7:10am Saturday 19th may 2012 in News

A FASCINATING collection of trains, toy soldiers, Meccano and war games will be on display at Croft Model Show on Saturday.

it takes place at Croft Village Hall, Mustard Lane, from 10am to 4pm.

There will be a special guest appearance by Darth Vader, R2-D2 and the Mint Imperials and a fully operational Dalek. it promises to make it a memorable family fun day.

last year the event raised £1,540 for the British Heart Foundation, bringing the total so far to £10,327.

Admission is £2 for adults, seniors £1.50 and children £1.

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“I could imagine hitting against him tonight and it would have been mind-boggling,” he said. “I would have just been swimming in my own brain about what to look for.”

That pretty much described the Rockies, who flailed all night as Millwood crafted his first shutout in nine years, and his first complete game since April 2010 — against the Mariners.

In fact, on a night when Justin Verlander’s bid for a third no-hitter captivated the baseball world, Millwood quietly, and unexpectedly, made a spirited no-no run of his own.

In the Mariners’ interleague opener, the 37-year-old Millwood held the Rockies hitless until two were out in the sixth, and didn’t allow any hits after that inning. He struck out seven — five of them looking — walked one, and hit a batter.

“You can’t ask for any more, and obviously we really needed that as a ballclub,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said. “In this ballpark, with that lineup — they roll out five very experienced, professional big-league hitters at you. He just pitched a great ballgame. I can’t say enough about his performance.”

In typical laconic fashion, Millwood downplayed his efforts.

“The first couple of innings, my location was pretty good,” he said. “I felt if I could keep my location where it was, I could at least give us a chance. You always want to get deep in the game. Getting the win today was huge for this team. That’s bigger than the shutout or whatever.”

Millwood was downright spry in the game, making a full-out diving effort in the ninth to field Marco Scutaro’s bunt attempt after he hit the leadoff man, Eric Young Jr. Millwood missed, but charging third baseman Kyle Seager made an excellent play to nail Scutaro. all Seager wanted to talk about, however, was Millwood’s dive, which fired up the Mariner bench.

“That’s an unbelievable effort right there,” Seager said. “He laid it all out there. That’s pretty special to see a guy giving his all like that. that motivates you as a team when you have Millwood diving after bunts in the ninth inning. That’s unbelievable. that says a lot about him and his competitiveness and his leadership.”

Millwood appeared shaken up, remaining prone on the ground, but got up and completed the game. The final out came with Young on third on a line out to first by dangerous Carlos Gonzalez.

Said Millwood of his dive: “I’m just trying to get an out. all I needed was three more. That’s a way to get one of them. I’m all about it.”

And as he lay on the ground, “I was just laughing. It didn’t hurt at all. I just wasn’t quick enough to get there. I probably wasted a little more (energy) than I needed to there. It all worked out.”

Millwood’s last shutout was Aug. 1, 2003, while with Philadelphia. Earlier that year, Millwood had thrown a no-hitter on April 27, 2003, against the San Francisco Giants.

Millwood actually lost his no-hitter on Friday before anyone knew it. With two outs in the sixth, Scutaro hit a grounder to Seager’s left that popped out of the third baseman’s glove as he spun to make a throw. He scurried after it, but had no play as Scutaro raced to first.

While the official scorer was mulling his decision on the play, Jordan Pacheco lined a clean single to center, on which Scutaro was gunned down at third by Michael Saunders for the third out. Only then was the scoring decision announced: a single for Scutaro.

“I’ll tell you what, that’s a play I sure would like to make,” Seager said. “In that situation, him throwing the way he was, having not given up a hit yet, I felt that was a play I needed to make for him.”

Millwood had no argument with the scoring decision, and absolutely no problem with Seager’s effort. Seager drove in two of the Mariners’ four runs with an RBI single and sacrifice fly, and also tripled and scored. Mike Carp had a solo homer for the Mariners.

“It would have been great if he had made the play and threw him out, and we could have had fun for a little while longer, anyway,” Millwood said. “But he made all the effort he could to make a play, and it didn’t happen.”

Yes, Millwood was fully aware he was working on a no-hitter.

“Yeah. I saw it,” he said. “First inning. Some guys may not pay attention. I did. I was watching the whole game.”

Like Verlander, he fell short.

“That’s all right. He’ll get more,” Millwood said of the Tigers’ ace.

“I don’t know. as long as we get some wins, that’s all I want.”

Larry Stone: 206-464-3146 or lstone@seattletimes.com.

On Twitter @StoneLarry.

Now he’s won the Pulitzer Prize — and he’d like readers to just take in the story.

“I didn’t have any particular agenda in mind,” Gaddis says. “My hope is, and I think it has been borne out, that people would respond to the book on its own merits.”

Gaddis was widely acknowledged as the obvious choice to tell the story of Kennan’s life. a published author for more than 40 years, he has been called the dean of Cold War thinkers by Harvard historian Priscilla McMillan. Evan Thomas, whose book “The Wise Men” includes a chapter on Kennan, says Gaddis is a “master” who makes an “honest effort to cut through cant and ideology.” In 2005, Gaddis received a National Humanities Medal for “his incisive examination” of the epic conflict between the capitalist West and communist East.

But while Gaddis is an insider — a popular teacher at Yale University, winner of numerous awards, a guest at the White House — he’s an outsider to many colleagues in New Haven and elsewhere. He has kind words for Ronald Reagan and became close enough to George W. Bush to advise him on his second inaugural address and on his memoir “Decision Points,” which Gaddis includes in a class he teaches on biography. Henry Kissinger is a supporter of the “Studies in Grand Strategy” course Gaddis helps teach and wrote a highly favorable review of the Kennan book for The New York Times.

So while the Pulitzer board praised “George F. Kennan” as “an engaging portrait” of the quintessential Cold War diplomat and the times he lived in — and the National Book Critics Circle cited Gaddis’ “profound understanding of U.S. foreign policy in the 20th century” in awarding him its biography prize — Gaddis has been criticized for omitting or disregarding some of Kennan’s more liberal opinions. Eric Alterman of the liberal weekly The Nation labeled the book “Strategies of Disparagement.”

“It’s fair to say I am more conservative than most of the Yale faculty,” Gaddis observes during a recent interview at his Yale office, where pictures of him with Bush and Kissinger hang on the walls. “I’m used to it, but certainly it’s not always a popular position. Universities are rather intolerant places and there are orthodoxies within universities. Political correctness is not what it once was, but it does still exist.”

Kennan himself had differences with his biographer. Gaddis thought Reagan was a visionary who ended the Cold War and the nuclear arms race; Kennan worried the president would blow us all to Kingdom come. Gaddis supported the Iraq war, Kennan opposed it. Kennan, a born brooder, wondered whether Gaddis was the right man.

“I think he got a little nervous at times because I was a little more to the right of him on the current political issues than he was,” Gaddis says. “I was more sympathetic to Ronald Reagan, for example, and later to George W. Bush, for sure. but we never got to the point where he said, ‘Because of your politics you are no longer qualified to write the biography.’ He never did, and never came close to it.”

And Kennan had a long time to second-guess his choice. Gaddis first met Kennan in the mid-1970s and felt enough of a rapport to send some pages from an upcoming book about the Cold War. they became friendly and agreed in the early ’80s that Gaddis write his story. Gaddis would be granted full access to Kennan, his family and friends and to Kennan’s papers. Kennan, in his 70s at the time, sought no editorial control. but he did ask that the book not be released until after his death.

“Poor John Gaddis has seen his undertaking being put off for years while he waits for me to make way for it,” Kennan, who died in 2005, wrote in his diary.

Gaddis says his goal was to present his subject fully and fairly, with flaws and virtues accounted. Kennan had much to offer on each side. He was a tireless seeker of knowledge and a first-rate prose stylist who won two Pulitzer Prizes. his influence far outweighed his rank; Kennan was a member of the foreign service who never held a high-level position.

But as a member of the diplomatic corps in Moscow, his intimate knowledge of the Soviet present and the Russian past gave him near-prophetic powers. He anticipated that Marxism was just a phase in the country’s history. He was an architect of the Marshall Plan, which helped revive the economies of Western Europe after World War II and helped undermine Stalin’s belief that the West would turn against itself. He believed early on that that the Soviet Union and China would quarrel despite a shared belief in Communism.

Kennan was also the most human of visionaries. He had several extra-marital affairs. He was highly sensitive and impatient and once wrote in his diary that he dreaded “any occupation that implies any sort of association with, and adjustment to, other people.” his call in 1946-47 for “containment” of the Soviet Union was a victory for anti-Communists who doubted that the U.S. could remain on good terms with its World War II ally. Yet Kennan found himself to the left of Washington for decades after, whether on Vietnam or the nuclear arms race.

“He came up with the most influential post-World War II strategy and within a year of having done so began to repudiate it,” Gaddis says. “Kennan was one of those people who felt his ideas were not working unless he was personally putting them into effect.”

“George F. Kennan” has an ironic subtitle: “An American Life.” Kennan lived abroad for long periods of time and seemed out of place when he returned. He disdained American culture and had limited taste for electoral or office politics. his sensibility was not of a campaigner, but of an artist. He wrote poetry and played guitars. his great dream was not to become president, but write a biography of Chekhov.

“Your understanding of the subject of any biography is broadened and deepened and complicated by any act of biography,” Gaddis says. “I’ve always seen the word ‘critical’ as having both a positive and negative meaning. To be a critic is to praise and to complain. but I still came out of this book extremely impressed by George and with an increased admiration and respect for him.”

Over the past 40 years, the 71-year-old Gaddis had written several books on Cold War policy. but prior to “George Kennan,” he had never written about an individual life.

As he researched and wrote Kennan’s story, the historian decided to educate himself by offering a class in biography — not a lecture, but one centered on discussion.

During a recent class at Yale, the assigned book was Robert Caro’s “Means of Ascent,” the second and most controversial of Caro’s series on Lyndon Johnson. “Means of Ascent” portrayed a politician so boorish and unscrupulous that former LBJ aides accused Caro of trying to destroy Johnson’s reputation.

But Gaddis, a low-key instructor with an even, probing style, notes that the book is prefaced by Caro’s vivid portrait of one of Johnson’s noblest moments — the 1965 civil rights speech he gave as president, when he brought tears to the eyes of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and others by invoking the title of the protest movement’s anthem, “We shall Overcome.”

So what kind of man was LBJ, Gaddis asks 20 undergraduates seated around a conference table? And what kind of system did he work in? Could the achievements of his presidency have been possible without the misdeeds of the Senate race years earlier? is life ever without compromise? The students reach no conclusion, and Gaddis wasn’t expecting one. After the class, he explains that of all the lessons he’s taken in as a biographer, none is more important than leaving some questions unanswered.

“A really good biography does not have to resolve all issues,” Gaddis says. “It can leave contradictions there. It can just say these contradictions were there and were important and the subject of the biography never completely resolved them.” The subject of the biography himself was torn by contradictions. And this is certainly true of George Kennan.”

Some critics allege Gaddis turned against his subject. In The New York Review of Books, Frank Costigliola’s analysis was titled “Is This George Kennan?” He called the book “monumental and absorbing” but worried about the “perspective and balance,” noting Gaddis never mentioned that in 1968 Kennan endorsed an anti-war Democrat, Eugene McCarthy, for president.

“The biography suffers from this neglect,” Costigliola writes.

Gaddis acknowledges that he could have included Kennan’s support for McCarthy, but said he found it more important to write about Kennan’s televised Senate testimony in 1966, when he called the Vietnam commitment “unsound” and chastised the United States for acting like “an elephant frightened by a mouse.” The book, Gaddis emphasizes, does not fit any political category.

Conservatives think highly of Gaddis, and liberals disapprove, but he says he’s a registered independent who has voted for Democrats and Republicans, from Jimmy Carter in 1980 and Bill Clinton in the 1990s to Ronald Reagan in 1984 and George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. (He voted for Barack Obama in 2008, but remains undecided for this year).

During his seminar, Gaddis spoke warmly about the New Deal and the civil rights movement. In his books, he has expressed great skepticism about the Vietnam War, dismay at the “outright deception” of Kissinger and Richard Nixon and disappointments about the Iraq war. He says during his interview that it “was a great failing of the Bush administration” not to know more about the culture of Iraq before invading and for relying on bad intelligence.

“These were big mistakes,” he says.

Criticism of Bush actually helped lead to Gaddis’ meeting the president. In 2004, he published a brief book, “Surprise, Security, and the American Experience,” which defended the right to “preemptive war,” but also faulted the administration’s “shock and awe” military campaign. Condoleezza Rice, then national security advisor and an old acquaintance of Gaddis’, asked the historian to meet with her staff.

According to Rice’s memoir, “No Higher Honor,” Gaddis encouraged her to take a more diplomatic approach to the country’s allies. As Rice would acknowledge, “repair work” was needed. when they were done, she surprised Gaddis by bringing him to the Oval Office to meet the president.

“I was thinking it would be a photo op,” Gaddis says. “But he had read the book. He underlined it. He had taken notes on it. … we kind of hit it off at that point.”

Some of Gaddis’ former students have gone on to careers in Washington. Chris Michel became a White House speechwriter under Bush and later worked with Bush on “Decision Points.” Keith Urbahn was an aide to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who now runs Javelin Group LLC, a communications and book firm based in Washington.

Urbahn recalls taking Gaddis’ “Grand Strategy” class at the height of the Iraq war’s unpopularity: “He saw his role as raising larger questions that you had to grapple with. He cultivated a generation of students to think in terms of practical decision making. He didn’t have this air of knowing sophistication that I felt with a lot of other professors.”

“I don’t think of him as a conservative,” Michel adds. “But anyone who has nice things to say about George W. Bush is going to stand out among the Yale faculty.”

Gaddis was born in Cotulla, Texas in 1941. The community was small, and personal. during his biography class, the historian asked his students to imagine a man on a tractor, age 25, working in a Texas field in the 1920s. It’s hot, the land is flat and dusty. The man spots a Model-T pulling up and a young stranger getting out, dressed in a blue serge suit. He climbs through a barbed wire fence and approaches.

“Hi, I’m Lyndon Johnson and I’m the new high school teacher.”

“The hell you are,” is the reply.

Adds Gaddis: “The man on the tractor was my father.”

He credits teachers in high school with inspiring him to become a history major. Gaddis was an undergraduate at the University of Texas at Austin and remained there for his master’s and Ph.D. He specialized in the Cold War in part out of “ambition” and out of awareness that it was a relatively new field, a story just beginning to be told.

As an author, he established himself with his first book, “The United States and the Origins of the Cold War,” published in 1972. At the time, Cold War scholarship had been shaped by such New Left historians as William Appleman Williams, who had written that economic reasons, especially the need for markets overseas, were a principle force behind U.S. foreign policy. Gaddis countered that capitalism was just one part of a conflict that included domestic politics, Marxist ideology and the personalities of Stalin, Mao and other leaders.

“I found some of the New Left views valuable: the emphasis on the economic dimensions of foreign policy, and, flowing from that, their insistence that there’d been more continuity in it throughout the 20th century than older historians had perceived,” Gaddis says. “What I did not find convincing was their argument that the need to export drove the Americans into an aggressive foreign policy, and that had it not been for this, the Russians would have continued to be allies. The New Left’s greatest weakness was always its lack of interest in, or curiosity about, the USSR.”

Gaddis’ scholarship has been a story of revision. In the 1970s, historians had no access to Soviet or Chinese documents, and the world itself seemed deadlocked between rival superpowers. within 20 years, the Cold War was over and the Soviet Union had broken up. Secrets once vital were now expendable; Gaddis and others could finally learn what Stalin and other Eastern bloc leaders were thinking.

In “We now Know,” published in 1997, Gaddis revisits such Cold War topics as why North Korea invaded South Korea (Stalin encouraged it, assuming the United States would not respond), how frightened the Soviets might have been by the atom bomb (more than they let on) and the assumption that Stalin and others valued survival above all and never really thought Marxism would defeat and destroy capitalism.

“That was the prevailing wisdom, which I certainly bought into, that the ideological rhetoric of the Chinese, Russians and East Europeans was window dressing,” Gaddis says. “But as I began to go into the documents, I discovered that the language was the same in the secret meetings as it was in the public pronouncements. they really believed this stuff.”

If approved, the North Carolina Constitution Article 14 will add section 6. Marriage as follows: “Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in the State.” this section does not prohibit a private party from entering into contracts with another private party; nor does this section prohibit courts from adjudicating the rights of private parties pursuant to such contracts.

While making marriage between one man and one woman, it does not prohibit some of the privileges the media has expressed.

My one and only reason for supporting this amendment is my belief in the Word of God, the Holy Bible. some of the scriptures defining marriage and the laws governing this covenant can be found in Genesis 1:27, 2:22-24, Leviticus 18 & 20, Proverbs 31, I Corinthians 7, and Ephesians 5:22-33. also, some believe the church should choose what defines marriage without government interference. in Colossians 1:18 the church is referred to as the body of Christ. in John 10:30 Jesus Christ states “I and my Father are one.”

Therefore, how can the church sanction anything that contradicts his Word? does God contradict himself? if you believe the Bible is true and God is who He says He is, then you know you are voting for him or against him with your vote. I urge you to vote for.

DANIEL MERRILLBurlington

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When: Through Memorial Day – 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. from Memorial Day through Labor Day – 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Saturday and 1-5 p.m. Sunday. Exhibit closes Sept. 9.

Tickets: $7 adults; $6 seniors, college students and the military; $4 for children ages 3-17; free for museum members and children under 3. the first Sunday of every month is free for New Hanover County residents.

Details: 798-4350 or CapeFearMuseum.com

I met Tracey Trikediddle Skediddle on Saturday afternoon as my daughters and their cousin clomped around the upstairs of the Cape fear Museum in women’s shoes.

Of course, there’s no reason I would have met Tracey, who was made before my time, any sooner. Part of the Liddle Kiddle doll collection produced by Mattel for a short time in the late 1960s, the Tracey doll of my acquaintance resides in the “tiny dolls” segment of the Cape fear Museum’s new “Toys & Games” exhibit.

In addition to the history of Tracey, a helpful booklet underneath the tiny dolls’ display case explains that some of the earliest dolls were made for adults to display in their houses. by the mid-19th century, more dolls were created specifically for children.

The 10 Liddle Kiddle dolls in the case were given to the museum by Carla Barwick Crouch, who began collecting them when she was 7, the booklet says. To enhance the fun, Tracey came with a tiny tricycle and the ability to move with the help of a mechanism called a “skediddler.”

These days, tiny plastic or rubber dolls and animals take up a large amount of space in the toy aisles at stores. They’re all over my house because I’ve bought them for my daughters, Isabelle, 5, and Flannery, 3, which might be why the tiny dolls caught my attention immediately.

For adults, the “Toys & Games” exhibit lets us revisit the games we used to play and the toys we loved, or in the case of the vintage and antique toys, the items our parents and grandparents treasured. some might find them a depressing reminder of the passing of time, but it helps that the display cases mix old and new items.

The exhibit allows the museum to showcase 250 of the 900 toys in its collection, said Amy Kilgore, Cape fear Museum’s public relations specialist, as well as giving adults something to look at while their younger charges explore the interactive offerings of “Toys & Games.”

My children and their cousin found the toy displays interesting, but not as captivating as the hands-on activities, including blocks, spinning tops, puzzles, magnets, colorful shadowplay and dress-up clothes, belts and shoes. It’s an interesting juxtaposition – the ages-old game of dress-up that plays on the desire of children to do what grown-ups do next to toys that remind us how long it’s been since the power of our own imaginations brought metal, rubber and plastic to life.

The brilliance of the exhibit, to me, is that it attracts children and their parents to the museum for one exhibit while introducing them to the riches already there. Isabelle, Flannery and their cousin, Presleigh, squealed in delight in the Michael Jordan Discovery Gallery, marveling at the beaver lodge they could climb into, the giant Venus flytrap they could feed beanbag bugs to and especially the rat, opossum and raccoon hidden in trash cans as examples of city scavengers you should never try to pet.

U.S. officials told the Wall Street Journal the device was to have been used in a suicide attack by al-Qaida’s Yemeni branch, in an upgraded version of the failed underwear bomb incident over Detroit on Christmas Day 2009.

“There was a terrorist explosive device recovered,” a U.S. counterterrorism official told the Journal. “It was intended for use by a suicide bomber on an airline.”

A U.S. official told CNN al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula was responsible for the plot.

“We believe AQAP produced the device, and we believe it was intended to be used by a suicide bomber on an aircraft,” the official said. “The device and the plot are consistent with what we know about AQAP’s plans, intentions, and capabilities. They remain committed to striking targets in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, the Homeland, and Europe.”

No arrests were reported and there was no indication as to when or where the device was retrieved.

Senior Yemeni officials disavowed any knowledge of the suicide plot, though they stopped short of denying the account from U.S. authorities, the Yemen Post reported. Officials the newspaper contacted in Yemen’s Interior, Defense Ministry, presidential office and prime minister’s office said they had no information about the case.

President Barack Obama has been updated regularly since being informed of the plot in April, the White House said Monday.

“While the president was assured that the device did not pose a threat to the public, he directed the Department of Homeland Security and law enforcement and intelligence agencies to take whatever steps necessary to guard against this type of attack,” National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said.

“The disruption of this IED [improvised explosive device] plot underscores the necessity of remaining vigilant against terrorism here and abroad.”

The FBI said the device was being analyzed and the Journal said officials described it as “very similar” to devices used previously by Yemeni al-Qaida operatives.

“The device never presented a threat to public safety, and the U.S. government is working closely with international partners to address associated concerns with the device,” an FBI statement said.

Homeland Security Department spokesman Matt Chandler issued a statement saying the department was monitoring efforts by terrorist groups intent on attacking the United States, but had “no specific, credible information” about an active plot “at this time,” CNN reported.

“Since this IED demonstrates our adversaries’ interest in targeting the aviation sector, DHS continues, at the direction of the president, to employ a risk-based, layered approach to ensure the security of the traveling public,” the statement said.

“These layers include threat and vulnerability analysis, pre-screening and screening of passengers, using the best available technology, random searches at airports, federal air marshal coverage and additional security measures both seen and unseen.”

“DHS will continue to work with our federal, state, local, international and private sector partners to identify potential threats and take appropriate protective measures. As always, we encourage law enforcement and security officials, as well as the general public, to maintain vigilance and report suspicious activity to the appropriate authorities.”

The Celtics lead the series 3-2 heading back to Boston for Game 6 tomorrow night. If the Hawks can steal one on the road, the deciding game would be Saturday in Atlanta.

Boston had a chance to clinch the series when Rajon Rondo stole Josh Smith’s inbounds pass with 10 seconds remaining and raced down the court, looking for the winner. But he got hemmed in along the sideline and Smith knocked away a desperation pass, the ball rolling away as time ran out.

A relieved Smith collapsed on the scorer’s table.

Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett led the Celtics with 16 points apiece. Rondo had 13 points and 12 assists, and the last of his five assists gave Boston a chance to end the series early and get some much-needed rest.

The Hawks kept their season going, getting a huge contribution from a player who wasn’t there for much of it. Horford went down in January with a torn pectoral muscle, missing the rest of the regular season and the first three games of the playoffs. But he made a surprise return in Game 4, one of the few bright spots in an embarrassing 101-79 loss that gave the Celtics command of the series.

Hordford grabbed 11 rebounds, dished out three assists, had three steals and blocked three shots.

Bulls 77, 76ers 69

In Chicago, Luol Deng scored 24 points, Carlos Boozer added 19 points and 13 rebounds, and the Bulls beat the 76ers to avoid a first-round playoff exit.

The top-seeded Bulls finally won without injured point guard Derrick Rose, building a nine-point halftime lead and staying in control down the stretch to pull within 3-2. Game 6 is tomorrow in Philadelphia.

Bulls center Joakim Noah, who sprained his left ankle in Game 3, sat out his second straight game.

Nuggets 102, Lakers 99

In Los Angeles, Andre Miller scored 24 points, including two free throws with 12.8 seconds left, and sixth-seeded Denver avoided playoff elimination by surviving Kobe Bryant’s late scoring barrage in a 43-point performance in Game 5.

Game 6 is tomorrow night in Denver.

Pacers 105, Magic 87

In Indianapolis, Danny Granger scored 25 points to help the Pacers defeat the Magic and clinch their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series 4-1.

It was Indiana’s first series win since 2005 and its first clincher on its home court since the first round of the 2000 playoffs. The Pacers will play Miami or the Knicks in the second round.

But the White House and President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, eager to avoid a debate on a hot-button social issue in an election year, insisted that Biden was not breaking ranks with Obama, who does not publicly support gay marriage.

Biden told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that marriage should be about being loyal to someone you love, whether that marriage is between a man and a woman, two men or two women. “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying one another are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties,” Biden said in the interview broadcast Sunday.

Gay rights advocates said Biden’s comments signaled unmistakable support for gay marriage, which they said made him the highest-ranking member in the Obama administration to take that position.

—I’m grateful that the vice president of the United States is now publically supporting marriage equality and I hope very soon the president and the rest of our leaders, Republicans and Democrats in Congress, will fall in line with the vice president,” said Chad Griffin, a gay rights supporter and a member of the Obama campaign’s national finance committee.

Joe Solmonese, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, said his group was encouraged by Biden’s comments and called on Obama to speak out for “full marriage equality” for same-sex couples.

While Obama opposes gay marriage, he says his personal views on the matter are “evolving” and has noted that polls show Americans are increasingly supporting same-sex marriage.

Biden, a devout Catholic, has said previously that his personal views, as well as the country’s, on gay marriage are evolving.

The vice president’s office said Sunday after the interview aired that Biden’s comments were not an endorsement of gay marriage, but simply a reaffirmation of his belief that same-sex couples deserve the same rights and protections as all Americans.

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign, chimed in on Twitter, saying Biden and Obama share the view that all married couples should have the same legal rights.

For the Obama campaign, gay marriage has become a vexing election-year issue.

Each time the campaign promotes the president’s extensive work in advancing gay rights, including ending the military’s ban on openly gay service members, it is reminded of the one area where the president has fallen short in the eyes of gay rights advocates.

Several Democrats are pushing for Obama to include support for gay marriage in the party’s platform, which will be finalized at the Democratic convention this summer.

Campaign officials have played down the notion that Obama’s position on gay marriage will “evolve” before the November election. they say Obama’s record in supporting other gay rights issues stands in stark contrast to his Republican challenger Mitt Romney, an ardent opponent of gay marriage and other benefits for same-sex couples.

One gay rights advocate said that even before the NBC interview, Biden had been hinting that his personal views of gay marriage may have evolved more quickly than the president’s.

The advocate described a private meeting Biden had with about 30 gay and lesbian supporters in Los Angeles earlier this spring. when the vice president was asked about his personal views of gay marriage, the advocate said Biden told supporters that when his views differ from the president’s, he often has to keep his opinions to himself.

This person spoke on condition of anonymity because participants at the meeting agreed not to discuss publicly what was said at the private gathering.

Biden did mention the Los Angeles event in his interview Sunday. he said that after meeting the children of the gay couple hosting the event, he told them he wished “every American could see the look of love those kids has in their eyes for you guys. And they wouldn’t have any doubt about what this is about.”

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Mayweather rocked Cotto in the final round and remained unbeaten in 43 fights. but it wasn’t easy, with Mayweather getting his nose bloodied and Cotto (37-3) fighting until the final bell.

“You’re a hell of a champion,” Mayweather told Cotto in the ring afterward. “You’re the toughest guy I ever fought.”

Mayweather won Cotto’s WBA super welterweight title (154 pounds). Two judges scored 117-111 and the third 118-110.

Mayweather was guaranteed at least $32 million for the pay-for-view bout, while Cotto pocketed $8 million.

“He’s a tough competitor,” Mayweather said. “He came to fight. I dug down and fought him back.”

On the undercard, Canelo Alvarez (40-1-1) retained his WBC junior middleweight title (154 pounds) with a lopsided decision over aging Shane Mosley (46-8-1). Alvarez shook off a cut over his left eye from a head butt in the third round.

Joey Logano nipped Kyle Busch at the finish line to win the Nationwide Series race at Talladega Superspeedway and give Toyota its 200th NASCAR win. The race was marred by a late accident that sent Eric McClure to the hospital, but officials said he was awake and speaking. Also, Danica Patrick intentionally wrecked Sam Hornish Jr. on the cool down lap. it was retaliation for Hornish squeezing Patrick on the last lap. The multicar accident that collected McClure brought out a 19-minute red flag, and Busch restarted as the leader with two laps left at the 2.66-mile track.