It was July 2003 when Kobe Bryant was accused of persuading a concierge at hotel outside Vail, Colo., to come to his room. Now it is July 2009 when Ben Roethlisberger is accused of persuading a concierge at Nevada hotel to come to his room.

ESPN was all over the Kobe story, sending reporters and attorneys from Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. as the trial unfolded. Maybe Roethlisberger never comes to trial. Maybe he doesn’t deserve to come to trial — although then again, possibly he does. But why the shift in ESPN’s approach?

“Based on the sensitive nature of the story and other factors we mentioned,” ESPN’s Bill Hoffheimer told Pro Football Talk “we initially exercised caution and did not report it.”

That philosophy is admirable, except it runs counter to the very existence of ESPN which, while most of the time doing a fine job, rarely can be described as exercising caution.

An American-born al-Qaida recruit trained to become a suicide bomber before he was captured in Pakistan last year, law enforcement officials said Thursday.

Bryant Neal Vinas learned how to use a suicide vest, according to the law enforcement officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the case publicly.

Pakistani authorities nabbed the 26-year-old New Yorker last year in the city of Peshawar near the border of Afghanistan. Law enforcement officials have refused to say exactly when, but a person familiar with the case said Vinas was picked up in November. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

Vinas was also interviewed this year in New York by prosecutors in Belgium pursuing an anti-terror case involving Malika El Aroud, said an official at the Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the case. El Aroud is the widow of a man involved in killing anti-Taliban warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Michael Vick’s representatives are working with league officials to complete plans for a meeting between Vick and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, perhaps within the next few days, sources familiar with the deliberations said Wednesday.

The outcome of the planned meeting could play a major role in Goodell’s decision about whether to reinstate Vick from his indefinite suspension from the NFL, said the sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the topic.