encouragement from those who watched his release from across the street. “They had no business locking that man up,” yelled Gloria Parker, a resident of Durham for 10 years, as Nifong got in the back seat of a car driven by one of his attorneys.
“I know what he did. He did what he thought was right, and I support him 100 percent and I don’t care in Durham who knows,” Parker said. “I respect him to the fullest.”
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
NEW YORK (AP) - As the glow fades from the Giants' Super Bowl triumph, some New York sports fans are tuning in to basketball and hockey, with the Rangers in first place and the Knicks' overnight sensation, Jeremy Lin, sparking "Lin-sanity.''
Robins: This year, six new breeds will be making their debut on the green carpet for the Westminster Dog Show, which begins Monday.
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Zambia has won the African Cup of Nations, beating pre-tournament favorite Ivory Coast 8-7 on penalties in a dramatic final at Stade de l'Amitie.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
After leading by 18 points in the first half, the Los Angeles Lakers were staring at a four-point deficit with less than two minutes to play.