The Sacramento Kings waived former Clipper guard...

The Sacramento Kings waived former Clipper guard Gary Grant and center Matt Fish.

Hockey

Buffalo Sabre captain Pat LaFontaine, who missed last season because of a concussion, has been cleared by his doctors to play.

LaFontaine said neurologists Warren Olanow and James Kelly think he be at minimal risk. However, he must be cleared by team doctors before he’s allowed to play.

LaFontaine has not played since Nov. 7, when he was elbowed in the head by Francis Leroux of the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Goalie Frederic Chabot, the International Hockey League’s most valuable player with the Houston Aeros last season, signed a two-year contract with the Kings.

The Florida Panthers signed Esa Tikkanen of the New York Rangers to a four-year contract that calls for him to make $1.5 million this season. The deal could be worth as much as $6 million over the next three years with performance incentives.

Jurisprudence

A second round of genetic tests on the underwear of a woman who accused NBC sportscaster Marv Albert of sexual assault again showed traces of his sperm.

The analysis, filed in an Arlington, Va. court, concluded that there was a one-in-8.8 million chance that semen found in the woman’s underwear could have come from anyone other than Albert.

Previous genetic tests showed a one -in-2.6 billion chance that the DNA came from someone other than Albert.

Albert is charged with forcible sodomy and assault of a woman in his Arlington, Va. hotel room in Arlington on Feb. and could face up to life in prison if convicted at his trial Sept. 22.

Former Dodger pitcher Steve Howe pleaded not guilty to drunken driving in Kalispell, Mont.

Howe, 39, suffered a ruptured trachea and collapsed lungs in a motorcycle crash on Aug. 19.

A federal judge in Buenos Aires dismissed charges of drug use brought against former soccer star Diego Maradona by the Argentine Football Association (AFA).

Maradona tested positive for undisclosed substances after a game Aug. 24.

Judge Carlos Liporace ruled that Maradona should not be tried because Argentine law calls for penalties for the drug dealer, not for the user.

However, the AFA disciplinary committee is reportedly set to be suspend Maradona, an admitted cocaine addict who has twice been banned for 15 months for failing drug tests, for up to two years.

Two former Virginia Tech football players accused of raping a student in their apartment last December pleaded no contest to a reduced charge and were given one-year suspended sentences and fined $500 apiece.

Brian Edmonds, 22, and James Crawford, 20, indicted on rape and attempted sodomy charges, pleaded no contest to attempted aggravated sexual battery.

Two players for Major League Soccer’s D.C. United pleaded not guilty to rape and kidnapping charges in Columbus, Ohio.

Defender Mario Gori, 24, of Argentina, and forward Raul Diaz Arce, 27, of El Salvador, are accused of assaulting a woman they met in a bar after a game against the Crew on Aug. 17.

Gymnastics

Ivan Ivankov of Belarus won his second world all-around title in the World Gymnastics Championships at Lausanne, Switzerland.

Olympic uneven bars champion Svetlana Chorkina of Russia won the women’s all-around title.

Ivankov, who missed the 1996 Olympics with an Achilles’ tendon injury, won on the parallel bars with a 9.70 score and on the rings with a 9.625, finishing 0.80 of a point ahead of Russia’s Alexei Bondarenko and Japan’s Naoya Tsukahara.

Blaine Wilson of the United States finished 10th with 54.911.

Chorkina won on the uneven bars to cinch the title with 38.636 points .049 ahead of Romania’s Simona Amanar. Elena Produnova of Russia was third with 38.549 points.

Kristin Maloney of the U.S. was 13th with 37.054, followed by Dominique Moceanu, with 36.961.