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McLeish resigns as Scotland coach

GLASGOW, Scotland (AP) — Alex McLeish resigned as Scotland’s national team coach on Tuesday, clearing the way for him to become the manager of English Premier League club Birmingham.

Birmingham scheduled a news conference for Wednesday morning when McLeish’s appointment is expected to be announced.

The Scottish Football Association has also scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday after earlier refusing permission for McLeish to talk to an unnamed club, now known to be Birmingham.

However, the 48-year-old has forced the SFA’s hand by quitting despite having a contract running until the end of Scotland’s 2010 World Cup qualifying campaign.

I am disappointed that Alex has chosen this course of action, Scottish Football Association president George Peat said. He is an outstanding manager who has done a fantastic job with the national team.

Birmingham want McLeish to replace manager Steve Bruce, who joined fellow strugglers Wigan last week.

Bruce’s former assistant Eric Black also left St Andrews on Tuesday, having briefly taken over as caretaker manager, and will join the ex-England defender at Wigan.

Black, who had been at Birmingham since July 2004, leaves with the best wishes of everybody at the club, City said in a statement.

McLeish nearly guided the Scots to qualification for the 2008 European Championship after beating France twice, but missed out after a last-minute 2-1 defeat to world champions Italy.

McLeish, who played at international level for Scotland during a successful career with Aberdeen, led Rangers to two league titles and five cup victories in five years at the Glasgow club.

He took over as Scotland manager at the end of January after his predecessor Walter Smith returned to Rangers to replace the sacked Paul Le Guen.

Meanwhile, McLeish’s fellow-Scot David Moyes was charged by the English FA on Tuesday for criticizing the match referee following his Everton team’s loss to local rivals Liverpool last month.

Moyes blasted Mark Clattenburg following the 2-1 Premier League defeat at Goodison Park on October 20 after the official sent off Tony Hibbert and Phil Neville for conceding second-half penalties.

Moyes was also angry that Clattenburg did not award Everton a late penalty when Jamie Carragher appeared to foul Joleon Lescott in the box, and that Dirk Kuyt only a got a yellow card for a two-footed lunge at Neville.

It is alleged that his comments called into question Mr. Clattenburg’s integrity and/or implied that he was motivated by bias, the FA said.

Moyes has until December 11 to respond to the charge.

Clattenburg was also at the center of an incident which saw Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson charged by the FA on Monday.

Ferguson confronted the referee at half-time during Saturday’s 1-0 defeat at Bolton after being upset by heavy tackles from the home side that went unpunished.
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Vick faces April dogfighting trial

SUSSEX, Virginia (AP) — A judge on Tuesday scheduled an April 2 trial date for jailed Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick on two state felony dogfighting charges.

Vick’s lawyer, Lawrence Woodward, requested a jury trial during the 5-minute session.

The suspended NFL star did not attend the hearing in Surry County Circuit Court. Vick is being held at a Warsaw, Va., jail after surrendering on Nov. 19 to begin serving time for a federal dogfighting conspiracy conviction.

Vick faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Dec. 10 in the federal case.

The two state charges — beating or killing or causing dogs to fight other dogs, and engaging in or promoting dogfighting — also are punishable by up to five years in prison each.

The court also set trial dates of March 5 for co-defendants Quanis L. Phillips and Purnell A. Peace and a May 7 trial for Tony Taylor.

Vick’s lawyers have indicated they will fight the state charges on the grounds he can’t be convicted twice of the same crime.

Vick and three co-defendants pleaded guilty to the federal charge in U.S. District Court in Richmond. In an Aug. 27 plea agreement, Vick admitted bankrolling a dogfighting enterprise and providing gambling money, as well as helping to kill six to eight dogs.

Ten protesters from the animal-rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals stood outside the courthouse holding placards with pictures of injured dogs and the messages Report Dogfighters! and Dogs Deserve Justice.

The dogfighting operation known as Bad Newz Kennels operated since 2001 on Vick’s 15-acre spread in Surry County. A drug investigation of a Vick relative led authorities to the property, where they found more than 50 pit bulls and equipment commonly used in dogfighting.

Vick was suspended indefinitely by the NFL without pay, and he lost several lucrative endorsement deals. Also, an arbitrator has ruled Vick should repay the Falcons nearly $20 million in bonus money.
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French suburbs rocked by more riots

PARIS, France (CNN) — The Paris suburbs were again rocked by riots after a second night of lawlessness Monday caused widespread destruction and left scores of police injured, according to French authorities and media reports.

An angry mob repeatedly clashed with riot police and torched cars and buildings in the town of Villiers-le-Bel, north of Paris, after two teens on a motorcycle were killed following a collision with a police car Sunday night.

Rioters bombarded police with baseball bats, Molotov cocktail bombs and bottles filled with acid as the violence spread to the nearby towns of Longjumeau and Grigby Monday night.

The 15- and 16-year-old boys, both sons of African immigrants, according to police, died when their motorbike hit a patrol car in Villiers-le-Bel.

Some residents, populated largely by immigrants and their French-born children, accused police of fleeing the crash scene. However, three eyewitnesses, interviewed on TV, said the police stayed and tried to revive the two boys with mouth to mouth resuscitation. Watch why a repeat of past rioting is feared

More than 60 police officers were injured in Monday night’s confrontation, with five kept in hospital in a serious condition, according to reports in a number of French newspapers.

A spokesman for the police authorities in the Val d’Oise prefecture refused to confirm the numbers of police injuries, telling CNN that police feared the information could further enflame the already tense situation.

The police spokesman said 60 cars, a library and car dealer’s showroom had been set on fire in Villiers-le-Bel. He said a police station had also been damaged and 15 garbage cans torched.

Security was tightened Tuesday, with helicopters deployed to patrol over the town, the spokesman said.

Villiers-le-Bel was not among the districts hit by the weeks of nationwide rioting in November 2005, when disaffected youths nationwide set thousands of cars ablaze to protest against unemployment and discrimination.

Those riots were also sparked by fatalities, namely the deaths of two men of North African descent who were electrocuted while hiding from police in an electrical substation.

French president Nicolas Sarkozy, then serving as the interior minister, provoked controversy at the time by referring to the rioters as scum.

Sarkozy, currently on a state visit to China, had urged residents Monday to cool down and let the justice system determine who is responsible for what. A spokesman for the president’s office told CNN Tuesday they were continuing to monitor the situation.

The prosecutor’s office in the nearby town of Pontoise has already begun an inquiry into the deaths.

Police said the teens drove through a red light without wearing helmets and on an unregistered bike.

But Omar Sehhouli, the brother of one of the victims, told French media the police involved should be arrested. Everyone knew the two boys here, he told French radio. What happened, that’s not violence, it’s rage.

According to the initial findings from the French police watchdog, reported Tuesday in the daily newspaper, Le Figaro, the boy’s motorbike was driving at very high speed and had failed to give priority to the police patrol vehicle.

The police car was driving normally at around 40 kilometers an hour, the newspaper reported the watchdog had found.
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Dollar up on Citigroup cash boost

TOKYO, Japan (AP) — The dollar rebounded from a 2 1/2-year low against the yen Tuesday in Asia after Citigroup Inc. said it will receive billions of dollars in investment from a Middle Eastern government fund.

The U.S. dollar was trading at 108.41 yen midafternoon, up from 107.86 late Monday in New York. It fell to 107.28 yen earlier, its lowest in 2 1/2 years. The euro dipped to $1.4860 from $1.4868.

The announcement Monday by Citigroup — the largest bank in the U.S. that has recently suffered massive losses due to the nation’s housing market slump — raised speculation that there won’t be a serious U.S. credit crunch if the company’s finances improve, traders said.

Up until this moment, the biggest source of concern is the possibility of a credit crunch, said Mamoru Arai, senior vice president of foreign exchange at Mizuho Corporate Bank.

The decision by the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government to pump $7.5 billion into Citigroup has raised hopes U.S. banks, despite losses from the subprime mortgage market implosion, can still raise funds, Arai said. So there’s a feeling in the markets that a credit crunch could be averted.

That triggered speculation that global investors won’t pull out of risky investments funded by borrowing the yen at Japan’s low interest rates. Repaying such loans would boost the yen.

But the higher likelihood that investors will maintain their yen-carry trades lifted the dollar.

There was also speculation that other Middle East nations, awash with cash from record-high oil prices, may follow in the footsteps of the Abu Dhabi government to pump money into the stressed U.S. banking sector, said Satoshi Okagawa, head of the foreign-exchange forward trading group at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

Still, many traders warned that it is too early to conclude the U.S. dollar’s downtrend versus the yen is over.

Even if the state of the U.S. banking sector improves, there remains the risk that the U.S. economy may slow more sharply than expected, Mizuho’s Arai said.

Against other regional currencies, the dollar was mixed, rising to 42.780 Philippine pesos from 42.600 the previous day, and to 16,049 Vietnamese dong from 16,042. It fell to 7.807 Hong Kong dollars from 7.7809, and to 928.7 South Korean won from 929.4, however.
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NFL’s Sean Taylor dies of gunshot wound

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) — Washington Redskins safety Sean Taylor has died a day after he was shot and wounded in his Miami home, Taylor’s former attorney Richard Sharpstein said Tuesday.

Sharpstein told CNN that the 24-year-old football player was shot Monday during what may have been an attempted robbery and died later at a hospital.

The blood loss was too much. He didn’t make it, Sharpstein told CNN. He did supposedly squeeze a nurse’s hand. I wasn’t there, said Sharpstein. But obviously that was either some kind of response or muscle reaction and not any sign for the better.

He never regained consciousness after the shooting, Sharpstein said. It’s a senseless, tragic death that was so unnecessary, another example of the incessant violence in — not only our community — but the country now. Watch Sharpstein describe Taylor’s death

At 1:45 a.m. Monday, a woman identified as Taylor’s girlfriend called 911 and said someone had been shot. Taylor was airlifted to Miami’s Jackson Memorial Hospital.

A hospital spokeswoman could not confirm the news of Taylor’s death.

Sharpstein said Taylor, his girlfriend and their baby daughter were inside the house when someone broke through the front door. When the NFL safety used a machete to defend himself, the attacker allegedly shot at him twice, missing once and striking his thigh’s femoral artery, the attorney said.

Whether this was a purposeful action in taking Sean’s life or in shooting him or whether it was a burglary gone awry, the police are still investigating those circumstances, Sharpstein said.

Lt. Nancy Perez with the Miami Dade Police Department said investigators were looking for an unknown suspect.

Police were talking with witnesses who were in the home at the time of the shooting.

Sharpstein added that there had been a previous attempt to break into Taylor’s home last week.

Miami-Dade police would not confirm Sharpstein’s account of the shooting, but said they had received a report of a break-in at Taylor’s house on November 18.

According to the police report, Taylor’s mother reported the break-in, saying it occurred while the house was empty between Saturday evening and Sunday evening. Police found a window pried open, but could not confirm if anything was missing.

Taylor spent four years with the Redskins, but had been out with a sprained right knee.

He did not play in Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Redskins coach Joe Gibbs called the incident a tragedy and said neither he nor the team had experienced anything like this.

Taylor was a first-round pick in the 2004 draft. He played at the University of Miami, where he was an All-American in 2003, and was also a high school standout in the city, according to The Associated Press. His father, Pedro Taylor, is the police chief of Florida City, Florida, AP reports.

Taylor was described as personable and smart and an emerging locker room leader, since the birth of his daughter Jackie, according to AP.

From the first day I met him, from then to now, it’s just like night and day, Redskins receiver James Thrash told AP. He’s really got his head on his shoulders and has been doing really well as far as just being a man. It’s been awesome to see that growth.
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