Dream Matchup for Every NCAA Basketball Major Conference Tournament Title Game

Michigan certainly could be included in this game, but the past four Big Ten tournament titles have gone the way of Columbus or East Lansing (three to the Buckeyes, one to the Spartans).

While the conference is certainly loaded with squads like Indiana, Wisconsin, Illinois and Michigan, Michigan State and Ohio State have developed a fierce rivalry the past few seasons. Tom Izzo and Thad Matta are arguably the two best coaches in the league, and no other Big Ten schools have won more than one regular-season conference crown since 2005.

During that stretch, the Spartans have at least a share of three, and the Buckeyes have at least a share of five.

This game would feature a ton of familiar names to fans across the Midwest and country, including Aaron Craft, LaQuinton Ross, Sam Thompson, Keith Appling, Gary Harris and Adreian Payne and a clash between the Buckeyes? stifling perimeter defense and the scoring guards of the Spartans.

A No. 1 seed may even be on the line in the NCAA tournament (as it often is in the Big Ten tournament final).

Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1700087-dream-matchup-for-every-ncaa-basketball-major-conference-tournament-title-game

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Documents point to ex-NFLer Hernandez as gunman

ATTLEBORO, Mass. (AP) ? An associate of former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez said he was told Hernandez fired the shots that resulted in the death of a semi-pro football player, according to documents filed in Florida.

The records, obtained by The Associated Press, also show that a vehicle wanted in a double killing in Boston a year before had been rented in Hernandez's name.

Together, the revelations provide the most damning evidence yet against the 23-year-old star athlete.

Hernandez has been charged in the June killing of Boston semi-pro athlete Odin Lloyd. The records say Hernandez associate Carlos Ortiz told Massachusetts investigators that another man, Ernest Wallace, said Hernandez shot Lloyd in an industrial park near Hernandez's home in North Attleborough.

The gun used in the killing has not been found.

The documents were filed in court by the Miramar, Fla., police department to justify a search of Wallace's mother's home in that city.

The records also show that police, while investigating Lloyd's killing, searched in Hernandez's hometown of Bristol, Conn., and found a vehicle wanted in connection with a July 2012 double homicide near a Boston nightclub.

Hernandez has pleaded not guilty in Lloyd's killing. His legal team did not return email messages Tuesday. Wallace faces an accessory to murder charge in the case and has pleaded not guilty.

Prosecutors say Hernandez, Wallace and Ortiz drove with Lloyd in a rented Nissan Altima to the industrial park where Lloyd was fatally shot.

Ortiz told police that during the drive, Hernandez told Lloyd that Lloyd had been "chilling" with people Hernandez had problems with, the documents say. But Ortiz told police the two men shook hands and the problem seemed smoothed over. However, the Altima soon stopped, and everyone but Ortiz got out to urinate, according to Ortiz's account.

The witness told police he then heard gunshots before Hernandez and Wallace got back into the car without Lloyd and the car sped away.

Ortiz said he couldn't see who fired the shots because it was dark. Back at Hernandez's home, Ortiz said, Wallace asked him to get a small gun out from under the driver's seat. Ortiz said he did and gave it to Hernandez once they were inside.

Ortiz said he then went to sleep. When he woke up in the afternoon, according to his account, the three men returned the Altima and rented a Chrysler 300 before returning to Hernandez's home. Ortiz and Wallace then went to an apartment in the area that Hernandez and other football players used. Wallace let Ortiz in before leaving for a long time, the documents say. The two then drove to Bristol. Ortiz told police that Wallace said Hernandez shot Lloyd.

Hernandez, Wallace and Ortiz appear linked through Bristol. Wallace told Florida police he grew up with Hernandez's father. Ortiz's attorney, John Connors, said Tuesday his client, who's athletic and around the age of Hernandez's older brother, is from Bristol.

Meanwhile, eight search warrants were unsealed in Massachusetts after news organizations sought access to them. The warrants reveal the breadth of the investigation, with authorities scouring through everything from Hernandez's house to his phone to the contents of his team locker, which the Patriots emptied into a container after they released him.

A rifle, ammunition and video surveillance equipment were among the items police seized from Hernandez's home.

Records show Hernandez, who played tight end, became "argumentative" during his first encounter with police at his home about five hours after Lloyd's body was found by a jogger. Hernandez told police he had last seen Lloyd in Boston the day before. He asked, "What's with all the questions?" and locked the door behind him.

He then returned with his attorney's business card but didn't respond when police told him they were investigating a death, the records show.

"Mr. Hernandez slammed the door and relocked it behind him," the records read. "Mr. Hernandez did not ask officers whose death was being investigated. Mr. Hernandez's demeanor did not indicate any concern for the death of any person."

Hernandez came out later and agreed to be questioned at a police station.

The documents also say Hernandez called his girlfriend's cellphone and stopped her from speaking with police after they pulled her over and told her Lloyd was dead.

___

Anderson reported from Miami. Associated Press writers Erika Niedowski in Attleboro and Jay Lindsay in Boston contributed to this report.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/documents-point-ex-nfler-hernandez-gunman-131234156.html

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Syracuse Republicans running out of time to pick challenger to Mayor Stephanie Miner

By Michelle Breidenbach | mbreidenbach@syracuse.com
and Tim Knauss | tknauss@syracuse.com

SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- The 2013 election year is more than half over and the Republican Party is still furiously searching for a candidate to challenge Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner, a Democrat.

It's now or never as far as New York State election law is concerned. Today, Republicans start running up against deadlines to put a name on the ballot.

They are already working on borrowed time. In order to save a spot on the ballot, Onondaga County Republican Committee Chairman Tom Dadey put his own name on petitions as a placeholder.

Today is the last day to turn in those petitions with enough signatures to qualify for a ballot line. Monday is the last day for Dadey to remove his name. Next Friday is the last day for Republicans to replace him with a real candidate.

Dadey said Wednesday evening he did not know who the GOP candidate for mayor would be.

Unlike Democrats, who alerted the media when they filed petitions, Republicans are expected to file petitions quietly with no fanfare, said Bob Andrews, an Onondaga County legislator and chair of the Syracuse Republican Committee.

Andrews said he did not intend to go to the board of elections and had no comment on the mayor's race.

Dadey said he wants Republicans to have a say in the election and he wants to find someone who will win.

"It's good for the community to have a competitive mayor's race,'' he said. "It's not going to be good for anybody if we don't. The simple fact of the matter is, this race could be over after primary day.''

Onondaga County Legislature Chairman Ryan McMahon, a Republican Party leader, said Dadey is talking to a potential candidate who is expected to decide in the next few days.

The year did not start out well for Republicans. The day Miner announced she would run for re-election, one of her Republican opponents from the last election stood at the podium and endorsed her. Otis Jennings was out.

Dadey went through every Republican Syracuse resident successfully elected to public office in recent years. State Sen. John DeFrancisco was not interested. McMahon wasn't willing to give up his seat. Steve Kimatian, another 2009 Republican candidate for mayor, said no way.

Republicans were briefly excited about the possibility of Tom Sexton, a retired firefighter and the grandson of former Mayor Thomas Corcoran. But he announced earlier this week that he would support Pat Hogan, a Democrat challenging Miner in a primary.

It is tough to be a Republican in Syracuse.

There are no elected Republicans in city hall.

The last Republican to win a citywide race was ten years ago, when city Judge Jeffrey Merrill won a 10-year term. He is retiring.

The last Republican to win a citywide race for a city hall post was in 1999, when Joanie Mahoney won a councilor-at-large seat. She is now the county executive and no longer lives in the city.

Republicans are outnumbered more than 3 to 1 by Democrats in Syracuse. There are 38,508 enrolled Democrats and 11,625 enrolled Republicans. There are more people not enrolled in a party (16,461) than there are Republicans, according to the Onondaga County Board of Elections.

Besides the Democratic enrollment advantage, Miner has the advantage of incumbency, a campaign fund of at least $188,000 and an army of 220 committee members to help get out the vote.

If no surprise candidate emerges for Republicans in the coming days, here are the possible scenarios and complications:

Pat Hogan

Republicans could run Hogan, a Democrat.

Hogan is a city councilor who has reached a term limit. He turned in petitions this week to challenge Miner in a Democratic primary. He has been annoyed with the pressure the media is putting on him to say whether he would run on the Republican line, but he has not ruled it out. Hogan met Dadey for coffee Wednesday and discussed the possibility of a "fusion ticket'' that could pull together candidates from both parties in opposition to the Miner administration.

Neither Dadey nor Hogan has committed to form a fusion ticket, but it's a concept that McMahon would support if Dadey can't find a strong Republican candidate for mayor. McMahon and Hogan are friends who served together on the Common Council and rarely disagreed on the issues.

The difficulty for Dadey would be to put together a team of candidates led by Hogan that would be acceptable to local Republicans. Hogan wouldn't join the ticket, for example, if Dadey required him to endorse the Republican candidates running for district council seats, Hogan said. Hogan is supporting two incumbent Democratic city councilors and one challenger who were not endorsed by Miner or the Democratic Party establishment.

Endorsing a Democrat for mayor could also force Dadey to eat crow. He criticized Mahoney for crossing party lines to back Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2010 and their relationship has suffered.

Ian Hunter

Republican Party committee member and self-described "loose cannon" Ian Hunter is also turning in petitions today to run as a Republican for mayor.

Dadey has no intention of supporting Hunter. In fact, he said he plans to look for mistakes in the signatures Hunter submits today to the board of elections. Hunter said he is collecting more than the required 569 petitions to try to survive a challenge.

Dadey contends that Hunter "is not a serious candidate.''

Hunter is a conservative who said the party establishment worries about what he might say. He is project manager in his wife's mulch recycling company in DeWitt. He has eight children, ranging in age from 48 to 18 and nine grandchildren.

Some Republicans fear that a vocal conservative at the top of the ticket would draw Democrats to vote and could hurt other Republicans on the ticket.

Tom Dadey

Another scenario is far-fetched and complicated, but is a legal option.

Dadey could stay on the ticket and trade his spot at the last minute on a technicality.
After Dadey put his name on petitions as a temporary candidate, information surfaced that he was selling his house in the city and buying a house in the suburbs (that, oddly enough, happens to belong to U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei, a Democrat and arch enemy of Dadey's.)

By law, a candidate who dies or moves away can be replaced by the party as late as one week before the election. If that happens before the September primary, a substitution can be made by the party's three-person committee to fill vacancies, which is headed by Dadey. After the primary, the change would require a vote of the full city committee.

It is a far-fetched option, but if Dadey leaves his name on the ballot Monday, that could be what he has in mind.

Contact Michelle Breidenbach at mbreidenbach@syracuse.com or 315-470-3186. Contact Tim Knauss at tknauss@syracuse.com or 315-470-3023.

Source: http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2013/07/syracuse_republicans_running_out_of_time_to_pick_challenger_to_mayor_stephanie_m.html

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Senate to try again on student loan vote

WASHINGTON (AP) ? Senate Democrats are trying to restore lower interest rates on student loans, a week after Congress' inaction caused those rates to double.

A procedural vote is scheduled for Wednesday on a Senate measure that would return rates on subsidized Stafford loans to 3.4 percent for one year. An earlier attempt in the Senate to keep rates low came up short and rates for those loans doubled to 6.8 percent on July 1.

The increase did not affect many students right away; loan documents are generally signed just before students return to campus, and few students returned to school over the July Fourth holiday. Existing loans were not affected, either.

However, absent congressional action in the coming weeks, the increase could spell an extra $2,600 for an average student returning to campus this fall, according to Congress' Joint Economic Committee. Lawmakers from both parties have criticized the increase and the costs passed to students, but there is little agreement on how to restore the lower rates.

"It's not fair for Democrats who run Washington to stand in students' way," said Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state, a member of the House GOP leadership.

Countered Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, "The Republican proposals are attractive in the short term but in the long term are extremely expensive."

During last year's presidential campaign, lawmakers from both parties voted to keep interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans at 3.4 percent. Yet this year, without a presidential election looming, the issue seemed to fizzle and the July 1 deadline passed without action.

Most Democratic senators favored keeping the rates at 3.4 percent for now and including a broad overhaul of federal student loans in the Higher Education Act rewrite lawmakers expect to take up this fall. Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., said the matter needs to be viewed in a holistic way.

"How are we going to address the costs of college? How are we going to make college more affordable for our kids?" Franken said.

Yet an earlier Democratic attempt at a two-year extension failed to overcome a procedural hurdle before lawmakers left for the July Fourth holiday. Under Senate rules, 60 votes are needed to let the proposal go forward and Democrats alone cannot force it ahead.

A one-year extension seemed heading toward the same fate.

"What is good about a short-term political fix?" said Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, the top Republican on the Senate Education Committee.

Efforts to find a compromise seemed heading nowhere as well. Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia worked with Alexander to write a bipartisan bill that closely follows a bill the GOP-led House has already passed. That bill incorporated an idea that was included in President Barack Obama's budget to link interest rates to the financial markets.

Under the House plan, interest rates would be lower in the next few years but rise as the economy improves.

"That is not fair to students and it is certainly not good for our economy," said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash.

The Democratic chairman of the Education Committee, Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa, also said the GOP proposal was not an option and stood opposed to considering it this summer. Instead, he insisted on a one-year extension of the current rates.

"Congress has an imperative to pass a plan to keep rates low now so that students and families struggling to afford college can count on affordable federal student loans," Harkin said.

Without an agreement, though, students are facing 6.8 percent interest rates on new subsidized Stafford loans, which typically go to students from lower- and middle-income families.

That is unacceptable, said Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. "You can go out and get a car loan for 4 percent," she said.

Despite the widespread agreement that the current 6.8 percent interest rate is too high for students, there is little consensus on what to do.

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, has remained adamant that the chamber he leads has already taken action and it's up to the Senate to fall in line.

"Republicans have acted to stop student loans' interest rates from doubling," Boehner said. "The House has done its job. It's time for the Senate and the White House to do its job."

Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid has signaled he has no interest in anything beyond an extension of current rates until at least 2014 ? when a third of the Senate and the full House face re-election.

"Speaker Boehner says the House has acted and the ball is in the Senate's court," Reid said. "But Democrats can't support a plan that would be worse for students than doing nothing at all."

___

Follow Philip Elliott on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/philip_elliott

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/senate-try-again-student-loan-vote-064143731.html

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NY judge: Apple conspired to raise e-book prices

NEW YORK (AP) ? Apple Inc. broke antitrust laws and conspired with publishers to raise electronic book prices significantly in spring 2010, a federal judge ruled Wednesday, citing "compelling evidence" from the words of the late Steve Jobs.

U.S. District Judge Denise Cote said Apple knew that no publisher could risk acting alone to try to eliminate Amazon.com's $9.99 price for the most popular e-books so it "created a mechanism and environment that enabled them to act together in a matter of weeks to eliminate all retail price competition for their e-books."

"Apple seized the moment and brilliantly played its hand," Cote said. She wrote that Apple's deals with publishers caused some e-book prices to rise 50 percent or more virtually overnight.

The Manhattan jurist, who did not determine damages, said the evidence was "overwhelming that Apple knew of the unlawful aims of the conspiracy and joined the conspiracy with the specific intent to help it succeed."

Her decision was not surprising, since she had urged Apple to settle before trial and said the company had only a slim chance of winning. Government officials and industry experts have said e-book prices have declined and stabilized since rising after Apple entered the market.

Cote identified five trial witnesses as "noteworthy for their lack of credibility," including Eddy Cue, a top Apple executive described as Jobs' right-hand man.

Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr said the Cupertino, Calif.-based company will appeal.

"Apple did not conspire to fix e-book pricing and we will continue to fight against these false accusations," he said. "We've done nothing wrong."

Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer called the ruling "a victory for millions of consumers who choose to read books electronically."

He said the judge agreed with the Justice Department and 33 state attorneys general that executives at the highest levels of Apple orchestrated a conspiracy with five major publishers.

"Through today's court decision and previous settlements with five major publishers, consumers are again benefiting from retail price competition and paying less for their e-books," he said.

The publishers that had settled were Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Holtzbrinck Publishers, doing business as Macmillan, and The Penguin Publishing Co. Ltd., doing business as Penguin Group.

In her ruling, Cote said the conspiracy harmed consumers in numerous ways.

She said some had to pay more for e-books, others bought a cheaper e-book rather than the one they preferred to purchase and others deferred a purchase altogether rather than pay the higher price.

Although she acknowledged that many of Apple's practices in its dealing with publishers would individually be legally, Cote said they collectively furthered the goal of raising e-book prices across the board.

"Apple is confronted with the fact that the conspiracy succeeded. It not only succeeded, it did so in record-setting time and at the precise moment that Apple entered the e-book market," she said.

Apple attorney Orin Snyder had told Cote previously that she would set a "dangerous precedent" if she concluded that Apple manipulated e-book prices as it entered the market in 2010. He did not immediately respond to a message for comment Wednesday.

Neumayr said Apple's introduction of the iBookstore "gave customers more choice, injecting much needed innovation and competition into the market, breaking Amazon's monopolistic grip on the publishing industry."

Amazon declined to comment Wednesday.

The government claimed Apple and the publishers agreed to a pricing policy that forced millions of consumers to pay several dollars more for most online books. In her ruling, Cote said "compelling evidence of Apple's participation in the conspiracy came from the words uttered by Steve Jobs, Apple's founder, CEO and visionary."

She quoted Jobs, who died in 2011, as saying he understood publishers' concerns that Amazon's $9.99 price for new releases was eroding the perceived value of their products and that Apple was willing to try pricing e-books at $12.99 and $14.99. She noted that Jobs bought an e-book for $14.99 at the launch of Apple's e-book store and told a reporter that day that Amazon's $9.99 price for the same book would be irrelevant because soon all prices will "be the same."

"Apple has struggled mightily to reinterpret Jobs's statements in a way that will eliminate their bite," Cote wrote in the 160-page opinion. "Its efforts have proven fruitless."

Tim Bajarin, an analyst at Creative Strategies who has followed Apple for more than three decades, said the expected appeal meant the case would not be resolved anytime soon.

He said Apple's position was strong because Amazon's low e-book prices were hurting publishers and authors at the time, whereas they are "a bit more consistent now."

Cote said a damages trial would follow, though none was immediately scheduled. In her ruling, she found the government had proven Apple engaged in an illegal price-fixing conspiracy by joining with publishers to eliminate retail price competition and to raise e-book prices.

The state attorneys general are seeking unspecified damages. The federal government is seeking an order that Apple be banned for two years from agreements that let publishers rather than retailers set prices and that the company be prohibited from future antitrust law violations. The Justice Department also is asking Apple to establish an antitrust compliance program and antitrust training for executives and to put in place an independent monitoring trustee.

The trial had featured testimony from executives for Apple, publishers and Seattle-based Amazon.com Inc. Witnesses from the publishing industry conceded that they were disappointed that Amazon was selling e-books so inexpensively when Apple came along in late 2009 with plans for its e-book store.

"Through their conspiracy they forced Amazon (and other resellers) to relinquish retail pricing authority and then they raised retail e-book prices," Cote wrote. "Those higher prices were not the result of regular market forces but of a scheme in which Apple was a full participant."

___

AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay contributed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/495d344a0d10421e9baa8ee77029cfbd/Article_2013-07-10-Electronic%20Books-Antitrust%20Lawsuit/id-d0d960969b5844bdbd070c2c3a6cd596

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TheStreet: Worst behind Alcoa? SEC to rule on JOBS Act; stock futures await earnings reports

Published: Wednesday, July 10, 2013

The worst appears over for Alcoa.

Alcoa is in a struggling indusry, but there are many reasons why the outlook for the company is bright.

The SEC is set to rule on Title 2 of the JOBS Act and most believe regulators will pass

Stock futures were poised early Tuesday, awaiting further quarterly earnings but wary of Chinese trade figures.

This and more in business in The Saratogian, brought to you by The Street syndicated business and financial information.

See inaccurate information in a story? Other feedback and/or ideas for us to consider? Tell us here.

What should we investigate? Have a tip you want us to look into? Tell us here.

Source: http://www.saratogian.com/articles/2013/07/10/news/doc51dd3b51e6cb3663766785.txt

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S&P downgrades SoftBank to 'junk' status, shares slide

TOKYO (Reuters) - Standard & Poor's cut SoftBank Corp's debt rating two notches to "junk" grade, citing financial risks from its $21.6 billion purchase of U.S. wireless carrier Sprint Nextel Corp and Sprint's proposed buyout of Clearwire Corp .

The downgrade spurred a slide in SoftBank's shares, but analysts said the drop was largely due to profit-taking after the stock had surged in anticipation of the Sprint deal, which received final regulatory approval on Friday.

S&P had warned in March it would cut SoftBank's rating to BB+, its highest non-investment grade, if the Sprint deal was concluded.

The downgrade is unlikely to increase financing costs for SoftBank, which should be able to rely on funding from Japanese banks, said Hiroshi Yamashina, senior telecoms analyst at BNP Paribas in Tokyo.

SoftBank in May said it would issue 400 billion yen ($3.96 billion) in retail bonds in the Japanese market, while in April it raised the size of a dual-tranche bond issue in dollars and euros to the equivalent of $3.3 billion from $2 billion.

S&P said SoftBank's outlook was stable, as the ratings agency expects steady growth in its Japanese mobile business and gradual improvement in Sprint's operating performance as the merger brings cost reductions and other benefits.

Moody's Investors Service on June 12 said SoftBank's offer for Sprint would have a limited impact on its rating - now at the agency's lowest investment grade rating of Baa3. The rating has been put on review for a possible downgrade.

SoftBank shares tumbled after news of the downgrade, trading nearly 5 percent lower on the day at 5,600 yen, their lowest this month. They pared losses to end at 5,680 yen, down 3.4 percent.

SoftBank's five-year CDS was quoted around 210 basis points on Monday after the downgrade, a widening of about 20 bps from Friday.

(Reporting by Mari Saito, Nobuhiro Kubo, Dominic Lau and Naoyuki Katayama; Writing by Edmund Klamann; Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/p-downgrades-softbank-junk-status-shares-slide-072006467.html

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