HS Coach Charged in Player's Heat Death

(AP) - A former Kentucky high school football coach has been acquitted in the death of a player who collapsed at a practice where the team was put through a series of sprints on a hot summer day. It was a rare criminal prosecution of a coach in a player's heat-related death. David Jason Stinson was charged after 15-year-old Max Gilpin collapsed at an August 2008 practice. He died three days later. More»

Adult gunman in custody

(NEWSER) - A top Iowa high school football coach is dead after he was shot by a former player in the school’s weight room—with students nearby today, the Gazette of Cedar Rapids reports. Ed Thomas was shot point-blank in the head; no one else was hurt. The suspect, 24-year-old Mark Becker, is in custody. With a 292-84 record over 37 seasons, Ed Thomas was NFL high school coach of the year in 2005; he coached four NFL players. More»

Kentucky's Rankin Paynter donates $200K worth of items

(NEWSER) - When his local Kmart was getting ready to close, a Kentucky man decided to buy all the store's stuff—and hand it to charity. While visiting the store to score some deals, Rankin Paynter asked what happened to all the unsold items; the clerk told him "power buyers" snap it up, USA Today reports. More»

Police use only small amounts of pepper spray, arrest 10

(NEWSER) - Thousands of Kentucky basketball fans responded to the team's Final Four win last night by overturning cars and lighting couches on fire, reports the AP . Police had been prepared for rioting, and responded with about 150 officers and small amounts of pepper spray. "It's a fairly difficult situation, but not anything we didn't plan for," said a Lexington police spokeswoman, noting there were fewer than 10 arrests made and few injuries. At no point had the rowdiness "gotten out of control," said the spokeswoman. At one point, however, fire-extinguisher-wielding cops were dodging flying beer bottles, notes the Lexington Herald-Leader . More»

They're mainly in the South, but attitudes seem to be changing: BBC

(NEWSER) - Prohibition came off the books in 1933, and the liquor flowed again. But a swath of the US, concentrated mainly in the South, remains booze-free to this day by law. More than 200 dry counties exist in the country, along with plenty more that are partially dry. Now the bleak economy is encouraging many of the US' last teetotalers to rethink their ban on alcohol in order to lift local commerce, reports the BBC . (It even has a color-coded map of "wet and dry America.") More»