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BCS director Bill Hancock ‘confident’ after Department of Justice meeting

June 30, 2011

The executive director of college football’s Bowl Championship Series says he’s still not sure where Justice Department officials are going with their inquiry into the controversial postseason system.

But Bill Hancock said he was buoyed by a 90-minute meeting Thursday at the agency’s offices in Washington, D.C.

“I went into it confident that the BCS complies with the law, and I left the meeting even more confident,” Hancock said. “. . . They asked good questions. They asked how the BCS operates, and talked about access and finances. I gave them some history.

“We had an opportunity to explain what we do and why it doesn’t pose any antitrust concerns . . . that it improved access (to top-tier bowls) and attendance and the (championship) game is much more of a national game and fans have benefited. No. 1 and 2 have met 13 of 13 years by our standards and 10 of 13 by AP’s, and that only happened eight times in bowl games in 54 years before the BCS.

“Obviously the next step will be up to them.”

Article: USA TODAY

Midnight comes early as NBA, players resigned to a lockout

NEW YORK — Pro sports in the USA is on the verge of two concurrent lockouts.

NBA owners were getting ready to impose a lockout at 12:01 a.m. ET Friday when the current collective bargaining agreement expires, and NBA players will join NFL players in a lockout.

The National Basketball Players Association and NBA officials emerged from Thursday’s 2½-hour bargaining session with no good news.

After meeting for at least the seventh time since the start of the NBA Finals, the sides remain far apart — several hundred million dollars — and have drastically different labor positions on several issues, including a hard salary cap favoring owners and the owners’ desire to keep a greater share of nearly $4 billion in basketball-related income.

Article: USA TODAY

Georgia police sting nets 49 arrests, hundreds of weapons

Atlanta (CNN) — A storefront sting in Atlanta led to the indictment of 49 people on drug trafficking, firearms and theft charges, state and federal officials announced Wednesday.

The seven-month undercover effort was led by officers with the Atlanta Police Department and agents in the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco and Explosives.

The operation adopted the name “ATL Blaze” from the store that posed as a tobacco shop but trafficked weapons and drugs.

Undercover agents posing as store managers and employees were approached by weapons and drug traffickers and convicted felons about buying guns, drugs and stolen property.

Police recovered 257 handguns, 60 rifles, 46 shotguns and 10 sawed-off shotguns.

Article: CNN

Judge denies ‘Whitey’ Bulger request to merge racketeering cases

Boston (CNN) — A federal judge on Thursday denied a petition of James “Whitey” Bulger to consolidate two pending racketeering cases against the reputed mobster, ruling in favor of prosecutors’ requests to dismiss the lesser 1994 indictment in an effort to focus on 19 murder charges.

Interim defense attorney Peter Krupp had requested the merger, which prosecutors argued was meant to complicate the more severe charges that Bulger faces.

Krupp had accused federal prosecutors of dropping the less serious charge in order to “game the system” and allow a different judge to hear the case.

The racketeering indictment, filed in 1995, had been assigned to U.S. District Judge Mark Wolf. The murder charges are part of a case brought in 2000 and assigned to a different judge.

Article: CNN