Mario Cuomo: Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo, who served three terms as an articulate leader in liberal politics and was a potential presidential candidate who never ran, has died at age 82 in New York. Cuomo was the father of current New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who was inaugurated for his second term hours before his father died.

The older Cuomo held the office from 1983-1994, a time of financial difficulty for the state that forced Cuomo to shrink government rather than expand it with his dreams.

A lawyer by profession, Cuomo had been a great baseball player drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He became one of the great political orators of recent American history. He stirred the National Democratic Convention with his 1984 keynote speech. One of his finest moments came when the Cuomo spoke at the University of Notre Dame about abortion, religious belief as a Catholic, and public policy. He said, “To assure our freedom we must allow others the same freedom, even if occasionally it produces conduct by them which we would hold to be sinful.”

Despite greatness, Cuomo’s legacy is limited by never running for president. His perpetual agony about whether to run left one of America’s most thoughtful politicians with the nickname “Hamlet on the Hudson.”

Nation: Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley commuted the deaths sentences of the last four inmates living on his state’s death row. Maryland got rid of the death penalty in 2012 and O’Malley said executing the last four convicted under the old law “does not serve the public good of the people of Maryland.”

AirAsia: Up to 30 bodies from AirAsia 8501 have been found as recovery teams continue to fight high seas. Investigators are working on the theory that the passenger jet made a steep climb to avoid bad weather and then stalled.

World: Syria’s civil war took the lives of 76,000 people in 2014, the worst year so far in the four-year war, according to a Syrian observation group based in London. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says 17,790 of the dead were civilians of which 3,501 were children. Higher casualties are attributed to western air strikes and the entry of the brutal Islamic State into the conflict.

The Sports Page: The Oregon Ducks will face Ohio State in the first-ever official national college football championship on Jan. 12^th.

In New Orleans Ohio State upset number one Alabama. Separated by one score, Ohio ended it with a last second interception. Ohio State 42, Alabama 35.

At the Rose Bowl, the Oregon Ducks trampled the Florida Seminoles, who had been unbeaten in 29 straight games. Florida committed 5 turnovers to keep handing the ball to the relentless green machine of Oregon. Final score, 59-20.

Moneyball: Football coach Jim Harbaugh, who quit the San Francisco 49ers this week and signed with his alma mater Michigan, has the richest coaching contract in college football history; $35 million.

The Obit Page: Howard Shultz, a veteran producer of reality television series including “Extreme Makeover” and “Dating Naked,” died suddenly while on vacation with his family in Hawaii. He was 61.

End Note: Irish rocker Bono of U2 says he may never play guitar again as he recovers from a bicycle accident last November in New York’s Central Park. Among other injuries, he broke one arm in six places and now has a titanium elbow.

Southern Comfort: The chief of Georgia’s Peachtree City Police is on leave after shooting and critically wounding his wife in the wee hours of the morning. Chief William McCollom says his gun fired accidentally. That might explain one shot. But his wife was shot twice.

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