Roscoe's Public Notes

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Charlton Heston, who won the 1959 best actor Oscar as the chariot-racing “Ben-Hur” and portrayed Moses, Michelangelo, El Cid and other heroic figures in movie epics of the ’50s and ’60s, has died. He was 84.

The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said.

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Violent drug gangs in Mexico, which kill thousands of people a year, fund the building of churches in impoverished villages to try to win over locals, a senior Catholic bishop said.

“They are very generous,” Bishop Carlos Aguiar told a press conference, Reforma newspaper reported on Saturday.

Aguiar, who heads Mexico’s Catholic bishops’ conference, said drug traffickers pour money into poverty-stricken towns where the government lacks funds to build roads or provide electricity.

“The drug smugglers build things that mean a lot for these communities,” he said. “Many times they will build a church or a chapel.”

SAN ANTONIO – Memphis and its up-tempo offense will face Kansas and its shutdown defense when the two top-seeded teams meet for the NCAA championship Monday night.

“It’s going to be a great matchup,” Kansas guard Sherron Collins said Saturday night after an 84-66 win over North Carolina. “They play fast, we play fast, play aggressive.”

Nancy Pelosi is warning Petraeus that she doesn’t want him to try and put any positive spin on the events in Basra, just to “tell the truth”. She sees the recent events in Basra as proof that Iraq is going poorly, and doesn’t want anyone to hear otherwise. If Petraeus tells the simple truth, however, the story in Basra is a positive one, most notably in terms of the political progress that Democrats keep on asking for (more political analysis here).

PORTLAND, Oregon (Ticker) — Tim Duncan had 27 points and 11 rebounds as the San Antonio Spurs forced the Portland Trail Blazers into dismal shooting in a 72-65 victory at the Rose Garden on Sunday.

Kurt Thomas grabbed 13 rebounds for the Spurs (53-24), who are 1 1/2 games back of the New Orleans Hornets (54-22) for the top spot in the Western Conference. The Hornets won earlier Sunday against the Golden State Warriors.

ABCNews’ Mary Bruce Reports: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is actively courting the vice presidential nomination, Republican strategist Dan Senor said.

“Condi Rice has been actively, actually in recent weeks, campaigning for this,” Senor said this morning on “This Week with George Stephanopoulos.”

According to Senor, Rice has been cozying up to the Republican elite.