BALTIMORE (AP) — Michael Andretti could soon be part of a new team that will run Baltimore’s troubled Grand Prix auto race, city officials announced Thursday.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced a proposed five-year agreement on Thursday with Race On, LLC, and Andretti Sports Marketing. It would be the third group to lead the Labor Day weekend event on a course that winds through the streets of downtown Baltimore.

A study found that the inaugural Grand Prix last year generated $47 million in economic impact. However, the city terminated its contract with Baltimore Racing Development after that group failed to pay $1.5 million owed to the city. In February, the city approved a contract with Downforce Racing LLC, but a new operator was sought after Downforce missed marketing deadlines for the event.

“The Grand Prix was a great event for Baltimore that boosted our local economy and showcased our city on the international stage,” Rawlings-Blake said in a statement. “This has been a difficult process, but Race On and Andretti Sports Marketing have what it takes to move forward and make this world-class sporting event successful for Baltimore.”

Andretti Sports Marketing, led by the retired driver and team owner, will provide a “turn-key” solution, including
sponsorships, public relations, marketing, hospitality, ticket sales, track construction, grandstand layout, and logistics, city officials said.

Andretti said his company has a history of resurrecting races in cities such as Toronto, Milwaukee and St. Petersburg, Fla.

“So, we are confident we can do the same for the Grand Prix of Baltimore,” Andretti said. “By combining our decades of
motorsports expertise with the substantial backing of local investors and community support, we believe the Grand Prix of Baltimore can become one of the most prominent sporting events on the Eastern Seaboard.”

The city’s Board of Estimates is scheduled to vote on the contract on Wednesday.

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Sophomore Alyssa Thomas of the Maryland women’s basketball team is one of five players named to the Associated Press All-America First Team announced Tuesday.

Thomas, the 2012 ACC Player of the Year, is joined on the First Team by Baylor’s Brittney Griner, Notre Dame’s Skylar Diggins, Stanford’s Nneka Ogwumike and Delaware’s Elena Delle Donne.

Thomas is the Terrapins’ fourth AP All-American. Crystal Langhorne (2006, 2007, 2008),Kristi Toliver (2008, 2009) and Marissa Coleman (2009) all earned the honor at least once in their respective careers. Langhorne was also honored as a sophomore when she was named to the Second Team in 2006.

Thomas leads the ACC in scoring with 17.2 points per game and is among the best in the league with 8.0 rebounds per game, assists (3.2), free throw percentage (80.1) and defensive rebounds (5.5).

Thomas is just the second underclassman ever to be named ACC Player of the Year. She scored a career-high 29 points in the ACC title game to lead Maryland to its 10th league championship. She was named Tournament MVP and is only the seventh player, and first underclassman, to be named league Player of the Year and Tournament MVP in the same season.

The Second Team honorees are Chiney Ogwumike, Stanford; Odyssey Sims, Baylor; Shenise Johnson, Miami; Samantha Prahalis, Ohio State; and Julie Wojta of Green Bay. Connecticut’s Tiffany Hayes, Kentucky’s A’dia Mathies, Duke’s Elizabeth Williams, Tennessee’s Shekinna Stricklen and Miami’s Riquna Williams all made the Third Team.

Behind two comebacks and a 21-4 run to end the game, Maryland rallied past Texas A&M 81-74 on Sunday in the Regional Semifinals. The Terps advanced to their fourth Elite Eight under head coach Brenda Frese.

Laurin Mincy had 21 points and for her career-high 12 rebounds for her first career double-double. Thomas added 21 points and nine rebounds for the second-seeded Terrapins. They trailed by 18 points in the first half and by 12 in the second half, but Maryland fought its way back and held the defending national champion Aggies to just one basket in the final 10 minutes.

The Terrapins had won 10 straight and 13 of 14 since Jan. 26. The Terrapins are 31-18 (.633) all-time in NCAA Tournament games. Frese owns an NCAA Tournament record of 20-7 (.741) and 19-6 (.760) at Maryland. Frese has led the Terps to eight NCAA Tournament appearances, four Elite Eights and the 2006 national championship.

MOUNT KISCO, N.Y. (AP) — Bert Sugar, an iconic boxing writer and sports historian who was known for his trademark fedora and ever-present cigar, died Sunday of cardiac arrest. He was 75.

Jennifer Frawley, Sugar’s daughter, said his wife, Suzanne, was by his side when he died at Northern Westchester Hospital. Sugar also had been battling lung cancer.

“Just his intelligence and his wit and his sense of humor,” Frawley said when asked what she will remember about her father. “He was always worried about people. He was always helping people.”

Sugar was inducted into the International Boxing Hall of Fame in 2005. According to the hall’s website, Sugar wrote more than 80 books, including “The 100 Greatest Boxers Of All Time.” He also appeared in a handful of films, including “The Great White Hype” starring Samuel Jackson.

“Around ringside, it’s not going to be the same with Bert not there,” said Jack Hirsch, the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America.

Sugar was born in Washington, D.C., in 1936. He graduated from Maryland and went to law school at Michigan. He passed the bar in his hometown and worked in advertising in New York City before he got into writing in the 1970s.

“Bert was obviously a showman in the way he did things outwardly, very flamboyant, but in quiet moments I found him to be an extremely modest individual,” Hirsch said.

Frawley said arrangements for a memorial service are still pending and anyone wishing to honor Sugar should make a donation to the boxing hall.

“He was really a brilliant man,” she said.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) Following two days of delays, the defense rested in the University of Virginia Lacrosse murder trial without defendant George Huguely V taking the stand on his own behalf.

A neurosurgeon testified Saturday that he saw little brain injury in Yeardley Love whom prosecutors said Huguely fatally bashed her head against a wall.

Dr. Ronald H. Uscinski testified for the defense in the trial. Huguely is charged with first-degree murder in the May 3, 2010, death of YeardleyLove, who was a member of the U.Va. women’s lacrosse team and is ex-girlfriend.

Huguely waived his right to testify before the trial broke for lunch. Jurors had already heard his account of Love’s death in a police interrogation video played during the trial.

By Saturday afternoon, defense attorneys had rested their case after presenting fewer than 10 witnesses over several days. The prosecution had presented about 50.

Circuit Judge George Hogshire read jurors instructions, which said they could also find Huguely guilty of involuntary manslaughter or voluntary manslaughter instead of murder. Both charges would carry lighter sentences than a murder conviction.

Closing arguments were also scheduled for Saturday afternoon, with jurors possibly getting the case later in the day.

Uscinki’s testimony was limited by Circuit Judge George Hogshire because of an email exchange involving Uscinski during the trial that had the potential to influence his testimony. The prosecution said they also would seek to strike previous defense medical testimony.

The medical testimony is critical because there is no disagreement that the 24-year-old Huguely of Chevy Chase, Md., was in Love’s apartment the night she died, or that their encounter became physical. At issue is how she died from what the medical examiner has ruled was blunt-force trauma.

The prosecution argues that Huguely banged Love’s head against her bedroom wall, bruising her brain and causing bleeding near the brain stem, while the defense contends Love suffocated with her face buried in her own blood-dampened pillow.

Love, who was 22 and from suburban Baltimore, was found with a battered right eye and injuries around and in her mouth and on her neck.

Asked by one of Huguely’s defense attorneys, Rhonda Quagliana, what he concluded after he viewed Love’s brain, Uscinski replied: “That there may have been head trauma … but there’s not of lot of significant brain trauma.”

Asked by Quagliana if he saw blunt-force injuries, Uscinski said, “No.”

Huguely’s defense has said it can complete its presentation Saturday. But the jury was kept out of the courtroom after prosecutor Dave Chapman presented a series of emails between Uscinski and a member of Huguely’s defense team that involved the testimony of another medical expert scheduled to testify for the defense.

Chapman sought to keep Uscinski from testifying and to have jurors disregard the testimony of the defense witness who said Love smothered in her pillow.

While Hogshire said Uscinski was likely “influenced by these emails,” he allowed him to testify but limited the extent of his testimony.

The defense hopes to finish its presentation Saturday.

Huguely and Love shared a tempestuous relationship, according to witnesses, marked by arguments, jealousy and infidelities.

Prosecutors have said Huguely went to Love’s apartment after a day of golf and heavy drinking, kicked in her bedroom door and repeatedly banged her head against a wall, leaving her to die.

Huguely, who has pleaded not guilty, told police that he had gone to her apartment to talk the night of her death. But he said the encounter quickly turned physical after she “freaked out” and began hitting her own head against the wall of her bedroom.

Hogshire has said the trial is unlikely to be conducted Sunday or Monday, which is Presidents’ Day, and grand jurors meet in the courthouse on Tuesday. Jurors, who are not sequestered, presumably could return on Wednesday.

BALTIMORE (AP) – Baltimore has a new five-year agreement with a motorsports promoter for the Baltimore Grand Prix.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake announced Wednesday that the final contract with Downforce Racing will be presented to the Board of Estimates next week. The city is touting the racing and financial management experience of Downforce Racing’s three leaders.

A study found that the inaugural Grand Prix generated a $47 million economic impact, but the city terminated its contract with Baltimore Racing Development after the group failed to pay $1.5 million owed to the city.

The new deal includes protections to ensure the city receives taxes and fees it is owed, including a 10 percent admission and amusement tax placed in an escrow account. The city can also audit Downforce’s records at any time.

By GREG BEACHAM AP Sports Writer

AIRWAY HEIGHTS, Wash. — Tyrieshia Douglas emphatically avoided elimination from the first U.S. Olympic women’s boxing team trials on Wednesday night, stopping Taversha Norwood in the fourth round of their flyweight bout.

Lightweight Mikaela Mayer also recorded a fourth-round stoppage, dominating Asia Stevenson in the semifinals of the challengers’ bracket of the double-elimination tournament.

Top-ranked middleweight Franchon Crews narrowly avoided elimination with a wild 27-26 victory over Tiffanie Hearn. Crews, the five-time national champion, broke into tears while Hearn collapsed after a vicious bout in which both fighters bounced off the ropes and traded haymakers.

Just 12 fighters remain with a chance to earn three spots on the U.S. team and the chance to qualify for the debut of women’s boxing at the London Olympics.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (AP) — The romantic rival of a former University of Virginia lacrosse player accused of killing his ex-girlfriend testified Thursday that he saw the defendant with his arm around her neck months before her death.

Mike Burns talked about the chokehold at George Huguely V’s murder trial. Huguely is accused of killing Yeardley Love in May 2010 by slamming her head against a wall. Huguely’s defense maintains Love died in part by taking the prescription drug Adderall and drinking alcohol.

Love was on Virginia’s women’s lacrosse team. Burns played for North Carolina.

At a party at Huguely’s apartment complex three months before Love’s death, Burns said he heard yells from Huguely’s bedroom. When he walked in, he saw Huguely with his arm around her neck and midsection, he said.

“What did George do?” prosecutor David Chapman said.

“George let go of her,” Burns said.

Love was crying hysterically after Huguely released her and she fled, Burns said. Love later told Burns that Huguely wanted to talk but she was resisting, Burns said.

Chapman produced an email earlier this week in which Huguely accused Love of having a relationship with Burns.

“When I found out about Mike Burns, I should have killed you,” the email said, according to Chapman.

Burns testified that he and Love “hooked up” several times beginning in the 2008, including after the night at the party.

Huguely and Love dated for two years, but in their final year of college, the relationship turned hot and cold, with arguments and angry and abusive emails.

Former Virginia lacrosse players and their friends also testified Thursday, describing a sexually-charged, alcohol-fueled atmosphere. He said the choking occurred at a party involving two apartment buildings in Charlottesville attended by 120 people.

Burns demonstrated on the prosecutor what he saw.

Tim Fuchs, a former Virginia lacrosse player, testified that he saw Love leave the bedroom.

“She seemed a little scared,” Fuchs said. “She was a little freaked out.”

Fuchs and others also talked about when Love walked in on Huguely, Fuchs and two high school girls from northern Virginia who were visiting the campus. Love confronted Huguely, asking if the girls were the same ones he had sent flirtatious text messages to.

Instead of answering, Huguely responded with insults, another witness said. Huguely’s relationship with the girls was not made clear during testimony.

Two former Huguely teammates also testified to his growing drinking problem, including a father-son golf tournament at which he began drinking at 9 a.m. and continued until he stumbled, slurred his words and made inappropriate remarks. Teammates were considering an intervention.

During earlier testimony Thursday, police officers who responded to what they thought was an alcohol overdose said they found Love’s bruised and bloodied body, and quickly realized her apartment was a crime scene.

Patrolman K.W. Chapman said he arrived at the apartment and found a hole in her bedroom door and her body lying on the floor next to her bed. She was wearing only underwear.

He kneeled down to check whether she was breathing and detected nothing. He then unsuccessfully tried CPR. He said Love’s face was bloodied, bruised and had scrapes.

“When I saw that, I knew that this was nowhere near the report that I was given,” Chapman said.

Charlottesville Police Sgt. S.R. Bayles said after he viewed Love’s lifeless body, he concluded she had been the “victim of some act of violence” and began recording the apartment with a digital camera.

Love had a black eye and the side of her face had bruises, Bayles said.

When photos of the scene were shown to jurors, Huguely cast his eyes downward and fidgeted with his hands.

EMT crews that followed Chapman and his partner to Love’s apartment testified about the frantic efforts to revive her.

Huguely’s attorneys have said he was drunk the night Love died and incapable of plotting to kill her. They maintain Love, of Cockeysville, Md., died from a cardiopulmonary failure caused in part by Adderall and alcohol.

They also said the blood found at the base of Love’s brain wasn’t caused by Huguely but by forceful attempts to resuscitate her.