Kyle Hightower

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — On the day he met with black players for the University of Missouri’s football team, graduate student Jonathan Butler hadn’t eaten for six days. The players wanted to know why. Butler told them: The school’s president, Tim Wolfe, had repeatedly ignored concerns of black students. He’d rather starve than live with an alma mater that condoned racism. Usually a world away from the center of campus at the athletic complex, the players were surprised and angry. They decided to launch a protest of their own: They wouldn’t practice or play until Wolfe resigned or was removed. Until the fellow student they had only just met could eat again.

BOSTON (AP) — Whether solo, jogging in a crowd, or lost in the sensation of music thumping through his headphones, Danny Dwyer sees his thorny past, thankful present and unwritten future blend to form the perfect sanctuary. This is how he trains for this year’s Boston Marathon. Each step is one away from battles with drug addiction that began when he was 8 years old. It’s a struggle that’s swallowed up a coveted job with the Boston Police Department and an engagement. For four years, he lived under a bridge. Now, he’s rededicated his life to helping others who struggle with substance abuse. “I can give you many low points. That’s the thing about addiction,” Dwyer says. “If you don’t do something about it, the low point you’ve reached — it’ll go lower.”

BOSTON — Ben Beach was a scrawny 18-year-old who had never run more than 5 miles before he started training for his first Boston Marathon in 1968. A half-century later, at age 67, the Bethesda, Maryland, resident has a chance to set a standard by becoming the first person to complete 50 consecutive trips down the city’s hallowed course.

BOSTON (AP) — Boston College is on the verge of doing something no major school has done in 40 years — lose every single conference football and basketball game in a season. Heading into Saturday’s regular-season Atlantic Coast Conference finale against Clemson, the Eagles are flirting with a 0-18 conference finish. Combined with an 0-8 finish in ACC football play in 2015, BC could become the first ACC program to go winless in league play in both sports during the same school year. Not since

UCF football player Ereck Plancher showed signs of distress during an intense workout last month before he collapsed and later died, four of Plancher's teammates told the Orlando Sentinel. Plancher, a 19-year-old receiver from Naples, was taken to a hospital March 18 and was pronounced dead about an hour after the workout, known as a "mat drill." A preliminary autopsy was inconclusive. Further tests are under way to determine the cause of Plancher's death. The UCF players, who asked for anonymity because they fear retribution from football coaches, said Plancher's final practice was more intense than the basic-conditioning workout described by UCF officials.

LAKE MARY, Fla. (AP) — Whether they think that he got away with murdering 17-year-old Trayvon Martin or that he was just a brave neighborhood watch volunteer "standing his ground," many Americans can't seem to get enough of George Zimmerman. And he can't seem to stop giving it to them. So it's hardly surprising that everything Zimmerman does produces a Twitterverse explosion and spins out into heavy news coverage. Comedian Deon Cole nailed it during an appearance on "Late Night with Conan O'Brien" a couple of days after the July 13 verdict. Merely being found not guilty, he said of Zimmerman, "doesn't mean that you're a free man."

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — Nearly 70 years after Jackie Robinson was run out of town, Sanford is absorbing what some see as another blow to race relations: the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the killing of Trayvon Martin. Some black residents of this community of almost 50,000 people where the shooting took place say that while relations between black and white have improved over the years, progress has been slow and the Martin case demonstrated that problems persist.

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — Neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman was cleared of all charges late Saturday night in the shooting of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager whose killing unleashed furious debate across the U.S. over racial profiling, self-defense and equal justice. Zimmerman, 29, blinked and smiled slightly when the verdict was announced. He could have been convicted of second-degree murder or manslaughter. But the jury of six women, all but one of them white, reached a verdict of not guilty after deliberating more than 15 hours over the course of two days. Martin's mother and father were not in the courtroom when the verdict was read; supporters of his family who had gathered outside yelled "No! No!" upon learning of the not-guilty verdict.

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — A Chechen immigrant shot to death in Florida after an altercation with an FBI agent implicated himself in a triple slaying that officials believe may have been connected to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, authorities said.

STARKE, Fla. (AP) — Brian Speer thought he had completed all of his obligations when he registered in Bradford County as a convicted sex predator after serving an eight-year prison sentence for child molestation. But now, in addition to submitting to a public registry for sex offenders, he has a permanent reminder of his crime posted right in his front yard: a bright red sign reading, “Brian Speer is a convicted Sexual Predator and lives at this location.” The sign is one of 18 the Bradford County Sheriff’s Office erected in mid-April outside the homes of convicted sex predators. The signs have been praised by many residents in the small rural county southwest of Jacksonville, but some question whether the new measure reaches too far and could be harassment against people who have served jail terms and already submit to the public registry. Neighboring Baker County started a similar program six years ago.

SANFORD, Fla. (AP) — Tensions are rising in Sanford as a special prosecutor nears a decision on whether to charge George Zimmerman with killing Trayvon Martin. Someone shot up an unoccupied police car Monday night as it sat outside the neighborhood where Martin was killed. And a demonstration by college students closed the town's police station earlier in the day. Some residents Tuesday said they worry there will be violence if prosecutor Angela Corey accepts Zimmerman's claim of self-defense

ORLANDO, Fla. — In two weeks Orlando will become the center of the basketball world when the NBA All-Star Weekend arrives with an estimated $100 million local economic impact, but some nearby businesses are unhappy over plans they say will put them outside a fence from the crowds. Directly across the street from the $480 million Amway Center, which is being paid for partially by tourist tax dollars and state sales taxes, several businesses say they are considering legal action over a city-approved 8-foot fence the NBA is erecting for the duration of festivities.

ORLANDO, Fla. — Prosecutors proved Casey Anthony was a liar, but convinced the jury of little else. The government failed to establish how 2-year-old Caylee Anthony died and they couldn't find her mother's DNA on the duct tape they said was used to suffocate her. There was conflicting testimony on whether the putrid smell inside the family's car was a decomposing body or simply trash, and it was never quite clear why chloroform was so important. The lack of evidence and the doubt raised by the defense — that Caylee accidentally drowned in the family's pool — was enough to win an acquittal.

Casey Anthony's eyes welled with tears and her lips trembled as the verdict was read once, twice and then a third time: "Not guilty" of killing her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee. Outside the courthouse, many in the crowd of 500 reacted with anger, chanting, "Justice for Caylee!" One man yelled, "Baby killer!" In one of the most divisive verdicts since O.J. Simpson was acquitted in 1995 of murdering his wife, Anthony was cleared of murder, manslaughter and child-abuse charges after weeks of wall-

In a quiet apartment far away from the crashes, chaos and uncertainty of war, UCF senior Robenson Jean sits on his couch, clicking buttons on his laptop and remembering. He's dressed casually in flip-flops, jeans and a black T-shirt. He resembles any other college student relaxing after a day of classes, except for the worn camouflage jacket he wears. His eyes scan across the galleries of photos on the screen. They reveal snapshots of desert, debris and guys -- himself included -- holding machine guns.

RIVIERA BEACH — The Bible verse is written in bold letters on laminated paper and hangs above Matt Elam's bedroom doorway. Positioned just low enough to touch, it has become common for Addie Elam-Lewis to see her son run his fingers across it before the Palm Beach Dwyer High senior leaves for school. "No weapon formed against me shall prosper," it reads.

DAYTONA BEACH -- It's probably fitting that Bill Lester's passion is not only rooted in the dream, but in the pursuit of it as well. That's because for more than 20 years, Lester, 46, a former Silicon Valley engineer-turned-race-car-driver, probably has competed harder off the track than he has on it.

It used to be that the outside shot belonged to basketball's little men. The big guys kept close to the basket. Before the 1979-80 NBA season it would have been unthinkable for a team that started a 6-foot-11 center and two 6-10 forwards to make its living outside the paint. The 3-point shot has both altered the NBA game and the accepted norms for those who have played it in the 30 seasons it has been part of the game.

They were the wings for the soaring dunks of Dr. J and were on the feet of Bill Russell and Larry Bird as they left tread marks across Boston Garden's parquet floor. They gave extra jolt to Magic Johnson and "Showtime." They were there for tennis stars Chris Evert's and Jimmy Connors' backhands at Wimbledon. And they were on stage for riffs by rock bands Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith.

BOCA RATON -- It was the first day of summer break, but to look at Florida Atlantic Athletic Director Craig Angelos, you'd think he hadn't gotten the memo. When Angelos walked into the FAU athletic department two months or so ago, he was sweating. He'd just lumbered across campus after a round of meetings and, without so much as a swig of water, already was asking about his next one.