■ College Football
Miami's Pata murdered
University of Miami defensive lineman Bryan Pata was shot and killed on Tuesday at his apartment complex, school officials said. The shooting occurred about two hours after the Hurricanes ended their afternoon practice. Pata, a 22-year-old senior who grew up in Miami, was pronounced dead in the parking lot outside his apartment, and his death was ruled a homicide, Miami-Dade police spokesman Roy Rutland said. "Right now, we're just gathering ourselves and just trying to pull ourselves together," Miami athletic director Paul Dee said. Rutland said police were called at 7:30pm local time to the scene and found Pata's body. The circumstances around Pata's death were not immediately clear, and Miami-Dade police did not say who made the 911 emergency call after the shooting.
■ NFL
Porter fined over remarks
Pittsburgh Steelers linebacker Joey Porter was fined US$15,000 for remarks made to a member of referee Tony Corrente's officiating crew during a 20-13 loss to the Oakland Raiders on Oct. 29. Porter was fined for unsportmanslike conduct on the play, two plays after linebacker Larry Foote drew the same penalty. The two penalties led to a field goal by Oakland during the Raiders' upset victory. Porter, a three-time Pro Bowl linebacker and one of the NFL's most vocal players, returned for that game after missing two games with a hamstring injury.
■ Boxing
Murder suspects denied bail
Harold Berbick and Kenton Gordon, the men charged with the murder of former world heavyweight boxing champion Trevor Berbick, were denied bail in a court appearance in Buff Bay, Jamaica, on Tuesday. Harold Berbick, the 20-year-old nephew of the slain fighter, and Gordon, 18, were kept in custody and ordered by judge Andrea Collins to return to Buff Bay Resident Magistrates Court on No. 17. Collins ordered that Gordon, who was without legal representation, be assigned a lawyer by the Legal Aid Clinic, an arm of the government that provides legal representation to citizens at reduced cost. Carl McDonald, Harold Berbick's attorney, sought bail but the bid was rejected by Collins. Harold Berbick, a computer technician and sound system operator, and plumber Gordon where charged with the slaying four days ago. They both lived in the Portland area where the ex-champion was born and where he returned in 2001. Trevor Berbick was found dead in a churchyard near his home. He was last seen alive leaving a bar on Oct, 28. He was found several hours later with several wounds to the back of his head.
■ Ice Hockey
Schedule likely to remain
The National Hockey League's unbalanced schedule is sticking around, at least for one more season. During a five-hour meeting in Tortonto on Tuesday, the league's 30 general managers debated the schedule, which has teams playing some clubs more than others, but couldn't come to a consensus on how the 82-game slate should be comprised. So, the likely plan is to keep things as they are through the 2007-2008 season. "We're really just beginning the second year of what's set up as a three-year cycle, and I think I would prefer to see how it unfolds over a longer time period," Montreal Canadiens general manager Bob Gainey said. The debate rages on and will continue at the NHL Board of Governors meeting next month in Palm Beach, Florida.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier