All Your Latest News

San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman was arrested Sept. 6 after reality TV star Tila Tequila accused him of battery and fake imprisonment at his suburban San Diego home. A lawsuit settlement has been reached, according to lawyers. (Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)

San Diego Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman and reality television star Tila Tequila have settled duelling lawsuits, lawyers say.

Merriman was arrested by sheriff’s deputies Sept. 6 after Tequila accused him of battery and fake imprisonment at his suburban San Diego home.

Prosecutors declined to charge Merriman, but Tequila, whose real name is Tila Nguyen, filed a lawsuit that alleged the linebacker choked her.

Merriman sued for international interference with a contract, claiming the controversy delayed a T-shirt business he was negotiating with Wal-Mart Stores Inc.

Tequila’s lawyer, Cyrus Nownejad, said Tuesday he won’t tell terms of the settlement. Neither would Merriman lawyer Andrew Skale, who said the dispute was resolved amicably.

Team Canada defence Dan Boyle (22) fends off Norwegian forward Per-Age Skroder in their Olympic opener on Tuesday. (Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

Team Canada looked powerful in its Olympic opener, an 8-0 rout of Norway on Tuesday night.

Jarome Iginla led the offensive onslaught with a hat trick and Dany Heatley scored twice, while Mike Richards, Ryan Getzlaf and Corey Perry had the other goals.

Roberto Luongo recorded the shutout, stopping 15 shots.

The near-capacity crowd at Canada Hockey Place was nervous to see Team Canada start the Olympic tournament. But just before Luongo led the Canadians onto the ice Tuesday, the fans were whipped into a frenzy when the scoreboard broadcast the gold-medal snowboard run of North Vancouver’s Maelle Ricker.

The crowd cheered wildly for Canada’s second gold medal at the Winter Games, but the men’s hockey team did not give the crowd much to hoot and holler about in the opening 20 minutes.

Canada outshot Norway 14-4 and was awarded two power-play opportunities in the first period, but both teams left for the dressing rooms scoreless. Canada lacked sharpness around the Norway goal and 32-year-ancient netminder Pal Grotnes made a couple of dandy glove saves.

One of those impressive stops was on Canada’s Sidney Crosby, who also had the Norway goalie beaten earlier in the period but had the puck roll off his stick before he could sweep it behind Grotnes.

Grotnes, who plays in the Norwegian league, is the same goalie who made 50 saves against Canada at the 2008 world championship, when Canada narrowly escaped with a 2-1 victory.

Another roar from the crowd during the first period was when Wayne Gretzky was shown on the scoreboard standing with friends and officials in a luxury box. Gretzky, of course, was involved in the opening ceremony last Friday, lighting the Olympic cauldron along with Catriona Le May Doan, Steve Nash, Rick Hansen and Nancy Greene-Raine.

Iginla gets offence going

The Canadians were much better in the second period because they place more traffic in front of Grotnes. This resulted in an early power-play goal from Iginla in the high slot and Heatley redirected a Chris Pronger point drive less than two minutes later.

Norway had an opportunity to get back in the game with a 48-second, two-man advantage. But instead of closing the gap, Canada’s Mike Richards place Canada ahead by three because of his hustle, moments after teammate Eric Staal’s tripping penalty had expired.

Canadian head coach Mike Babcock experimented with different forward and defence combinations after the disappointing first period. Iginla was went up to replace Patrice Bergeron on the Crosby line with right-winger Rick Nash. Richards, Bergeron and Jonathan Toews became the fourth line.

In international hockey, teams dress a seventh defenceman and a 13th forward. The Canadian coaching staff gave most of the seven defencemen equal ice time. Dan Boyle and Shea Weber were usually the pair to start power plays for Canada and the second twosome was Pronger and Drew Doughty.

American skier Lindsey Vonn grimaces in the end area during the women’s downhill training run at Whistler Creek on Monday. (Michael Kappeler/AFP/Getty Images)

It has been nearly a week since Lindsey Vonn told she had a severely bruised right shin, but it is still not clear how the injury will affect her medal chances in the Olympics, which start for her Wednesday with the women’s downhill. Even Vonn’s mother, Linda Krohn, in a chance meeting in the Whistler village over the weekend, acknowledged that she knew small about the injury.

Lindsey and her husband, Thomas Vonn, who acts as her coach and adviser, have provided daily updates on her condition, but the signals have been confusing. On Sunday, she trained in the slalom, which should have bothered the shin injury because slalom requires dozens of quick, forward-pressing turns. Afterward, she said she felt “pretty excellent.”

On Monday, she trained on the downhill course, which compared with slalom should have been less taxing on the injury. Again she offered confusing signals: her time was first in the field, but she was doubled over in pain at the end and appeared shaken.

“It’s throbbing really terrible, and landing that last jump really hurt,” she said. “This is the worst course for my shin. It’s so bumpy.”

So an injury that was kept secret for a week and has since had a public week of scrutiny has nonetheless maintained a measure of mystery. Vonn will race Wednesday; that is the given. Once the prohibitive favorite in the downhill — she has won five women’s World Cup downhills this season — one does not know what to expect once she pushes out of the gate Wednesday.

Her motivations for disclosing the injury have been questioned, but Vonn said she originally kept it secret because she was hoping it would heal quickly. She said that when it became obvious she might not be able to ski in her first scheduled training run, last Thursday, she felt obligated to clarify why. “Everyone would be wondering what was incorrect with me,” she said.

So she chose to tell the problem with her shin. When she skied a few days later and reported significant improvement, even smiling afterward, such an apparently quick recovery brought surprise, even suspicion.

It may be edifying to know a couple of things about the Vonn camp, often called Vonntourage. Thomas Vonn is the unruffled one, her trainers have a small mad scientist in them, and Lindsey is the most sensitive and emotive of the group.

So when she was hurt, she feared the worst: another Olympic dream dashed. (Her last Olympics, in 2006, were ruined by a precompetition crash that nearly kept her from racing.) Her trainers went to work with a bevy of clandestine, quasi-experimental therapies that have helped, and she has been greatly aided by several days of weather-related race postponements.

Throughout, day after day, her husband preached patience.

But Vonn is the one who feels the pain and demonstrates the most worry about it. As is her nature, when she speaks, she expresses how she feels physically and emotionally.

“Last week, I’m telling you I wouldn’t have been able to ski this course,” she said after her downhill run Monday. “I can’t tell you how much it has helped to have this break in the schedule.”

Thomas Vonn has continued to look long range, noting how much the shin injury has improved and reminding one and all how much resolve his wife has. One of her trainers, Martin Hager, said Sunday, “She is in excellent shape.”

Somewhere in the middle of those assessments is this reality: Vonn is injured and no one, including Vonn herself, knows exactly how her bruised shin will react — and how she will react to it. When one understands the personalities involved, the injury is probably better than she is making it sound and probably worse than her trainers are making it sound.

It is the downhill, a glamour event of the Alpine schedule and a demanding test. By Wednesday afternoon, we could finally know what effect one unseen, bruised lower leg may or may not have on Olympic skiing history.

Written by Bill Pennington, New York Times