15 h. ago Victor Conte, architect of infamous sport steroids scandal, dies aged 75

Balco boss revealed Marion Jones used growth hormonesConte served four months in prison over involvementVictor Conte, the architect of a scheme to provide undetectable performance-enhancing drugs to professional athletes including baseball stars Barry Bonds and Jason Giambi and Olympic track champion Marion Jones decades ago, has died. He was 75.The federal government’s investigation into another company Conte founded, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (Balco), yielded the convictions of Jones, elite sprint cyclist Tammy Thomas, and former NFL defensive lineman Dana Stubblefield along with coaches, distributors, a trainer, a chemist and a lawyer. Continue reading...

Events

21 h. ago Victor Conte, who sold undetectable steroids to elite athletes in baseball and track, has died at 75

Victor Conte has died at 75 years old

Events

5 d. ago Priest horrified to learn he is Himmler’s grandson after recognising Nazi’s mistress on Wikipedia

Heinrich Himmler was the head of the infamous SS and the architect of the Holocaust

Politics

1 week ago From monkey elixir to fentanyl: Tyler Skaggs’s death is merely a chapter in baseball’s 136

As the LA Angels stand trial over the pitcher’s death in the quiet shadow of the World Series fanfare across town, a sport confronts a truth practically as old as the game itselfBefore steroids, before amphetamines and before fentanyl, baseball’s first documented chemical dalliance came from monkey testicles. In August 1889, a worn-down pitcher for the Pittsburgh Alleghenys named James Francis “Pud” Galvin, so nicknamed for his once-devastating ability to reduce hitters to “pudding”, was in need of a spark. He was 32, his right arm a rubbery relic of nearly 5,000 innings pitched, his career on the fade. Then came salvation in a syringe. A French-Mauritian doctor by the name of Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard published a paper – The Effects Produced on Man by the Subcutaneous Injections of a Liquid Obtained from the Testicles of Animals – in which he claimed that a few drops of an extract sourced from dogs and guinea pigs might well make ordinary men stronger and more virile. Galvin, a...

Events

2 w. ago King visits Manchester synagogue where two died in terror attack amid Andrew scandal

The monarch’s visit is his first official appearance since Prince Andrew relinquished his royal titles

Events

2 w. ago Queen's one word to Prince Andrew over sex scandal allegations before she died

Prince Andrew's sex scandal has been one of the most damaging controversies to hit the Royal Family in recent years - but what did his mother, the Queen, make of it all

Politics