1. Deflategate Issue

2. New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady and head coach Bill Belichick on Thursday said they didn't deflate footballs at Sunday's AFC Championship Game at Gillette Stadium in the town of Foxborough, Massachusetts. The NFL is investigating why 11 of the 12 game balls the Patriots provided for Sunday's AFC Championship Game were underinflated by about 2 pounds per square inch each. A ball with lower inflation is easier to grip (depending on who is throwing it) and may give the passer and runner a competitive advantage. Brady said he picked the footballs he wanted to use five hours before the game, feeling the laces and the leather but did not ask that the balls be deflated. It has been reported that the underinflated balls were discovered in the first half and replaced with properly inflated balls in the second half. The underinflation came to light on the field after Indianapolis Colts linebacker D'Qwell Jackson intercepted a pass thrown by Brady. The NFL mandates balls should be 12.5-13.5 psi. Brady said he didn't touch the balls again until the game began. The referees inspect footballs about two hours before kickoff and deliver them to "ball attendants" who take them to the sidelines, according to NFL rules. Suspicions of the Patriots continue to grow in large part because of a 2007 cheating incident -- called "Spygate" -- in which the team stole defensive signals from the New York Jets.

3. In Other News A pair of 9-year-olds in New Hampshire who were left alone for days at a time over five months in their family's apartment. The twins' uncle, who had been entrusted to care for them, has been charged with endangering a child. The charge is a misdemeanor. Giobari Atura told police he agreed to watch his brother and sister-in-law's twin boys while the couple traveled to Nigeria in July, but instead of moving into the apartment, Atura said he checked on the children three days a week. The children told officials who were called to the home that they would "wake for school on their own, get ready for school, get on the bus and eat breakfast and lunch at school." Atura said he told the children to call him if they needed anything such as food or "help with their homework," but because the phone in the apartment wasn't operable, he instructed them to use a neighbor's phone. Officials visited the home after the New Hampshire Division for Children, Youth and Families received a call from the children's school. A police officer said there was no edible food in the refrigerator and only ramen noodles in the cabinet. The boys' parents were supposed to return from Nigeria after a month but were held up because of "illness and passport issues." They told police they had spoken to Atura by phone while they were gone and were told "everything was OK." The parents arrived shortly after learning the children had been left alone and they do have custody of their children. No charges are expected to be filed against the parents. A prosecutor in California says a rapper's violent lyrics go beyond creative license to conspiracy. San Deigo-based rapper Tiny Doo has already spent eight months in prison, and faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted under a little-known California statute that makes it illegal to benefit from gang activities. The statute in question makes it a felony for anyone to participate in a criminal street gang, have knowledge that a street gang has engaged in criminal activity, or benefit from that activity. It's that last part -- benefiting from criminal activity -- that prosecutors are going after the rapper for. Tiny Doo, whose real name is Brandon Duncan, faces nine counts of criminal street gang conspiracy because prosecutors allege he and 14 other alleged gang members increased their stature and respect following a rash of shootings in the city in 2013. But no one suggests the rapper ever actually pulled a trigger. According to recent reports from U.S. officials, the coalition fighting ISIS has killed more than 6,000 fighters, including half of the top command of the terror group. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz al Saud, who reigned for close to a decade, has died at age 90. He was hailed as a reformer, as someone who tried to modernize his kingdom, often over the constant objections from hard-line conservatives in his country. In some areas, he succeeded. In some he didn't, such as greater independence for women. The kingdom quickly appointed his 79- year-old brother Salman bin Abdulaziz to the throne.