Prosecutor: No charges in college basketball brawl (AP)

CINCINNATI ? A prosecutor said Wednesday he has decided against filing criminal charges in an on-court brawl involving University of Cincinnati and Xavier basketball players.

Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters said he made the decision following an investigation that included review of films and interviews with the two teams' coaches and some players and witnesses. He also said that Xavier center Kenny Frease was satisfied with an apology from Bearcat forward Yancy Gates after the two "reached out to each other privately."

Gates punched Frease in the face during the melee. The 7-foot, 275-pound center fell, bleeding from below his left eye, and was kicked by someone else while on the floor. X-rays were normal. The 6-foot-9, 260-pound Gates was suspended by UC for six games.

The two archrivals' annual "Crosstown Shootout" Saturday ended in a melee with punches, shoves and one player getting kicked while on the floor.

Officials and players of both schools have apologized, and both schools suspended four players each. No. 8 Xavier won the game 76-53. It was stopped by referees with 9.4 seconds left.

"This was an unfortunate situation," Deters said in a statement. "However, after talking with both coaches, I truly believe that the teams will be able to deal with the situation more effectively than the criminal justice system."

Messages for comment were left with the two schools' athletic departments.

Criminal prosecutions from player confrontations in sports events are very rare. A handful of National Hockey League players have been charged with assault over the years. But there were no charges in a 2010 melee in Cincinnati between the St. Louis Cardinals and Reds baseball players that left Cardinal catcher Jason LaRue with a concussion after being kicked by Reds' pitcher Johnny Cueto.

After a 2008 brawl between teams in a minor-league baseball game in Dayton, Ohio, a Peoria Chiefs pitcher was convicted of felonious assault causing serious injury for hitting a fan in the head with a ball thrown into the stands.

School officials have said they would work together to promote sportsmanship and cooperation to try to preserve the Shootout, one of Cincinnati's most eagerly anticipated annual events. Xavier students camped out overnight in freezing temperatures to get tickets to this year's home game for the Musketeers.

Xavier guard Tu Holloway was suspended for one game. He acknowledged making comments directed at UC's team right before the brawl, and afterward described his team's toughness as "a whole bunch of gangsters." He said later he regretted using the term "gangsters."

Holloway was irritated during the buildup to the game when Cincinnati guard Sean Kilpatrick said in a radio interview that Holloway, one of the nation's best guards, wouldn't even be a starter on the Bearcats.

Xavier junior guard Mark Lyons was suspended for two games, and freshman Dez Wells and sophomore Landen Amos for four games each.

Besides Gates, suspended Bearcats are starting junior center Cheikh Mbodj (six games), freshman forward Octavius Ellis (four games) and freshman guard Ge'Lawn Guyn, one game.

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Contact the reporter at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111214/ap_on_sp_ot/us_cincinnati_xavier_brawl

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Happy Bill of Rights Day! (Theagitator)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS Feeds and Widgets via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/175134200?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Watchdogs: Perry team might have violated campaign finance laws ...

Two watchdog groups Thursday called on the Federal Election Commission to look into possible infringements by Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry?s campaign and a pro-Perry super-PAC.
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Make Us Great Again might have shared videos produced by the political action committee with the Perry campaign for free or might not have charged the correct amount, Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21 said in a news release.
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?The Perry campaign is prohibited from accepting such in-kind contributions with a value exceeding the $2,500 contribution limit and, further, Super PACs are prohibited altogether from making contributions to candidates,? Campaign Legal Center attorney Paul Ryan said in the release.
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?It appears the Perry campaign and Make Us Great Again likely violated these laws and the FEC needs to investigate.?
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The two groups, which plan to file a complaint urging investigation with the commission, cite Politico reports as evidence that the groups shared campaign footage.?Three portions of footage used in campaign ads created by Make Us Great Again were also used by Perry?s campaign, the release states.
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The Texas governor?s campaign pulled the footage from the public domain, a spokesman for the campaign told The Hill.
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Super-PACs, also known as independent expenditure-only committees, are prohibited from donating to or coordinating with candidates.?The gift of video production, valued at more than $2,500, would constitute an in-kind donation and likely break general finance laws as well.
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?The use by the Perry presidential campaign of the same video footage contained in an ad run by the Super PAC supporting Governor Perry raises serious concerns about whether the Super PAC is really independent from the Perry campaign, as required by law,? Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer said in a news release.
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Make Us Great Again is headed by former Perry Chief of Staff Mike Toomey and filed with the commission to be an independent expenditure-only committee at the end of July. Paul Kilgore is treasurer for the group.
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Immediate requests for comment from Make Us Great Again were not returned.
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? Cameron Joseph contributed.

Source: http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/199671-watchdogs-accuse-perry-campaign-super-pac-of-breakign-campaign-finance-laws

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Another Earth? NASA confirms first planet that could support life, liquid water (Yahoo! News)

Obama greets a crowd at Wilkes Barre/Scranton International Airport (Carolyn Kaster/AP)

Republicans on a private Republican National Committee conference call with allies warned Tuesday that party surrogates should refrain from personal attacks against President Barack Obama, because such a strategy is too hazardous for the GOP.

"We're hesitant to jump on board with heavy attacks" personally against President Obama, Nicholas Thompson, the vice president of polling firm the Tarrance Group, said on the call. "There's a lot of people who feel sorry for him."

Recent polling data indicates that while the president suffers from significantly low job approval ratings, voters still give "high approval" to Obama personally, Thompson said.

Voters "don't think he's an evil man who's out to change the United States" for the worse--even though many of the same survey respondents agree that his policies have harmed the country, Thompson said. The upshot, Thompson stressed, is that Republicans should "exercise some caution" when talking about the president personally.

On the call--which Yahoo News was invited to attend because of a mistake by someone on the staff of the Republican National Committee--Ari Fleischer, the former press secretary for George W. Bush, encouraged Republicans to turn around Democratic attacks lobbed at the GOP presidential candidates (Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, for starters) for "flip-flopping."

"I don't like playing defense," Fleischer said. He suggested the listeners to Tuesday's call label the president as a flip-flopper on the following issues: opposing tax increases for those making under $250,000, opposing the Bush tax cuts, opposing raising the debt limit, and opposing a health care mandate.

"When it comes to flip flopping, Barack Obama is the king of flip flopping," Fleischer said. "You can offer that to anybody," he suggested.

Thompson noted that Obama may be boxed in by similarly strong personal approval numbers for Republican lawmakers as he ponders attacking the GOP House majority during the 2012 campaign.

"Obama running against Congress is not going to work," Thompson said.

In a poll conducted in early November by the Tarrance Group and the Democratic group Lake Research for Politico and George Washington University, voters gave their personal member of Congress a 46 percent approval rating--even higher than the 44 percent personal approval numbers for Obama in the survey, Thompson said. (The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percent.)

Fifty-eight percent of the voters surveyed disapproved of how Obama is handling relations with Congress, according to Tarrance's November poll.

"It's a tough road for him when you look at those numbers," Thompson said of the president.

Thompson said that his group's research suggests that voters are giving Obama higher approval on foreign policy than on the issue of jobs and the economy.

Read More ?

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/techblog/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_technews/20111206/tc_yblog_technews/another-earth-nasa-confirms-first-planet-that-could-support-life-liquid-water

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Obama calls Pakistan leader about NATO airstrikes

WASHINGTON (AP) ? President Barack Obama has told Pakistan's president that the NATO airstrikes that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers were not deliberate attacks and that the U.S. is committed to a full investigation.

The strikes along the border with Afghanistan last weekend have further strained ties between the U.S. and Pakistan as the Obama administration tries to wind down the war in Afghanistan.

The White House says Obama and Pakistan's president, Asif Ali Zardari, reaffirmed their countries' relationship and agreed to keep in close touch.

Obama called Zardari on Sunday.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2011-12-04-Obama-Pakistan/id-d85957d4154c4353ac83c80bd5b6329d

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Fla. man charged with killing couple with bat (AP)

MIAMI ? A North Florida man has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after authorities say he beat a man and a woman to death with a baseball bat and then photographed their bodies.

Authorities said Saturday that Craig Arron Lede, 40, of Spring Hill is being held without bond after telling investigators that he killed John Ketsemidis, 29, and Dana Nelson, 28, at Lede's house on Wednesday when he became enraged that a debt couldn't be repaid. The suspect also allegedly drove to the home of the male victim's mother the next day trying to get money while the female victim's body was stashed in the trunk.

"The defendant stated he killed John and Dana because he was tired of being `screwed over,'" Hernando County Sheriff's Detective Randy Wiliamson wrote in an arrest affidavit. "The defendant demonstrated how he swung the baseball bat and struck both victims. The defendant stated he photographed the bodies and intended to keep the picture as a trophy..."

According to a news release from the sheriff's office, Ketsemidis' mother called authorities Friday in a panic because she hadn't heard from her son in a few days. She told authorities that Lede had come by her house on Thursday, telling a bizarre story that her son was at a local hospital and that he needed money. Lede was driving her son's BMW, she said.

Hernando County sheriff's deputies headed to Lede's home that afternoon in an effort to locate Ketsemidis ? they had also traced him to the address through an ankle-monitoring device he was wearing because he was on probation. There deputies noticed what they believed was a body wrapped in a blanket on the garage floor, according to the news release.

"At that time Craig became very nervous and asked the deputies to leave unless they had a search warrant," according to the statement.

Lede, who is unemployed and had a warrant for a probation violation, was immediately taken into custody. It's unclear if he has an attorney.

As deputies pursued an arrest warrant, Lede began talking to investigators at the sheriff's office, authorities said,

Lede said the couple came to his house late Wednesday night and that Ketsemidis said he couldn't repay money he owed him, the news release said. Authorities said Lede became enraged and used a bat to strike Ketsemidis in the head, knocking him to the ground, and then to strike Nelson in the head.

"Once the victims were down and helpless, the defendant struck them in the head and upper body several times causing eventual death," the arrest affidavit says. "The defendant used his camera to photograph the deceased victims."

Authorities subsequently found both bodies in Lede's garage ? Ketsemidis' wrapped in a blanket, and Nelson's in the trunk of Ketsemidis' BMW.

The arrest affidavit says Lede acknowledged that he had "run errands with Dana's body still in the trunk."

Lede was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and one count of armed robbery. Authorities said Lede was wearing a gold Bulova watch that he removed from Ketsemidis' body.

Authorities believe Lede acted alone. He is currently being held without bond.

The St. Petersburg Times reported Saturday (http://bit.ly/uEtXPg ) that Lede has a history of domestic violence and a September 2010 battery charge. His father-in-law David Stenger told the newspaper that Lede once struck Stenger's daughter, prompting her to leave the marriage, file a restraining order against him and begin the divorce process.

Stenger said Lede's behavior worsened following a devastating car accident and he became addicted to painkillers.

Lede and the two victims had all been patients at Hope Pain Management Clinic, which was closed a month ago after a lengthy investigation by the sheriff's office.

"There is little doubt that (prescription drugs) significantly contributed to the deaths of these two young people," Sheriff Al Nienhuis said in a statement. "This is a perfect example that prescription drug abuse is not a victimless or a non-violent crime."

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/us/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111204/ap_on_re_us/us_couple_slain_baseball_bat

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New evidence of an unrecognized visual process

ScienceDaily (Dec. 1, 2011) ? We don't see only what meets the eye. The visual system constantly takes in ambiguous stimuli, weighs its options, and decides what it perceives. This normally happens effortlessly. Sometimes, however, an ambiguity is persistent, and the visual system waffles on which perception is right. Such instances interest scientists because they help us understand how the eyes and the brain make sense of what we see.

Most scientists believe rivalry occurs only when there's "spatial conflict" -- two objects striking the same place on the retina at the same time as our eyes move. But the retina isn't the only filter or organizer of visual information. There's also the "non-retinal reference frame" -- objects such as mountains or chairs that locate things in space and make the world appear stable even when our eyes are moving.

"We asked: what if visual ambiguities are not presented on the same spot on the retina, but on the objects [in the frame] as they move around," says California Institute of Technology cognitive scientist Jeroen J.A. van Boxtel. Indeed, he and colleague Christof Koch found evidence of rivalry in this reference frame, with surprising effects on the better-understood spatial conflict. The findings, which will appear in an upcoming issue of Psychological Science, a journal published by the Association of Psychological Science, offer intriguing clues to how the visual system works.

In their experiments, van Boxtel and Koch created spatial conflict with a "motion quartet," which changes the arrangement of four dots. If the dots are displaced in certain ways, the visual system isn't sure if the movement is vertical or horizontal. If the dots move to an altogether different space, there's no rivalry. Then the researchers upped the perceptual ante by creating an object reference frame with three white discs and shifting it, too, along with or in opposition to the smaller dots.

Seven male and female participants viewed the changing arrangements in four conditions. In one, both dots and discs remained stationary (creating spatial rivalry); in each of two, either dots or discs moved right or left; in the fourth, both moved horizontally together (creating ambiguity in the frame). Each time, participants had to press a button indicating whether the dots moved horizontally or vertically. The presses were analyzed for perceived movement "bias" (more horizontal or vertical) and duration -- evidence either of rivalry or visual clarity.

The results: Even when the dots moved to another space altogether -- so there was no spatial conflict -- the moving discs created the effect of perceptual ambiguity. But the researchers also found that visual rivalry disappeared when the dots were stationary and the disks moved (that is, the dots were not linked to the disks). It was as if the brain had bigger fish -- object-frame rivalry -- to fry.

In subsequent experiments -- one changing the vertical relationship of the dots and one placing the dots outside the white discs -- the researchers got results similar to those they would have gotten without the frame. Their conclusion: The visual system is working out object-frame rivalry as it would spatial rivalry, probably with the same brain regions and processes.

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Journal Reference:

1. van Boxtel et al. Visual rivalry without spatial conflict. Psychological Science, 2011

Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.

Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of ScienceDaily or its staff.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111201174229.htm

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