The charges were revealed Wednesday in Attleboro District Court after Hernandez was arrested at his sprawling North Attleborough home. Less than two hours after his arrest, the Patriots cut Hernandez from the team.

The investigation started more than a week ago after semi-pro football player Odin Lloyd was found slain in an industrial park.

Lloyd's family says he and Hernandez were friends and that Lloyd's girlfriend and Hernandez's fiancee are sisters.

Authorities say Lloyd was shot multiple times in the back and chest. They say Hernandez was upset with Lloyd after the two had a dispute at a nightclub a few days before.

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Kaiser Health's story also notes that during the media push for Massachusetts' similar healthcare law, "the campaign was advertised during Red Sox games at Fenway Park. That marketing is widely credited with helping build public acceptance." Once again in the healthcare field, the federal government is just following Mitt Romney's lead.

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New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft told an audience Thursday night that Russian President Vladimir Putin stole his Super Bowl ring.

It was the good one, too, from Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005 when the Pats beat the Philadelphia Eagles 24-21.

It happened while Kraft and other American executives toured Russia after the team’s NFL championship season.

Putin greeted the execs during a stop in St. Petersburg, the New York Post reported:

“I took out the ring and showed it to [Putin], and he put it on and he goes, ‘I can kill someone with this ring,’” Kraft said at the Carnegie Hall’s Medal of Excellence gala at the Waldorf-Astoria. “I put my hand out and he put it in his pocket, and three KGB guys got around him and walked out.”

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Luntz has also previously consulted for the NFL on matters related to the ongoing lawsuit 4,000 former players filed against the league relating to concussions, and has appeared on ESPN representing the league, but in this case he appears to be working just for the team in question, with the disgusting and offensive name. That team, named after a wildly derogatory name for American Indians, has received a great deal of criticism for its name recently, including a trademark lawsuit and a letter from 10 members of Congress urging a change.

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When Roy Hibbert of the Indiana Pacers used "no homo" at a press conference while discussing LeBron James, it set off what has become a predictable chain of events. Athlete makes gay slur. Outcry ensues. Athlete apologizes or sort-of apologizes. League punishes athlete or not. Repeat.

Not all apologies are created equal. I thought Hibbert's was a model. It was direct and unequivocal and he said he would accept any fine, which turned out to be $75,000 from the NBA. In addition, after Jason Collins came out in April, Hibbert said some very supportive things.

In looking back at athlete gay slurs since 1999, the apologies come in all flavors, from sincere to "non-apology apologies." Years ago, we used a "Rocker Scale" to categorize anti-gay comments, named in honor of the patron saints of gay slurs, former Atlanta Braves pitcher John Rocker, who made headlines with his 1999 comments about "queers." I am dusting off the scale to rate apologies in looking back at 21 examples of gay slurs and their aftermath.

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In 2008, he was near tears as he told a judge: "I didn't mean to steal anything from anybody ... I'm sorry. I'm sorry for all of it."

This time he will get to say much more testifying for at least a day about a strange Las Vegas hotel room confrontation that sent him to prison.

There is no jury and his fate will be determined by Clark County District Judge Linda Marie Bell.

"He's been wanting to tell his story. He's excited about telling his story," said Simpson attorney Ozzie Fumo.

When he went to trial in 2008 on charges of armed robbery and kidnapping, Simpson did not testify - a decision that one of his lawyers said was pushed upon him by another attorney he trusted so completely that he took his bad advice.

"It's going to be a long day," said his co-counsel, Patricia Palm, "He's going to have to testify to every point in the petition. But they can't do a little mini-retrial."

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Nnamdi Asomugha was dubbed one of the best cornerbacks in football two years ago.

In 2011, Ryan Fitzpatrick signed a big, long-term contract extension with the Buffalo Bills.

DeAngelo Hall started every game for the Washington Redskins last season and was tied for 11th in the NFL with four interceptions.

What do these guys all have in common? They were cut this year by their teams.

What else do they have in common? No one is asking if off-field issues are the reason for their release.

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"I have such great respect for our players," Goodell told NFL.com. "I don't think [a gay player coming out] will just be tolerated, I think it will be accepted. These are individuals who play in our league. We're all different in some fashion, and we're accepting of our differences."

Adding: "To me, if it happens in the league, that's a personal choice that someone would decide to do. But I know their teammates and teams, and I think the fans will all respond the right way."

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Collins and Tebow are a study in contrasts, perhaps especially when it comes to their faith. Tebow is known for game-saving theatrics and an equally performative profession of faith politicized by the culture wars. He’s positioned himself as an all-American poster child for the pro-life movement and homophobic groups like Focus on the Family. Collins, on the other hand, is a career role player who keeps his head down on the court and his devout Christian faith, rooted in family and community identity, private.

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"I don't know because I'm not in the meetings with the managers when they make decisions like that," he says. "The only thing I can affect is how well I go out and punt the ball."

For now, he's just "trying to earn a job with another team," says Kluwe, Salon's "sexiest man" of 2012.

That said, NBC quoted a text message from him reading, "It's a shame that in a league with players given multiple second chances after arrests, including felony arrests, that speaking out on human rights has a chance of getting you cut." So it maybe played a part in his getting cut, but maybe not. Either way, he thinks it sucks that it's possible that it did.

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It had been months since Alan Gendreau put on a pair of cleats and stood three yards behind a football. The former Middle Tennessee State placekicker had all but left the game behind when he graduated a year ago.

Yet there he was on a Saturday morning in early April lining up for a kick, the sun beating down on the bright green field as the wind swirled around him. A half-hearted attempt to make it to the NFL was in his past; the crush of a disappointing senior season, punctuating a stellar college career, had been put in his distant memory. Now with renewed purpose, Gendreau had made a potentially game-changing decision: It’s time for him to shoot for the stars again.

After a brief instruction on how I should hold the ball for him, Gendreau looked up from his backward steps and focused downfield.

"I always focus on a spot past the goal post," he said as he readied for his first kick. "Gotta aim further than I’m trying to go."

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Fox Sports spokesman Dan Bell said Tuesday that Summerall had died. He could not immediately provide further details.

Summerall was part of network television broadcasts for 16 Super Bowls. His last championship game was for Fox on Feb. 3, 2002, also his last game with longtime partner John Madden. The popular duo worked together for 21 years, moving to Fox in 1994 after years as the lead team for CBS.

Summerall played 10 NFL seasons (1952-61) with the Chicago Cardinals and New York Giants. He started doing NFL games for CBS in 1964. He also covered the PGA Tour and tennis.

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There's little of news value in the post -- it's just paparazzi-style photography without context aside from captions like "Here's Kerry's former 'assistant' Hollywood. He's proudly and openly gay ...." [sic]

And yet the photo spread comes with a lengthy disclaimer, reading in part:

But we are also a NEWS organization. Every day we, and other entertainment news organizations, report on the dating and personal lives of heterosexual celebrities. Sometimes those same heterosexual celebrities would rather that we DIDN'T report on their personal lives. But that is what entertainment news reporting is all about.

There is ABSOLUTELY NOTHING SHAMEFUL about being LGBT. It's not an "insult" to speculate whether a person is engaged in a homosexual relationship. For years, news organizations would PRETEND that homosexual relationships did NOT EXIST amongst celebrities. They pretended that there were NO professional athletes who were gay. They pretended that NO entertainers could POSSIBLY be gay. And those same organizations, by NEGLECTING TO REPORT THE TRUTH, helped to promote homophobia throughout society.

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“The player who does it, they’re going to be amazed at the additional opportunities that are put on the table, not the ones that are taken off,” National Basketball Association’s Golden State Warriors president Rick Welts told Bloomberg News on Friday.

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As reported by The New York Times:

You Can Play will help run seminars for N.H.L. rookies to educate them on gay issues and make resources and personnel available to each team, as desired. The league and union will also work with You Can Play to integrate the project into their behavioral health program, enabling players to seek counseling regarding matters of sexual orientation confidentially. Burke said the joint venture would also step forward when players make homophobic remarks.

Patrick Burke, a scout for the Philadelphia Flyers and a founder of You Can Play, applauded the partnership, as he explained to the Times:

We have players from around the world, and a lot of those players are from countries that are seen as more progressive on LGBT issues. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable or strange to think that the N.H.L. and the N.H.L.P.A. are driving this, in part because our players tend to be more comfortable with this issue.

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In an interview with the Baltimore Sun, the former Ravens linebacker said that the NFL may see its first openly gay player "sooner than you think," adding: "There are up to four players being talked to right now and they're trying to be organized so they can come out on the same day together. It would make a major splash and take the pressure off one guy. It would be a monumental day if a handful or a few guys come out."

Being the first male professional athletes to come out would be a historic distinction, but the decision has not come easy to the men he is in talks with, Ayanbadejo said:

Of course, there would be backlash. If they could share the backlash, it would be more positive. It's cool. It's exciting. We're in talks with a few guys who are considering it. The NFL and organizations are already being proactive and open if a player does it and if something negative happens. We'll see what happens.

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Carriker responded that whoever this player is, he will need to feel welcomed in the locker room first and foremost. And more than just his teammates, the NFL's first openly gay player will need support from league veterans:

Odds are somebody out there in the big wide world of the NFL is gay. It’s tough to come out with these things. If somebody comes out, I think it’s going to depend on the locker room. There are certain locker rooms that have veteran leadership more so than others.

And if the player turns out to be a Redskin? "I don’t think it would be a big deal. We have a lot of veteran good guys... good veteran leadership on this team," Carriker said.

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The new Dolphins logo, or more precisely what might be the new Dolphins logo (if UniWatch's Paul Lukas is more or less convinced, I'm convinced) isn't necessarily good or bad. It's a dolphin, if kind of sleeked-out and tuffed-up as befits the fact that it's a NFL logo, and thus is supposed to be sleek and tuff.

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After a football game in college, a pro scout asked Davis' coach, "Is Wade a ladies' man?"

"There's a certain cachet in being someone who seemed to be able to get girls," Davis told Salon. "My coach said, 'No, Wade isn't a ladies' man.' I immediately wondered if he'd seen through the mask I'd put up."

More likely, Davis said, the question, prohibited by law, wasn't based on any knowledge of the player's inner life: it was posed to all players, he said, in one way or another, long before this year's Manti Te'o scandal raised eyebrows about the Notre Dame star's fake girlfriend. (Te'o was reportedly asked by teams if he was gay, as well.) "They really do an exhaustive job learning everything they can," Davis said.

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