The 27-year-old batsman, who has one international cap for Australia, is signed up by Indian Premier League (IPL) team Royal Challengers Bangalore.

He faces up to three years in jail after being charged with molestation, assault and house-breaking.

He allegedly groped a 27-year-old American woman during an after-game party at the ITC Maurya Hotel, a police statement said.

“We have arrested Luke Pomersbach for assaulting a woman and beating up the fiance who objected to his action,” police spokesman Rajan Bhagat told AFP.

The powerfully built cricketer, wearing a heavy bandage on his right arm, appeared in a central Delhi court where he fainted. He was granted bail until today.

“My client is denying the charges against him,” Pomersbach’s lawyer, Ajay Bhargava, told AFP yesterday. “We have received interim bail and my client has to appear in court tomorrow.”

Pomersbach has battled depression and drug problems and narrowly avoided a jail sentence in Australia after admitting to assaulting a police officer who was trying to arrest him for drink-driving.

He arrived in India saying he was now “on top of things”, adding that he was determined to make the most of the money-spinning but scandal-plagued Indian league in order to get his career back on track.

The alleged victim told the Times Now news channel that Pomersbach had “tagged along” with her and her Mumbai-based fiance and had suddenly grabbed her while they drank together in their hotel room.

“My fiance said, ‘Hey listen, you shouldn’t treat any girl like that. Why don’t you just leave…’

“When he said that, he (Pomersbach) turned around and started hitting him. He hit him so many times, punched him on his face, then his ear; he got injured in his ear.”

The man is in a stable condition in a private New Delhi hospital but was complaining about losing hearing in his left ear, doctors said.

Royal Challengers Bangalore team manager Avinash Vaidya declined to comment on the incident.

Pomersbach has not featured for Bangalore in this season’s IPL, which has again hit the headlines for the wrong reasons and is being dubbed the “Indian Problem League” by some commentators.

Earlier this week, five Indian players signed to IPL teams were suspended after an undercover TV report alleged they were prepared to take money for spot-fixing, an illegal practice in which parts of the game are fixed.
 

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(CNN) — Friends may be priceless. But ‘friending’ is worth $38 a share.

That’s what Facebook set as the initial price when its stock begins trading on Wall Street Friday morning. That’s at the top end of the range analysts were expecting and gives the company a valuation of roughly $104 billion.

That stock price will be the biggest opening ever for a tech company and the third-largest IPO in history — behind only Visa and Italian utility company ENEL.

Why Facebook won’t start trading at the opening bell

By NBC News and msnbc.com

Florida teenager Trayvon Martin died from a single gunshot wound to the chest fired from “intermediate range,” according to an autopsy report reviewed Wednesday by NBC News.

The official report, prepared by the medical examiner in Volusia County, Fla., also found that the 17-year-old Martin had one other fresh injury – a small abrasion, no more than a quarter-inch  in size –  on his left ring finger below the knuckle.

Separately, a medical report on Martin’s alleged killer, 28-year-old George Zimmerman, prepared by his personal physician the day after Martin’s shooting in Sanford, Fla., on Feb. 26, found that the Neighborhood Watch volunteer suffered a likely broken nose, swelling, two black eyes and cuts to the scalp. That report, first reported Tuesday by ABC News, also was reviewed by NBC News.

Both documents are part of a mountain of evidence – up to 300 pages and 67 CDs of witness statements, surveillance videos and other material– expected to be made public soon in connection with the second-degree murder case against Zimmerman.

Zimmerman allegedly shot Martin during a confrontation inside the gated community in Sanford where Zimmerman was a neighborhood volunteer and where Martin was visiting his father’s fiancée.

After first reporting a suspicious person in the neighborhood in a phone call to Sanford police, Zimmerman followed the teenager before a fatal confrontation that remains shrouded in mystery.

Related coverage:

NYT: Police missteps shadow Trayvon Martin case

Physician: Zimmerman had broken nose, black eyes

Key events in the Trayvon Martin case

When police arrived at the scene to find Martin dead on the sidewalk, Zimmerman claimed he shot the teen in self-defense. Zimmerman was treated at the scene for cuts and a bloody nose, then questioned by police for hours before being released without being arrested. Authorities said at the time that they had no evidence challenging Zimmerman’s account and that his conduct appeared to be justified under Florida’s so-called Stand Your Ground law.

But after questions about possible racial motivation for the slaying – Martin was black; Zimmerman is a white man of Hispanic heritage – a special prosecutor took over the case and, on April 11, Zimmerman was charged with second-degree murder. He was released on April 23 on a $150,000 bond and has been out of the public eye since then.

NBC News National Investigative Correspondent Michael Isikoff and msnbc.com’s Mike Brunker contributed to this report.

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Two men pleaded not guilty Tuesday to the kidnapping and murder of Sherry Arnold after prosecutors filed court documents with new alleged details of her brutal attack.

Arnold disappeared at dusk along a rural road near her hometown of Sidney, Mont., where she was a star high school math teacher and mom to two kids and three stepchildren.

Before the arraignment, prosecutors added murder charges that make Michael Keith Spell, 22, and Lester Van Waters Jr., 48, both of Parachute, Colo., eligible for the death penalty.

According to the new documents, a jailhouse informant named Michael Pruit says Spell told him that Waters instigated the attack because the men were “high on drugs and Waters wanted to have sex.”

Pruit says Spell told him that Arnold jogged past him and said, “Hi.”

“Spell said he turned around and speared Sherry in the back of the head and knocked her down,” the documents say. “Spell said he choked her out … pushed Sherry’s face into some water and drowned her to make sure she was dead.”

Spell has allegedly told authorities that it was Waters who killed Arnold, according to other court documents filed earlier by the prosecution.

The documents say the men bought a shovel at a North Dakota Wal-Mart, dug a hole, placed Arnold’s body on her side in a fetal position and buried her.

More than two months later, Waters allegedly led FBI agents to her body, according to the court documents. Waters told authorities on the scene that, “I didn’t kill that lady,” according to the documents.

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As it grew dark, 87-year-old Bernice Novack decided to move her car into her garage. That was when Alejandro Garcia, who’d been hiding behind garbage cans near her driveway, says he snuck up behind her.

“She looked at me and right away I hit her,” Garcia told a jury, speaking through a Spanish interpreter. “She looked at me and she screamed.”

The dramatic testimony by the prosecution’s star witness came in a sensational trial now underway in White Plains, N.Y., for the 2009 murders of Novack and her millionaire son Ben Novack Jr., once the owner of Miami Beach’s storied Fountainbleau Hotel.

The Alleged Motive

Amid allegations of jealousy, betrayal and greed, Ben’s wife Narcy Novack, a former stripper from Ecuador, stands accused of joining forces with her brother to arrange both murders.

The alleged motive: Narcy wanted her husband dead because she knew he was having an affair with a former $300-an-hour call girl and feared he’d divorce her, leaving her broke because of their prenuptial agreement. His will left millions to her.

Two admitted hit men, including Garcia, have pleaded guilty and are testifying for the prosecution.

With its tawdry revelations and moneyed players, the case revealed a dark side to the glitz and glamour surrounding the Fountainbleau, owned by Ben Jr.’s father before him. Ben Jr. grew up there, rubbing elbows with the likes of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley.

But the trial is also intensely personal for close friends and family, no more so than for Maxine Fiel – Bernice’s sister and Ben Jr.’s aunt.

Fiel refused to believe police’s initial finding that Bernice’s death was from a series of accidental falls. She pushed investigators and the medical examiner, even questioning witnesses herself, until they finally reclassified it as a homicide in July 2010.

“I hope she [Narcy] never sees the light of day,” Fiel, 88, tells PEOPLE. “Women’s jails aren’t easy. She’ll get justice there. Bernice must have been frightened to death. What an end to her life. Mother and son brutally murdered. This is a horrible woman. Horrible.”

Grew Up Amid Glamor

Ben Jr.’s ties to the Fontainebleau Hotel ended with bankruptcy in 1977. He went on to run a successful events-planning company in Florida. A few years later he met Narcy and they wed in 1991. It was a stormy marriage: Ben Jr. filed for divorce at one point, but rescinded after they reconciled.

In 2008, Ben Jr. answered an online ad placed by a porn actress named Rebecca Bliss, working at the time as a high-priced prostitute. Bliss, 40, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla., testified that they began a love affair and that Ben Jr. was going to leave his wife.

She said Narcy got wind of the affair and in early 2009 offered her $10,000 to end it.

“She said that if she couldn’t have him, no other woman was going to have him,” Bliss said on the stand under questioning by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Dember.

Narcy, 54, responded by hatching a plot along with her brother Cristobal Veliz, 57, prosecutors allege. Veliz allegedly recruited two men from a Miami car wash to help with their scheme – Garcia, 34, and Joel Gonzalez, 27.

In April 2009, Garcia beat Bernice Novack to death with a monkey wrench at her Fort Lauderdale home, Garcia said.

Three months later, while on a business trip to Rye Brooke, N.Y., Ben Jr. was beaten so brutally by Garcia that 20 of his ribs were cracked, his head was bashed in and his mouth was taped so tightly that he choked, authorities said. His eyes were gouged out as well.

Narcy helped muffle her husband’s screams with a pillow, Garcia testified. Gonzalez helped Garcia kill Ben Jr., according to prosecutors.

“It was a personal killing,” Westchester County prosecutor Perry Perrone told jurors in opening arguments. “It was a sadistic killing.”

The Defense Case

Narcy and her brother are charged with racketeering and other offenses for arranging both those murders. Defense attorneys have pointed the finger at Narcy’s own daughter, Maya Abad, 36, in their opening arguments, saying she framed her mother.

“(Abad’s) going to get everything, ” said Howard Tanner, Narcy’s lawyer. “Her kids are going to get everything. There’s only one person standing in her way. That’s Narcy Novack.”

Abad, who went into hiding with her teen-aged sons after the murders due to death threats, told the Miami Herald she wasn’t surprised her mother is trying to blame her.

“This whole thing is a joke,” she told the Miami Herald. “To me, they are going to say whatever they can to save their own asses.”

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But Ms Roxon also stood behind Prime Minister Julia Gillard, who stridently opposes legalising same-sex marriages, saying “people of good will can have different views on it.”

The attorney-general was speaking as thousands of Australians held protest marches across the country calling on Ms Gillard to change her stance after US President Barack Obama said that same sex couples should be able to wed.

Australia passed an amendment to its laws in 2004 explicitly defining marriage as between a man and woman, but there are several bills before the parliament calling for the right to be extended to same-sex couples.

Activists believe pressure is mounting for Labor to push for change, with the party changing its official stance to pro-gay marriage last December after 10,000 protesters marched on its national policy summit.

Labor also decided that MPs should be allowed to vote with their conscience rather than along party lines and Roxon said: “I’ve made clear that I will be voting in favour of same-sex marriage.”

“People have different views and people of – you know, good will can have different views on a matter like this but I’ve made my decision clear,” Roxon told reporters.

She added: “I think that it’s an issue that’s time is coming and I think many people – me included – have, over time, been persuaded of the importance of this.”

Gillard said this week she would not vote in support of gay marriage despite Obama’s admission that he was in favour, describing it as a “deeply personal question,” and Roxon said individuals were entitled to their views.

Because the conservative Liberal/National opposition has refused to allow its own MPs a conscience vote and will reject the legislation as a bloc there is little prospect of the laws changing.

Every Labor lawmaker and a majority of independent MPs would have to vote in favour to ensure its passage – an unlikely prospect on such a divisive issue.

In Australia marriage is mandated by federal legislation, so although civil same-sex unions are recognised in five states, the couples are not seen as “married” by the national government.

All the same, same-sex couples have the same rights as heterosexual couples in areas such as pension schemes and medical benefits.

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By Isolde Raftery, msnbc.com

Wrapping up a surprise visit to Afghanistan, President Barack Obama made a televised address from the war-torn country to discuss an agreement he signed with President Hamid Karzai, which would see 23,000 U.S. troops withdrawn by the end of the summer. The agreement, he said, hails “a new kind of relationship” that would see the United States in a more supportive role.

“As our coalition agreed, by the end of 2014 the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country,” Obama said. But the president was clear that the U.S. would stay engaged into the future.

“The agreement we signed today sends a clear message to the Afghan people. As you stand up, you will not stand alone,” Obama said. “It establishes the basis of our cooperation over the next decade, including shared commitments to combat terrorism and strengthen democratic institutions.”

President Obama’s visit to Afghanistan was kept secret until he met with President Hamid Karzai. During Tuesday’s meeting, which took place around midnight, the two leaders signed a post-war agreement that provides a framework to the U.S.’s commitment to Afghanistan after the long and unpopular war comes to an end.

The agreement opens the possibility for continued training of Afghan forces and targeted operations against al-Qaida, which is present in neighboring Pakistan but has a nominal presence inside Afghanistan.

President Obama goes to Afghanistan to sign post-war agreement

At the podium at Bagram Air Field, Obama noted that 10,000 troops were withdrawn last year and that nearly half the Afghan population lives in areas where Afghan Security Forces are taking the lead.

“The Iraq War is over,” the president said. “The number of our troops in harm’s way has been cut in half, and more will be coming home soon. We have a clear path to fulfill our mission in Afghanistan, while delivering justice to al-Qaida.”

Still, Obama struck a cautionary note, warning of “more difficult days ahead” and acknowledged that “many Americans are tired of war.” But “we must finish the job we started in Afghanistan and end this war responsibly,” he said.

International troops would continue to train and advise the Afghans, Obama said, and the U.S. would not build permanent bases in Afghanistan or patrol the country’s cities and mountains.

The president also said the U.S. would not build permanent bases in Afghanistan or patrol the country’s cities and mountains.

The Afghan Security Forces would grow its force to 352,000 this year, Obama said, and sustain that level for three years.

“That will be the job of the Afghan people,” he said.

Obama planned to be on the ground for about seven hours in Afghanistan, where the United States has been engaged in war for more than a decade following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. More than 1,800 U.S. forces have been killed and 15,700 wounded in that time.  

The trip also carries major symbolic significance for a president seeking a second term and allows him to showcase the killing a year ago of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden. 

Media traveling with Obama on the 13-hour flight had to agree to keep it secret until Obama had safely finished a helicopter flight to the nation’s capital, Kabul still launch lethal attacks.  

Obama also addressed Pakistan, where bin Laden spent nine years hiding in a safe house in Abbottabad.

“I have made it clear to Afghanistan’s neighbor – Pakistan – that it can and should be an equal partner in this process in a way that respects Pakistan’s sovereignty, interests, and democratic institutions,” Obama said. “In pursuit of a durable peace, America has no designs beyond an end to al-Qaida safe-havens, and respect for Afghan sovereignty.”

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