Softball: New England Patriot Coach Bill Belichick denied in a press conference this morning that he had anything to with the under inflation of balls in Sunday’s division championship against Indianapolis. “In my entire coaching career, I have never talked to any player, staff member about football air pressure,” Belichick said.

Belichick is known as a control freak who manages every detail, but the usually terse coach said, “The footballs are approved pregame and we play with what’s out there.”

No Bill: The NY Times and other agencies report that the Justice Department is preparing to recommend no charges against the white police officer who killed the unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo. last summer. The FBI found no evidence to support civil rights charges against former officer Darren Wilson.

But the investigation continues into the general behavior of the Ferguson police department and whether it has wrongly targeted black residents.

Just last night police in nearby St. Louis, police shot and killed a black teenager they say got out of a car with a gun in his hand.

The Cigar Summit: US and Cuban negotiators began talks yesterday aimed at re-establishing diplomatic relations between the two countries. The discussions stumbled immediately over the US refusal to lift its provision granting refuge to any Cuban refugee who reaches the American shore. People found in a boat are sent home, but once they touch land they get to stay. Talks continue today.

Here We Go: House Speaker John Boehner invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address Congress, a breach of diplomatic protocol and a thumb in the eye to President Obama’s nuclear negotiations with Iran. Netanyahu sees Iran as an enemy and congressional Republicans want to slap more economic sanctions on Iran, even as President Obama tries for a diplomatic breakthrough. Obama said in his State of the Union message, “new sanctions passed by this Congress, at this moment in time, will all but guarantee that diplomacy fails.”

Nation: At least 66 cases of measles have been attributed to an outbreak believed to have originated at Disneyland, spreading across the country. Many of the people infected were never vaccinated against measles.

>The New York political establishment was rocked today by the arrest of the state’s powerful assembly speaker Sheldon Silver on federal corruption charges. He’s been speaker for 20 years. The FBI is focusing on payments Silver received from a law firm that specializes in getting reductions in New York City real estate taxes.

>As many as 400 people are homeless after a massive overnight fire gutted a New Jersey apartment building in Edgewater, just a few hundred feet from the Hudson River. The flames were a spectacle for apartment dwellers in Manhattan. So far there are no reports of injuries or deaths.

>Two bodies have been recovered from the ruins of an Annapolis, Md. Mansion that burned to the ground. Two adults and their four grandchildren were believed to be inside, but the two bodies have not been identified.

>The Newtown, Conn. council voted to tear down the home occupied by mass shooter Adam Lanza and his mother. The property will be kept as open space.

Kicked Off: Hope Solo, the star goalie of the US women’s soccer team has been suspended for 30 days after she and her husband were stopped by police in their car. Her husband, former Seattle Seahawk Jerramy Stevens, was arrested on suspicion of DUI and Solo was reported to have become belligerent with the cops. Solo has been a turbulent figure once accused of domestic violence.

They’re Back!: Just days after pictures of bare-breasted women disappeared from Page Three of the London tabloid The Sun, they’re back. With the publication of a picture of “Nicole, 22, from Bournemouth,” the headline said “Clarifications and Corrections” with the announcement that, “We’ve had a mammory lapse.”

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