Nebraska AD Fired

OMAHA, Neb. - Nebraska athletic director Steve Pederson was fired Monday, two days after the football team suffered its worst home loss in nearly a half-century.

Pederson, along with coach Bill Callahan, has been heavily criticized after a series of one-sided losses this season. The most recent was a 45-14 loss to Oklahoma State on Saturday with former Cornhuskers coach Tom Osborne and his 1997 national title team in attendance.

Over the past two weeks, the once-mighty Huskers (4-3) have lost by a combined margin of …

Cubs fire hitting coach Perry

The Chicago Cubs fired hitting coach Gerald Perry after 2 1/2 seasons on Sunday in an attempt to spark a sputtering offense that ranks among the National League's worst.

The Cubs had high expectations after winning back-to-back NL Central titles. But with a 29-30 record and a .246 team batting average before Sunday's 3-2 win over Minnesota, general manager Jim Hendry decided to make a change.

Von Joshua was promoted from Triple-A Iowa to reaplce Perry.

"Obviously, we've been struggling for a long time," Hendry said. "I think sometimes you need a new voice. Von's had a lot of success with our guys on the way up. We have really, …

Become a Player at Great America

Sports Illustrated Sports Festival Today, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.; tomorrow and Sunday, 10 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Six Flags Great America, Grand Avenue (east) off of Interstate 94,Gurnee. Main gate admission, $26 for visitors 11 and older; $22 forvisitors 4 to 10. Parking, $5 per car. (708) 249-2133

When I was a kid, I used to wait earnestly for the mailman tobring my copy of Sports Illustrated.

Things have progressed a bit since then. The magazine has spunoff a periodical aimed at children, and has entered othergame-related areas.

Now, for the first time, the traveling Sports Illustrated SportsFestival will stop in the Chicago area at Six Flags Great …

Porn pioneer John Leslie dead at 65

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — John Leslie, who appeared in more than 300 adult films in the 1970s and 80s before moving on to directing, has died in Northern California.

Friends say Leslie, whose real name was John Nuzzo, died Sunday of an apparent heart attack at his Mill Valley home at the age of 65.

Leslie won pornography industry awards as an actor and director. He appeared in such titles …

Russian court finds 13 guilty of ethnic killings

A Moscow court on Monday convicted 12 teenage boys and a man of committing a series of vicious ethnic attacks, including the murder of a well-known chess champion who was a member of Russia's Yakut ethnic group.

The attacks, which were videotaped, set to heavy music and widely disseminated on Web sites, prompted widespread outrage among many Russians and again focused attention on the country's alarming increase in race attacks and hate crimes.

The Moscow City Court sentenced them to prison terms ranging from 4 1/2 years to 10 years after convicting them of crimes including ethnically motivated assault, murder and attempted murder, court spokeswoman Anna …

County OKs '2nd chance' hiring of 100 nonviolent convicts

Cook County taxpayers will soon be paying for nonviolent convictsto work in entry-level county jobs under a plan unanimously approvedThursday by Cook County commissioners.

The program, sponsored by Commissioners Bobbie Steele and RobertoMaldonado, will put 100 people convicted of drug charges, theft andother offenses into existing, vacant jobs.

Candidates can only have one nonviolent offense on their recordand must go through an extensive interview with an appointed board todetermine the nature of the offense, the age they committed it andthe bearing it has had on their ability to find a job since.

If approved, they are put on the job for one year, after …

Black power!

Kudos to University of WisconsinMadison assistant professor Timothy B. Tyson. His biography, Radio Free Dixie: Robert F Williams and the Roots of Black Power (University of North Carolina Press, October 1999, $29.95, ISBN 0-807-82502-6), won …