Vasquez a MIP candidate

New Orleans Hornets starting point guard Greivis Vasquez is having a solid season and Ronald Tillery of The Commercial-Appeal believes he should be a candidate for the Most Improved Player award. 

When Granger, West may return

The Indiana Pacers were without David West and Danny Granger for Friday's game against the Milwaukee Bucks and both players might return sometime late next week. 

Ilyasova on the mend

Ersan Ilyasova has missed the last three games due to a left hip injury and he may return to the Milwaukee Bucks lineup on Sunday. 

choice for energy secretary has ties to oil,

WASHINGTON — "President Obama expressed great confidence when he nominated Ernest Moniz, an MIT professor, to be secretary of energy, saying the renowned physicist could balance scientific rigor with the demands of private industry and knows that “we can grow our economy while still taking care of our air, our water, and our environment.’’

But some critics question that assertion, contending that Moniz’s independence has been clouded by his deep professional and financial ties to the oil and gas industry — established during his work heading an MIT research effort that is funded primarily by those industries."

Blue Jays

"They will be picked by the majority of prognosticators to win the American League East, probably the AL, and probably the World Series.

On paper, the Blue Jays have the best team, with sluggers like Jose Bautista, Edwin Encarnacion, and J.P. Arencibia, speed in Jose Reyes and Emilio Bonifacio, and the intriguing Melky Cabrera."

Aid to commissioner’s son by police officer is debated

Eugene O’Donnell, a professor of law and police studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, said the officer’s career is in the hands of the commissioner, making an already difficult policing decision even thornier.

“It’s not unequivocal that you have to make an arrest, but it’s close,” said O’Donnell. “Anything you say about this is colored by the fact that you were told who this young man is.”

But several people said that driving home suspected drunk drivers is not as unusual as it may seem. Officers have wide latitude to decide whether to ­arrest.

‘People are entitled to wonder if they would have been afforded preferential treatment.’

They caution, however, that showing leniency in such cases can have unintended consequences.

Officers can be held liable if the driver they drop off at home or put in a taxi gets into a fight or gets behind the wheel of another car and kills someone.

In the case involving Davis, the officer’s decision has raised questions about whether the son received unusually favor­able treatment.

Philip Davis was about to drive home from the TD Garden, where he had gone with his girlfriend. But a Boston police officer, who was told by a passerby that Davis appeared to be drunk as he got ­into his truck, stopped the young man as he drove his blue pickup out of a downtown parking garage.

According to a police report, the officer learned that Davis had been drinking, but was ­unsure he was impaired and gave the young man and his girlfriend a ride home. Davis left his truck in the garage.

Vt. state worker sentenced in prostitution case

A former Vermont state employee has been sentenced to six months of home detention for his role in a scheme to bring women from New York City to Vermont to engage in prostitution with farm workers. Alex Young-Hernandez was sentenced Thursday in federal court in Brattleboro. The 56-year-old had worked as a case aide for the Department of Children and Family Services for 10 years at the time of his arrest, The Burlington Free Press reported. Young-Hernandez said he learned of the prostitution operation in October 2010 from Jose Flores-Rocha at a trailer in northern Vermont where Young-Hernandez lived with several farm workers, according to court records.