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• Public universities in big-time conferences like the SEC are spending more than $100,000 per athlete, about six times the per-student expense on academics.
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• 8. WHAT 18 HUMAN HEADS WERE DOING AT THE AIRPORT
• Seized by Chicago customs officials, the heads had been used for medical research in Italy and were being returned to be cremated.
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• 9. FIND IT ON FACEBOOK
• The social network, aiming to compete better with Google and other rivals, unveils a new search feature.
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• 10. WHY 'AMERICAN IDOL' HAS HIGH RATINGS HOPES
• The show, which returns Wednesday, is shelling out $36 million for superstar judges.
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AP News in Brief
French forces will be in 'direct combat' in Mali within hours as ground operations launch
• BAMAKO, Mali (AP) -- French troops pressed northward in Mali toward territory occupied by radical Islamists on Wednesday, military officials said, announcing the start of a land assault that will put soldiers in direct combat "within hours."
• French ground operations began overnight in Mali, Adm. Edouard Guillaud, the French military chief of staff, said on Europe 1 television. France's Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said soldiers were headed away from the relative safety of the capital toward the rebel strongholds in the north.
• Residents of Niono, a city in the center of Mali which is just south of a town that was overrun by the jihadists earlier this week, said they saw trucks of French soldiers arrive overnight. The natural target for the French infantry is Diabaly, located 400 kilometers (250 miles) northeast of the capital and roughly 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Niono. French warplanes have carried out airstrikes on Diabaly since the weekend, when a column of dozens of rebel vehicles cut off the road out of Diabaly and seized the town as well as its military camp.
• Ibrahim Komnotogo, a resident of Diabaly who heads a USAID-financed rice agriculture project, happened to be outside the town when the jihadists encircled it. He has 20 employees and contractors who he says are stuck inside the town, popula (Continued on page 30)
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