In Brief | Sports

Red Wings plan new home

DETROIT — The Detroit Red Wings and city officials on Wednesday announced a $650 million plan for a new arena development for the NHL team in Detroit’s downtown entertainment and sports district.

Plans for an 18,000-seat arena were announced by the team’s owners and local economic development officials. Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch has long said he wanted a replacement for the 32-year-old Joe Louis Arena.

The new proposal — essentially a framework of financing and development plans — still needs to be approved by the City Council and a handful of state and local agencies, but it’s seen as an important first step. The Red Wings said there will be $367 million in private investment and $283 million in public funds in the complex, which would also include residential, retail and office space.

Uncle: Patriots player had link to victim

BOSTON — New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez had a connection to a homicide victim found in an industrial park near the athlete’s home, but family and officials were mum on the nature of their relationship, two days after police first visited the upscale division.

The body found about a mile from Hernandez’s sprawling home in North Attleborough was that of 27-year-old Odin Lloyd, according to a prosecutor’s office. His cause of death wasn’t released.

Lloyd was a semi-pro football player for the Boston Bandits and had a connection to Hernandez, whose home was searched by police, his family said Wednesday.

Hernandez attorney Michael Fee acknowledged media reports about the state police search of Hernandez’s home as part of an investigation but said he and the player wouldn’t have any comment on it.

S. Williams sorry after rape case comments

Serena Williams says she’s reaching out to the family of the victim in the Steubenville rape case after the tennis star was quoted in a Rolling Stone article saying “she shouldn’t have put herself in that position.”

“I am currently reaching out to the girl’s family to let her know that I am deeply sorry for what was written in the Rolling Stone article,” Williams said in a statement released through her agent Wednesday. “What was written — what I supposedly said — is insensitive and hurtful, and I by no means would say or insinuate that she was at all to blame.”

The comment was made in one paragraph of a lengthy story posted online Tuesday about Williams, a 16-time Grand Slam title winner who is ranked No. 1 heading into Wimbledon, which starts next week.

Two players from the Steubenville, Ohio, high school football team were convicted in March of raping a drunken 16-year-old girl; one of the boys was ordered to serve an additional year for photographing the girl naked. The case gained widespread attention in part because of the callousness with which other students used social media to gossip about it.

Bartoli withdraws from Eastbourne

EASTBOURNE, England — Marion Bartoli of France has withdrawn from the Eastbourne grass-court tournament with a viral infection, giving No. 2-seeded Li Na of China a walkover into the quarterfinals.

Bartoli, the 2011 champion, reached the second round with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Flavia Pennetta of Italy on Monday.

Later Wednesday, 2012 runner-up Angelique Kerber of Germany was paired against 2010 champion Elena Makarova of Russia and Czech Petra Kvitova faced Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium.

Wawrinka downs Lorenzi to advance

ROSMALEN, Netherlands — Second-seeded Stanislas Wawrinka beat Paolo Lorenzi 6-3, 7-6 (8) Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Topshelf Open on the grass courts of Rosmalen.

The Italian never managed to seriously threaten Wawrinka’s serve until the 12th game of the second set, when he broke the Swiss to force a tiebreak.

He then fought off three match points before finally succumbing 10-8 to the No. 10-ranked Wawrinka.

By wire sources