Northern Arizona football player found dead in home

Former Patriots star doing ‘much better’ after 2nd stroke

ATTLEBORO, Mass. – Former New England Patriots linebacker and ESPN analyst Tedy Bruschi says he’s doing “much better” after suffering a second stroke.

In an Instagram post on Monday, Bruschi says he knew what was happening immediately last Thursday when he lost use of his left arm, began slurring his speech and his wife noticed his face was drooping.

An ambulance took Bruschi to Sturdy Memorial Hospital in Attleboro, Massachusetts.

The Instagram post includes a list of the several warning signs of a stroke that should prompt an immediate call to 911.

The 46-year-old Bruschi had a stroke in February 2005 days after the Patriots’ third Super Bowl win and learned he had a congenital heart defect that produced a hole in his heart.

He retired after surgery but later returned and played three more seasons for the team.

Women’s British Open raises prize fund to $4.5 million

ST. ANDREWS, Scotland – The Royal & Ancient is raising the total prize money to $4.5 million for the Women’s British Open.

R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers says the prize fund – up from $3.25 million a year ago – is an important first step toward achieving parity with the men’s game, but that it will take time.

The British Open next week has a $10.75 million purse.

The increase in prize money for the Women’s British Open comes in the first year of AIG’S five-year deal as the title sponsor.

The winner of the Women’s British Open, to be played Aug. 1-4 at Woburn in England, will receive $675,000. That makes it the second-highest payout among the women’s five majors. The U.S. Women’s Open champion, Jeongeun Lee6, received $1 million from a $5.5 million purse last month.

Massive police effort leads to steroid busts across Europe

A massive law-enforcement bust across Europe has resulted in the seizure of 24 tons of raw steroid powder and the closure of nine underground labs that produced performance-enhancing drugs and other illegal substances.

Europol said Monday that the operation, which included 33 countries and was led by national police forces in Italy and Greece, was the largest of its kind and led to the arrest of 234 people and the dismantling of 17 organizedcrime groups.

The World Anti-doping Agency also participated in the sting, which discovered a trafficking system in which nonprofessional athletes used rechargeable credit cards and cryptocurrencies to buy small amounts of illegal substances, much of which was moved through gyms and unregulated online pharmacies. Dealers used social media to advertise and promote their products.

“This is the sort of multi-party collaboration that produces real results and can make a significant impact on the availability of counterfeit and illegal drugs used by some athletes globally,” WADA intelligence director Gunther Younger said.

Officials said they carried out a combined 1,357 urine and blood tests at sports events as part of the operation, though no details were shared about which events or who was tested.

Nearly 1,000 individuals have been reported for producing, selling or using performance enhancers and 839 judicial cases have been opened across Europe.

Prize money surges for horsemen racing at Churchill Downs

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Churchill Downs says its new gaming venue is already paying dividends for horsemen racing at the Louisville track.

Track officials say Churchill paid a record $32.2 million in prize money to horsemen during its recently ended spring meet.

It was up nearly 45% from the amount paid to horsemen during last year’s spring meet.

Churchill officials say the record payout is due to robust business from historical racing machines at Derby City Gaming in Louisville.

Historical racing machines resemble video gambling machines and offer bets on past horses races, keeping the names of the horses and the race secret.

Churchill Downs Inc. invested $65 million to open Derby City Gaming last September.

It features nearly 1,000 historical

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. – Northern Arizona University officials say a football player has died.

The school’s athletics department said in a statement Monday that senior offensive lineman Malik Noshi was found dead Sunday morning in his Flagstaff home.

University spokesman Randy Press said no other comments would be made out of respect for Noshi’s family.

He says Flagstaff police are investigating the cause of death.

Noshi, who is from Las Vegas, began as a redshirt for the Lumberjacks in 2015.

He started two games in 2016 and went on to be a starter in all 12 games in the 2017 season.

Last year, he started nine games and earned an honorable mention from the Big Sky Conference.

He is survived by his parents and a younger sister and brother.

Woman injured in 40-foot fall at Chicago’s Soldier Field

CHICAGO – Police say a woman was hospitalized after accidentally falling about 40 feet (12 meters) from an upper level at Chicago’s Soldier Field while attending a men’s soccer tournament.

Chicago police said in a statement that the 23-year-old woman was taken to a hospital in stable condition following the fall Sunday night during the CONCACAF Gold Cup final.

Police spokeswoman Ana Pacheco tells the Chicago Tribune that the woman wasn’t badly hurt and “was very lucky.”

The U.S. was outplayed by Mexico in the game. Jonathan Dos Santos scored in the 73rd minute to give the El Tri a 1-0 victory.

Ice dance champ Bobrova retires at 29

MOSCOW – Russian ice dancer Ekaterina Bobrova, twice an Olympic medalist in the team event, has retired aged 29 shortly after giving birth to her first child.

A six-time European medalist in ice dance with partner Dmitry Soloviev, Bobrova helped the Russian figure skating team to gold at the 2014 Olympics and silver last year in Pyeongchang.

On Instagram, Bobrova says she’s retiring “with no regrets and happiness in my heart,” and that she plans to keep skating with Soloviev in ice shows.

Bobrova hasn’t competed since last year’s Olympics and became a mother in April with her husband Andrei Deputat, a former pairs skater for Russia.

Bobrova failed a drug test for meldonium in 2016 and missed the world championships before her suspension was lifted under an amnesty for athletes believed to have taken the drug only before it was banned.

US victory most-viewed match this year but down from 2015

The United States’ 2-0 victory over the Netherlands in Sunday’s FIFA Women’s World Cup final averaged nearly 15.6 million U.S. viewers on Englishand Spanish-language television.

It was the most-viewed match this season, but a decrease from the 2015 final.

The match averaged 14.27 million viewers on Fox, according to the network and Nielsen, and peaked at 19.6 million.

It was a 22 percent increase over last year’s FIFA World Cup men’s final between France and Croatia, which averaged 11.44 million.

The audience was down 43.8 percent from the 2015 final between the U.S. and Japan, which averaged 25.4 million viewers.

That match though was played in Canada and started at 7 p.m. Eastern, compared to Sunday’s in France, which kicked off at 11 a.m. Eastern.

The Telemundo broadcast averaged 1.3 million and peaked at 2 million as the match concluded.

The soccer match averaged 589,000 viewers online – 289,000 on Fox apps and 300,000 on NBC and Telemundo apps – which makes it the moststreamed Women’s World Cup match in history.

The CONCACAF Gold Cup final between the U.S. and Mexico averaged 2.9 million on Fox Sports 1, making it the most-viewed non-world Cup match in the network’s five-year history.

The Copa America final between Brazil and Peru averaged 3.1 viewers on Telemundo.

The Espn-plus streaming service had the English-language rights but the network did not divulge figures.