<h4>100-year-old gives them 50 </h4>

Emma Hendrickson, 100, of of Morris Plains, N.J., throws the ball at the National Bowling Stadium on Saturday in Reno, Nev. Hendrickson, the oldest competitor in the history of the United States Bowling Congress Women's Championships, was presented Saturday night with a plaque and a medallion to commemorate her 50th consecutive appearance in the tournament.

Talk about a turnaround: ESPN plans on casting Matt Millen, who built the Detroit Lions’ winless team last season, as a lead NFL analyst and college game analyst this season.

The formal announcement, says ESPN’s Mike Soltys, is expected to come this week.

ESPN is guaranteed a buzz. When NBC added Millen to its Super Bowl pregame show in February, it drew unprecedented onscreen commentary from its Detroit affiliate station, which ran a graphic noting Millen “was president of the Lions for the worst eight-year run in the history of the NFL” and questioned whether he raised a “credibility issue.”

If so, he wouldn’t be the first. Many leading coaches-turned-analysts brought extravagant résumés to TV – think Bill Cowher, Jimmy Johnson, Bill Parcells, Bill Walsh, Joe Gibbs. But others – Steve Mariucci, Bob Davie and Lee Corso – did not.

And rationally, you can say Millen is a promising broadcaster because, well, he’s already been one. After he retired in 1991 after 12 seasons as a player, his years on CBS and Fox made him a potential successor to John Madden – although nobody really thought Madden would retire.

Instead, Millen will succeed Emmitt Smith, whose fame ultimately couldn’t overcome his on-air miscues, on Monday night pregame shows. And in calling college games and making various studio-show appearances, Millen won’t be hidden away until he proves himself.

And if you buy the idea that the best way to overcome your problem is to shine a light on it rather than try to cover it up, Millen’s ideal ESPN debut would come on its NFL draft coverage Saturday and Sunday. Wouldn’t you love to know the pro prospects Millen really loves?

Stephen A. out at ESPN: Stephen A. Smith, whose six-year run at ESPN ends May 1 after the network decided not to renew his contract, at least proved there are limits to the power of ESPN’s hype.

Smith’s “Quite Frankly” afternoon talk show launched in 2005 with a promotional blizzard that was over the top even by ESPN standards – but it generally didn’t match the ratings of the programming mishmash it replaced and lasted 17 months.

Smith, who also had an ESPN New York radio show but recently has been largely doing spot appearances on various shows, says on his Web site that it’s “been a wonderful, wonderful ride” at ESPN ” but nothing lasts forever.”

White Sox to see Obama

CHICAGO – The Chicago White Sox are heading to the White House.

A group of about 35, including players, team officials and family members, will tour the White House on Monday. But it isn’t certain if they’ll get to meet President Obama.

Obama often dons a well-worn White Sox cap and the team has embraced Obama as “First Fan.”

The White Sox are 7-5 and in a three-way tie for first place in the AL Central. They face the Orioles at Camden Yards on Tuesday night.

Obama was invited to the White Sox opener and general manager Ken Williams attended the inauguration ceremonies.

White Sox spokesman Scott Reifert tells The Associated Press that the group will get a private guided tour in the afternoon, which was set up by Obama senior adviser David Axelrod.

A message left Sunday for a White House spokeswoman wasn’t immediately returned.

The Associated Press

Lidell most likely done

MONTREAL – In a mixed martial arts event with plenty worth noting, UFC 97 will likely be remembered for Chuck Liddell’s fourth loss in five fights and his apparent departure from the sport he helped build from the ground up.

The 39-year-old Liddell said it was “probably safe to say” his career was over after he was knocked out by Mauricio Rua in the first round Saturday night.

“It’s not working for me lately,” he said simply before leaving the news conference.

It was up to UFC president Dana White to handle the requiem.

“You’re never going to see Chuck Liddell on the canvas again,” he said. “It’s never going to happen. It’s done. Tonight was the end of an era. One of the greatest guys in the sport fought his last fight tonight.”

White revealed he had tried to get the former light-heavyweight champion to retire after his last loss – a devastating knockout at the hands of Rashad Evans at UFC 88. But Liddell convinced his friend and former manager that he wanted to train for one last go-round.

Liddell (21-7) showed more movement than he had in recent fights and changed up his game, taking Rua down at one point. But Rua, 12 years younger, matched Liddell’s striking.

The Associated Press

QUOTABLE

'Everybody has their night. I know it won't happen again. He'll never have another game like that against us.'

KENDRICK PERKINS,

Celtics center, on Bulls guard Derrick Rose (left), who had 36 points Saturday in Chicago's upset win in Boston.

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SPORTS SOUND-OFF

Miller’s staff will find the talent for UA

• If they can’t recruit in the West who cares? If they can win with the talent they bring from the East Coast, Europe, South America, China, or anywhere on the planet you will love these guys. It’s a business and it’s all about winning. If his sister could recruit and coach . . . who cares, bring her on.

BIGBITE

• OK folks who is the head coach? The unhappy ones seem to think they are. Last time I looked Sean Miller was head coach. Did he not say he would put together a great staff? They will recruit nationwide, not just the West Coast. And don’t get me wrong I feel Reggie Geary is worthy of a assistant coach position.

AZCATSRULE

Got a beef? E-mail: sports@tucsoncitizen.com (sports@tucsoncitizen.com). Call: 573-4635. Fax: 573-4569.

Write: Sports sound-off, P.O. Box 26767, Tucson 85726-6767

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ON THIS DATE

1912: Fenway Park opens in Boston with the Red Sox beating the New York Yankees 7-6 in 11 innings. Tiger Stadium in Detroit also opens its doors and the Tigers defeat the Cleveland Indians 6-5.

1990: Brian Holman of the Seattle Mariners pitches 8 2-3 innings of perfect baseball before pinch-hitter Ken Phelps hits a home run for the Oakland Athletics.

1991: Mark Lenzi becomes the first person to score 100 points on a single dive. On his last dive, Lenzi scores 101.85 points on a reverse 3 1/2 somersault from the tuck position to win the 3-meter springboard title at the U.S. Indoor Diving Championships.

1997: Chicago’s Michael Jordan wins an unprecedented ninth scoring title with an average of 29.6 points, the first time in those nine seasons that he fails to average at least 30 points.

2003: Allen Iverson scores 55 points, making 21 of 32 shots while eclipsing his previous playoff high of 54, as Philadelphia beats New Orleans 98-90.

2008: Ex-Arizona Wildcat Lorena Ochoa becomes the first LPGA Tour player in 45 years to win four tournaments in consecutive weeks. Ochoa shoots a 3-under-par 69 in the final round of the Ginn Open and beats rookie Yani Tseng by three strokes for her fifth win in six starts.

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs are overemphasizing mild traumatic brain injury among combat troops at the expense of other medical problems that are going untreated, two Army mental health researchers say in an article that has raised intense objections from other scientists studying the condition.

Cols. Charles Hoge and Carl Castro said the military should scrap screening questions meant to uncover cases of mild TBI among troops returning from combat. Most troops who suffered a concussion in battle recovered within days of the injury, they said.

Symptoms blamed on TBI after troops return home likely are due to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or substance abuse, Hoge and Castro said, and the overemphasis on mild TBI keeps troops with those conditions from being properly treated.

Their article, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, says the Pentagon and VA are relying on flawed science to identify what the Pentagon estimates may be 360,000 cases of brain injury suffered by veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Hoge and Castro have conducted some of the military’s early and influential research on conditions such as PTSD.

Their arguments have convinced the Army’s surgeon general, Gen. Eric Schoomaker, that the screening should be changed, said Schoomaker’s spokeswoman, Cynthia Vaughan. But they also drew criticism from government and private brain-injury researchers who disagree with their findings and recommendations, which they said could leave injured troops without proper care.

It’s too early to say most troops with mild TBI recover as Hoge and Castro assert, said John Corrigan, an Ohio State University psychiatrist and researcher who advised the VA on its screening process.

Without screening, troops with mild TBI risk may wind up like former professional football players who developed long-term neurological problems after suffering too many concussions, said David Hovda, director of the Brain Injury Research Center at the University of California, Los Angeles.

With the advent of body armor and armor-plated vehicles, troops survive roadside bomb blasts in Iraq and Afghanistan, but return home with issues ranging from headaches to problem-solving difficulties.

From 2005 forward, a rising chorus of experts, such as the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center, urged that troops be screened for brain injury and if diagnosed, funneled into specialized care.

The Pentagon initially resisted. Last year USA TODAY reported that the delay was the result of fears that veterans would blame vague ailments on the little-understood wound caused by exposure to bomb blasts.

With nearly a $1 billion in funding from Congress for brain-injury treatment and research in 2007-08, the Pentagon began screening all troops returning from war zones last year.

This screening, Hoge and Castro write, causes troops needless worry and may prompt them wrongly to blame symptoms such as headaches on brain injury. Instead, they write, those symptoms may have a simple cause, such as sleep deprivation.

Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, a Pentagon health affairs official, said the department identifies and treats TBI based on consensus from the “best scientists … inside and outside the military.”

Katie Roberts, VA press secretary, said its policy reflects widely accepted scientific standards.

Rep. Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., chairman of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force, urged caution proceeding with “efforts that might restrict the Department of Defense’s ability to identify affected individuals and provide them with the proper care and compensation they deserve.”

City workers prepare to hang Mexico and U.S. flags from street lights in Mexico City's main Reforma avenue on Wednesday in preparation for the upcoming visit of President Barack Obama in Mexico City. President Obama will travel to Mexico on Thursdy for an official visit to meet with Mexico's President Felipe Calderon.

MEXICO CITY – When President Obama lands Thursday in Mexico City, there will be one main subject on Mexican officials’ minds.

“For Mexico, the No. 1 priority is guns. The No. 2 priority is guns. The No. 3 priority is guns,” Mexican Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora told USA TODAY in a recent interview.

The Mexican government wants Obama to take more steps to stop arms sold in the United States from flowing across the border, where they are frequently used by cartels in Mexico’s drug war. That issue and a number of other contentious subjects, including a brewing trade dispute, will be on the agenda as Obama makes his first official trip south.

Ties between the United States and Mexico are generally friendly, and the countries have pledged to work together to combat drug-related violence, some of which has spilled onto U.S. soil. But Mexican President Felipe Calderón and other officials have expressed frustration over several topics including:

• The slow pace of promised U.S. anti-drug aid. Medina Mora has called for the United States to speed up disbursement of a $1.4 billion anti-drug aid package first discussed by Calderón and President George W. Bush at a summit in March 2007.

Congress cut the first installment of aid to Mexico from $450 million to $300 million, and about $7 million of that has been spent. The package also includes aid for Central American countries.

Obama is aware of Mexican concerns and is pushing to get the aid to Mexico as soon as possible, Denis McDonough, one of Obama’s national security advisers, said Monday.

• Concerns over protectionism. In March, Obama signed a budget bill that cuts funding for a pilot program allowing Mexican long-haul trucks to operate on U.S. highways. Mexico says that violates the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, and it retaliated by imposing tariffs of 20 percent to 45 percent on about $2.4 billion worth of U.S. exports.

“We are convinced that always, and particularly in difficult times, protectionism is not the right response,” Calderón told American businessmen last month.

McDonough said Obama was working on a trucking program “that lives up to our obligations under the (NAFTA) agreement.”

• American gun sales. Cartel members buy hundreds of assault-style rifles, handguns and even .50-caliber sniper rifles – some capable of downing helicopters from a mile away – at U.S. stores and gun shows, Medina Mora said.

Mexico’s murder rate has soared as the cartels fight each other and the army for control of smuggling corridors. About 1,960 people died this year in drug violence as of Sunday, said Monte Alejandro Rubido, an analyst with Mexico’s National Security Council.

Some of the turf wars have spilled over to U.S. cities, including Phoenix, Atlanta and Houston, the U.S. Justice Department said. Alan Bersin, a former federal prosecutor, was named the Obama administration’s “border czar” Wednesday.

Medina Mora has called for the United States to reinstate the Assault Weapons Ban, which prohibited sales of semiautomatic weapons with certain combinations of military features such as folding stocks, flash suppressors and large magazines. The ban expired in 2004.

During a visit to Mexico last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said reviving the ban would face “a very big hurdle in our Congress.”

Obama will depart Friday for the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago. There he will meet with 33 other heads of state, including U.S. antagonists Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia.

MEXICO CITY – President Barack Obama could have picked Cancun, with its sugary white beaches and turquoise waves, for his first official visit to Mexico this week. Or he could have picked a photo-friendly site like the Mayan ruins of Palenque.

Instead, Obama is plunging into Mexico City, a chaotic, crime-ridden metropolis of 20 million people where street protests snarl traffic nearly every day – the kind of place that gives headaches to Secret Service agents and motorcade drivers alike.

Of the 29 previous U.S. presidential visits to Mexico since 1909, only five have been to the capital. Obama flies in Thursday for a two-day visit before heading to the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago.

At a time when the U.S. and Mexico are working closely together to tackle issues such as immigration, border security and rising drug-related violence, the choice to visit Mexico City was a deliberate diplomatic gesture, said Denis McDonough, one of Obama’s security advisers.

“It’s meant to send a signal of respect, mutual respect with our Mexican neighbors,” McDonough said.

‘Walking a very fine line’

The trip is a gamble, said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political science professor at the University of Houston who is writing a book about presidential travel and speeches.

“This is a really potentially dangerous area, a place in a country that is fraught with these security problems,” he said. “They’re walking a very fine line.”

Although there have been no attacks on foreign dignitaries in Mexico City, the capital has become a flash point in President Felipe Calderon’s crackdown on drug cartels. Police recently captured two alleged kingpins, Vicente Carrillo Leyva of the Juarez Cartel and Vicente Zambada Niebla of the Sinaloa Cartel, in the city. Last year, drug gangs gunned down Mexico’s federal police chief and a top intelligence official in the city.

It has been 12 years since Bill Clinton made the last visit to Mexico City by any American president. George W. Bush’s first official visit to Mexico took place at the ranch of then Mexican President Vicente Fox in rural Guanajuato state in 2001. Most of his subsequent visits to Mexico were multination summits at heavily guarded beach resorts and hotels.

During Bush’s last visit, to the Yucatan Peninsula city of Merida in 2007, protesters hurled chunks of concrete at his hotel and trashed the Merida City Hall.

At summits attended by dozens of world leaders, the White House has no choice in the venue. But Obama has enjoyed his popularity abroad – and as a result, he’s been more likely to seek out crowds, said Jeffrey Peake, a political scientist at Bowling Green State University in Ohio who studies presidential trips.

In July, Obama gave an outdoor speech before a crowd of 200,000 people in Berlin during his presidential campaign. Earlier this month he visited London, Prague and Ankara, Turkey – including two unscripted town hall meetings with students.

“Obama’s last trip was focused on big cities and big capitals and trying to get as much coverage as possible,” Peake said. “It makes sense for him to go to Mexico City because it’s the largest city on the continent. In Europe, the Middle East and now in Latin America, his target is as much the publics of those nations where he’s going as the governments.”

Unpleasant reminders

Mexico City and its suburbs make up the world’s second-biggest metropolis after Tokyo. The city has only one airport, and its infamous traffic jams have gotten worse because of highway construction projects ahead of Mexico’s 2010 Bicentennial.

Marches and political protests occur regularly in the city’s colonial center. In 2006, demonstrators occupied an 8-mile stretch of the main Reforma Avenue for six weeks to protest presidential election results.

On Monday, a coalition of leftist groups said it planned to protest Obama’s visit near the city’s Chapultepec Park.

The city is also full of unpleasant reminders of the worst moments in U.S.-Mexican relations. If Obama travels to the Mexican presidential mansion, he is likely to pass Chapultepec Castle, where invading U.S. soldiers fought teenage cadets in the 1846-48 Mexican-American War. A gleaming marble monument honors the “child heroes.”

Not far away is a monument commemorating the 1914 U.S. invasion of Veracruz. There’s even a National Museum of the Interventions, which is dedicated to chronicling the invasions, political meddling and assorted humiliations that Mexico has endured from the United States and other countries.

William Taft was the first president to make an official visit to Mexico, meeting with dictator Porfirio Diaz in the border town of Ciudad Juarez in 1909, according to the U.S. State Department. But 38 years passed before a U.S. president would visit the Mexican capital – Harry Truman in 1947.

Since then only four other presidents have come to Mexico City – John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Clinton – all Democrats.

That’s probably no coincidence, Rottinghaus said.

“Some Democratic presidents have been more internationalists or engaged in human rights issues … and those kinds of things have an effect on which U.S. presidents tend to go where,” he said.

Rochelle Squire of Davenport, Iowa, stays warm at Wrigley Field before Monday's game between the Colorado Rockies and the Chicago Cubs.

Colorado Rockies hitting coach Don Baylor stepped outside his Chicago hotel Tuesday afternoon, felt the chill and was grateful there was no game scheduled.

It was bad enough losing 4-0 on Monday to the Chicago Cubs with the wind chill at 31 degrees at Wrigley Field, but it felt even colder Tuesday.

“It was brutal out there,” Baylor says. “You wish you could bring that warm weather and palm trees with you from spring training, but you can’t. It’s great for the pitchers. That’s why you see them dominate early with all of the no-hitters.”

The Rockies nearly were no-hit Monday, with Garrett Atkins producing their lone hit. There have been 29 no-hitters since 1993, with 15 in April and September – baseball’s coldest two months.

“Hey, I don’t feel sorry for them,” Cubs starter Ryan Dempster said. “I enjoy throwing inside fastballs this time of year because I know hitters don’t want to swing there. If they get jammed, it’s going to hurt.”

Says Los Angeles Angels center fielder Torii Hunter: “When you get jammed in cold weather, it feels like your hand just broke and you’re picking up the pieces. It’s like bass fishing. The fish are lethargic, and so are you.”

April has produced the lowest batting average, .262, of any month this decade, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Elias notes there are five active players with at least 5,000 at-bats whose April averages are at least 29 points lower than for the rest of the season. The list bottoms out with Pittsburgh Pirates first baseman Adam LaRoche (.183 batting average and .337 slugging percentage in April compared with .290 and .523 the rest of the season).

“The cold weather is tough; nobody wants to hit in it,” Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Manny Ramirez says. “I did that all of those years in Cleveland and Boston. This is so much better.”

A trickle of banks, large and small, are lining up to repay the government’s bailout money.

On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs raised $5 billion by selling more than 40 million shares for $123 apiece.

To cheers from lawmakers, the New York investment bank said it would use the money to pay back the $10 billion the government gave it at the height of the financial crisis last October as part of the Treasury’s Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP.

“Goldman Sachs’ announcement . . . is welcome news for those of us who support an exit strategy from government intervention in the marketplace,” said Rep. Spencer Bachus of Alabama, the top Republican on the Financial Services Committee.

Goldman would be the largest, if it follows six smaller banks, including Signature Bank and IberiaBank, who have already repaid the government with interest.

But analysts are cautioning that the repayments should not be viewed as an indication that the economy is rebounding; rather as a sign of how worried bankers are about legislation that imposes limits on banks that take TARP money.

“Treasury shouldn’t allow any of the larger banks to pay the money back until it is absolutely certain that the financial crisis is over and that each of them can raise money on their own,” said Richard Bove, an analyst at Rochdale Research.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said it isn’t discouraging banks from repaying TARP funds as long as that doesn’t jeopardize how they function.

“Treasury does not want the repayment to hinder the ability of financial institutions to continue lending,” Williams said.

For smaller banks, the repayments are a way to showcase their strength during a recession.

Still they say they were pushed by changes in The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which imposes limits on pay and bonuses and places restrictions on hiring foreign nationals and training programs.

For instance, New York-based Signature Bank CEO Joseph DePaolo said the restrictions would make it difficult to recruit and retain “highly talented banking professionals throughout the metropolitan New York area.”

Goldman seems to agree. It is paying off the government despite a low 5 percent dividend on TARP funds. By comparison, it’s paying 10 percent on Warren Buffet’s $5 billion investment.

Former Masters champions Jack Nicklaus (left), Arnold Palmer (center) and Gary Player of South Africa sit together while playing in the par 3 contest before the Masters at Augusta National Golf Club in Augusta, Ga., on Wednesday.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – Padraig Harrington is trying to go where only Ben Hogan and Tiger Woods have gone in the modern golf era: to the winner’s circle in a third consecutive major championship.

Hogan won the 1953 Masters, U.S. Open and British Open in succession, and Woods went one better with his Tiger Slam by winning the 2000 U.S. Open, British Open and PGA Championship and 2001 Masters.

Harrington set himself up for a triple bagger and the Paddy Slam with wins in the British Open and PGA Championship, which, adding his 2007 British Open title, gave him three major titles in the last six played.

While others are making a huge deal out of Harrington’s quest – Lee Westwood joked in a text message, “What’s all this about the Paddy Slam? Are you starting up wrestling?” – the Irishman is downplaying the pursuit.

“It’s a chance to win another major. It’s a chance to win The Masters,” Harrington said.

“Because it’s three in a row, it adds to it, but not significantly,” he said. “It doesn’t make the pressure any different from turning up at any major and trying to win it.”

Tiger poised for win?

Step by painful step, day by agonizing day, Tiger Woods slowly worked his left knee back into shape after surgery last June took a tendon from his right thigh and made it his new anterior cruciate ligament.

Tournament by tournament upon his return to golf, the world’s No. 1 worked his game back into shape. With a winning birdie on the 72nd hole two weeks ago in the Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, he looked in vigorous shape again ahead of Thursday’s start of the Masters as he pursues his fifth green jacket and 15th major title.

“I really wanted to get into contention and feel the rush again on the back nine,” said Woods, who lost in the second round of the World Golf Championships-Accenture Match Play and finished in a tie for ninth at Doral in his first two starts since ending an eight-month layoff after his 2008 U.S. Open win. “It was great to feel that. It’s been a while, and a lot of uncertainty over the months upon months of rehab, and it felt great to hit shots.”

Lefty polishes short game

Two months ago, people weren’t wondering what Phil Mickelson would do next. They were wondering what was wrong after he began the year by missing a cut and tying for 42nd and 55th in his next two events.

So much for wondering.

Two wins later, a sharpened short game and a power game fed by a “tee it high and let it fly” approach, the world’s No. 2 golfer is among the favorites to win The Masters and his third green jacket in six years, a feat accomplished only by Sam Snead, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods.

“I’ve had great practice sessions here, and I feel ready,” Mickelson said. “I’m trying to hit the ball high and far to combat the length of the golf course. And I’ll continue to attack pins with my iron game and rely on my short game for when I misfire.”

He was firing on all cylinders when he ended a 0-for-46 streak in majors with his 2004 triumph at Augusta National and added a second green jacket in 2006 with a sterling final round.

To win a third Masters, he might have to go through Woods in a Sunday showdown, a scenario golf fans have been aching to see.

Shark welcomed back

Greg Norman has never won the Masters, but in his return this year he has become somewhat of a folk hero.

“It seems like every player is pulling for me,” said Norman, who qualified after finishing third in last year’s British Open and is in The Masters for the first time since 2002. “They’re all saying, ‘Play well, play well.’ When I was here in the 1980s, nobody was saying, play well.”

He was a two-time British Open champion who rose to No. 1 in the world, but losses in the Masters – as a victim of Jack Nicklaus’ charge in 1986, Larry Mize’s miracle chip-in in ’87 and a six-stroke collapse in the ’96 tournament that was won by Nick Faldo – stick in observers’ minds.

“I’ve never experienced anything like this before,” said Norman, 54. “It shows what impact I’ve had on the event.”

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MASTERS GLANCE

Site: Augusta, Ga.

Schedule: Thursday-Sunday

Course: Augusta National Golf Club (7,435 yards, par 72) Purse: TBA ($7.5 million in 2008). Winner’s share: TBA ($1.35 million in 2008)

Television (Tucson times): ESPN (Thursday-Friday, 1-4:30 p.m., 5-8 p.m.) and CBS (Saturday, 12:30-4 p.m.; Sunday, 11 a.m.-4 p.m.)

Last year: Trevor Immelman won his first major title, closing with a 75 – matching the highest final round by a champion – for a three-stroke victory over Tiger Woods.

Last week: English star Paul Casey won the Houston Open for his first PGA Tour victory.

Notes: Gary Player is making his 52nd and final Masters appearance. The three-time winner is 73. Three teenagers are in the field: 17-year-old Ryo Ishikawa, 18-year-old Danny Lee and 19-year-old Rory McIlroy.

AUGUSTA, Ga. – If Tiger Woods could control the weather at Augusta National, he’d order warm temperatures, slight breezes and dry conditions.

In essence, the opposite of the last two years, when first Zach Johnson and then Trevor Immelman won the big event ahead of Woods, who finished second, unable to charge to victory like Arnold Palmer or Jack Nicklaus of yesteryear.

“The course is just so much longer and so much more difficult,” said Woods, a four-time Masters champion, leading a chorus of critics. “You don’t have the same amount of birdie opportunities you used to have.”

Woods, however, won’t totally rule out a charge on Sunday: If conditions are right, “I’m sure you can probably shoot one of those good numbers.” He might be in luck: Forecasters are calling for much sun, temperatures in the 70s and 80s and light winds.

Greg Norman, the victim of a Nicklaus charge on the back nine in 1986, returns to The Masters for the first time since 2002. He says fireworks on Sunday – from Woods or any other player who is a long driver and deft putter – would be no surprise.

“Great charges come when you can go into the 13th hole or 15th hole with a 6-iron and attack the pin,” he said. “You can’t attack the pins with a 2-iron.”

Phil Mickelson said some pins are difficult to attack but “It’s going to be warm, and the ball is going to be traveling farther. We’re going to be hitting shorter irons into the greens and playing the course aggressively.”

Padraig Harrington could join Woods and Ben Hogan as the only players to win three different majors in a row. Harrington won the British Open and the PGA Championship last year after Woods had knee surgery.

Woods tees off Thursday at 10:52 a.m. Tucson time, but the last threesome at 11:03 a.m. could be the most entertaining, with young guns Anthony Kim, Rory McIlroy and Ryo Ishikawa playing together.

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MASTERS ON TV

Thursday-Friday (ESPN): 1-4:30 p.m., 5-8 p.m.

Saturday (CBS): 12:30-4 p.m.

Sunday (CBS): 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Go to www.tucsoncitizen.com for updates.

There will be fewer Atlantic hurricanes this season than in 2008, and fewer even than predicted only last December, according to a forecast released Tuesday.

Colorado State University’s hurricane forecast team’s latest prediction calls for 12 named storms, including six hurricanes. Of those six, two are expected to be major hurricanes with maximum wind speeds of 111 mph or greater. The first of the storms in the Atlantic, which are named in alphabetical order, will be Ana.

In 2008, there were 16 named storms including eight hurricanes, five of them major.

Colorado State’s December forecast predicted 14 named storms for this year. Yet even the revised forecast indicates a slightly-above-average season. Since 1950, a typical Atlantic hurricane season has had 10 named storms, six of them hurricanes and two of those major hurricanes.

The team will issue another update on June 2. Others will be released as the hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, progresses.

“Based on our latest forecast, the probability of a major hurricane making landfall along the U.S. coastline is 54 percent, compared with the last-century average of 52 percent,” said lead forecaster Phil Klotzbach of the Colorado State team.

The prediction was good news to Mary Jo Naschke, spokeswoman for Galveston, Texas, a city of 57,000 that was devastated by Hurricane Ike on Sept. 13.

“Optimism is epidemic here because we don’t have any other choice,” Naschke said.

The recovery work and rebuilding that is underway, however, won’t slow downbecause of the more optimistic prediction.

“We are feverishly working to get all our repairs done before hurricane season,” she said.

The team began its seasonal forecasts in 1984. They are used by insurance companies, emergency managers and the news media to prepare Americans for the season’s likely hurricane threat.

In a USA TODAY analysis of the team’s April forecasts since 2000, CSU has under-forecast the number of named tropical storms and hurricanes four times, over-forecast the number twice, and been almost right (within two storms) three times.

President Obama arrives in Strasbourg, France, for a meeting with French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

STRASBOURG, France – President Obama issued a stern warning to his European allies Friday on the eve of a NATO summit meeting, saying the United States needs more help in rooting out terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

“Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone,” he said at a town hall-style event near the German border here. “This is a joint problem, and it requires joint effort.”

It’s a message Obama delivered as he crisscrossed the border for meetings with French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In Baden-Baden, Germany, Obama said his Afghanistan war strategy does not envision NATO troops in Pakistan. He has previously ruled out deploying U.S. troops to that country.

Merkel said her country wants to bear its share of the responsibility in Afghanistan, and Obama thanked her for what Germany already has done.

But Obama also said: “We do expect that all NATO partners are going to contribute. They have thus far, but the progress in some cases has been uneven.”

On Saturday, Obama will take his case to NATO’s 60th anniversary conference here.

Obama is adding 21,000 troops and trainers to Afghanistan on top of the 38,000 Americans already there. NATO has about 32,000 troops in the country.

White House national security adviser James Jones said he expects more contributions to be announced at Saturday’s conference, though he would not specify a number.

Speaking to a largely student audience of 3,500 at a sports arena here, Obama made clear he wants Europe to pitch in to battle terrorists who maintain what he called a “twisted, distorted ideology.”

His audience applauded his calls for “a world without nuclear weapons,” a message he will drive home Sunday in what’s billed as the major address of his eight-day trip.

They reacted enthusiastically to his call for combating global warming, closing the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and prohibiting the torture of prisoners.

Elsewhere in Strasbourg, police fired tear gas at rock-hurling protesters Friday in the first real confrontation with demonstrators after hours of mostly small, scattered and peaceful rallies. Some 15,000 German police – including 31 riot squads – and 9,000 French police are on call for the summit.

The recession has given the marketing world a twist: ads that boast about helping the newly unemployed.

Some of the nation’s savviest marketers also have figured out that the best way to get folks who fear job loss to spend money is to promise them a rebate, refund or special deal if they are laid off shortly after the purchase.

“Altruism marketing is a powerful way to say, “We care,’ ” says Michael Silverstein, senior vice president at Boston Consulting Group. “I expect to see a lot more of it over the next 90 days.”

Today, Walgreens will unveil an offer that promises customers of the drug chain’s in-store health care clinics free family services for the rest of 2009 if they lose their jobs. It’s limited to stuff such as colds, earaches and allergies, not major health issues. “We’re doing it because it’s the right thing to do,” says Hal Rosenbluth, president of Walgreens Health and Wellness division.

Walgreens is just the latest retailer to offer special deals to the jobless. The national unemployment rate hit 8.1 percent in February.

Who’s doing it now:

• Health care. The Walgreens plan is offered at its 342 Take Care Clinics located inside a limited number of Walgreens stores. The service is available to the unemployed and their dependents who are uninsured and had used the service prior to their job loss. (Details: takecarerecoveryplan.com.)

Besides helping the jobless and their families, the move also will build “greater awareness” of the rapidly expanding health clinic chain, Rosenbluth says.

• Cars. Under Hyundai Assurance Plus, the carmaker will make up to three car payments for new Hyundai buyers who lose their jobs, and let them give the car back without penalty if they still haven’t found work. Hyundai’s Internet traffic is up 22 percent this year, says Joel Ewanick, marketing chief.

AutoNation, the giant car retailer, just rolled out a program that will make car payments for up to six months for car buyers who lose their jobs.

• Airlines. JetBlue is waving flight-cancellation fees – up to $100 per ticket – for customers who lose their jobs. The deal was expanded this month to vacation packages booked via JetBlue.

• Retailers. Jos. A. Bank Clothiers, the men’s clothing chain, recently took job-loss aid to the next step. Customers who buy its $199 suits and lose their jobs will have their money refunded and can keep the suits. “Like all retailers, we find motivating customers to purchase is challenging,” CEO Neal Black says. “We expect to make some long-term customers out of this promotion.”

• Business services. FedEx Office this month had 24,000 people take it up on its one-day offer to print 25 free rÈsumÈs for folks who had lost their jobs. About 890,000 were printed, says CEO Brian Philips, who received hundreds of thank-you notes and e-mails. One Ohio pastor used a church bus to take congregants to the store for the free rÈsumÈs.

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WALGREENS PLAN

takecarerecoveryplan.com

<h4>Trophy haul </h4>

Seven-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet runs down a hallway with the West Regional Champion trophy after Connecticut's win over Missouri at the men's NCAA men's regional final in Glendale on Saturday.

CBS’ March Madness coverage didn’t get lots of buzzer-beaters and big upsets.

But it got lucky with getting lots of name-brand teams. And the network seems poised to do something that it’s only done twice in the past decade: end up with TV ratings for the NCAA Tournament that are higher than the previous year’s numbers.

Through Saturday, CBS’ ratings are up 9 percent over last year, when the NCAA games averaged 5.6 percent of U.S. TV households. That was the lowest NCAA average ever, except for 2003 coverage, which was interrupted by Iraq war reporting.

Villanova’s last-second win against Pittsburgh helped boost the overnight rating for its late-game Saturday night time slot by 6 percent.

But TV stars North Carolina and Duke, in less compelling games, brought the real pop. Duke (losing to Villanova) got a 25 percent increase in its Thursday night time slot and UNC (beating Gonzaga) Friday night brought a 42 percent uptick.

That’s why it was a no-brainer for CBS to schedule UNC vs. Villanova in its marquee Final Four late game, which will begin about 40 minutes after the finish of Michigan State-Connecticut, which will tip off at 3:07 p.m. Tucson time Saturday.

Says CBS programmer Mike Aresco: “Duke and Carolina bring big built-in audiences to TV sets.”

UK job not for everyone

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Rick Pitino spent eight years masterfully stalking the sidelines at Kentucky, reviving a reeling program with a mix of charm, charisma and – most of all – success.

Surviving in that fishbowl isn’t easy. And it’s not for every coach.

“It’s such a unique job that you need to win over the fans,” Pitino said. “You need to win the press conference right away.”

Beloved by some diehards even after his defection to hated Louisville, Pitino is still the yardstick by which any Kentucky coach in the near future will be measured.

It’s a standard ousted coach Billy Gillispie failed to live up to, whether on the court, in the press or with the fans.

Athletic director Mitch Barnhart says the search to replace Gillispie, who was fired Friday, will focus on finding someone who can match the passion of the school’s rabid fan base.

Allow Pitino a couple of suggestions: John Pelphrey and Travis Ford, guys with talent and deep Kentucky roots, if not lofty credentials.

“For anybody, it’s a big adjustment,” Pitino said. “For those guys, it’s not.”

Ford is from Madisonville, played point guard for Pitino in the early 1990s and just led Oklahoma State to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Pelphrey, from eastern Kentucky, was a small forward for Pitino’s first Wildcat teams and is the head coach at Arkansas. Pitino doesn’t doubt they love their current gigs.

He also doesn’t doubt they’d jump at a chance to come back home.

“I don’t care where they’re at,” Pitino said. “They love Oklahoma State, love Arkansas, but those two guys, you cut them open, and it spells UK. That’s what I would do.”

Their lack of extended NCAA success, though, could be a hindrance.

On paper, neither appear to be a better candidate than Gillispie was two years ago when the Wildcats hired him away from Texas A&M after a whirlwind 24-hour courtship.

Then again, having a unique feel for the rhythms of Kentucky basketball is the kind of thing you can’t put on a résumé.

The Associated Press

Obama’s bracket update

It’s North Carolina or nothing for President Obama.

The president went 1-for-4 on Final Four teams in his NCAA Tournament bracket, hitting with the Tar Heels but losing with Louisville on Sunday.

The split left Obama in the bottom 47 percent of the 5-plus million fans who entered ESPN.com‘s pool. After correctly choosing 14 teams to reach the round of 16, his bracket ranked in the top 40 percent.

Obama picked North Carolina to win the championship. The top-seeded Tar Heels reached the national semifinals by beating Oklahoma 72-60.

The president’s bracket also had Louisville, Pittsburgh and Memphis making the Final Four.

The Associated Press

LeBron wants a title

NEW YORK – LeBron James can add “60 Minutes” to his ever-growing list of accomplishments.

James was the subject of a flattering profile by show contributor Steve Kroft that aired Sunday night on CBS and highlighted the quick ascent to stardom and versatility of the Cleveland Cavaliers’ 24-year-old leader.

James has graced the covers of sports and fashion magazines, shown a knack for comedy hosting “Saturday Night Live,” danced at the ESPY Awards and controls a multimillion dollar endorsement portfolio.

What he doesn’t have is an NBA championship.

“It’s one of the ultimate goals for me as a basketball player,” James told Kroft in a one-on-one interview that was recorded several month ago.

When Kroft asked, “How close do you think the team is?” James said, “We’re very close.”

The Cavaliers have the best record in the NBA this season and James is second in the league in scoring.

The magazine show spent time at one of James’ practices and filmed him at his Akron high school – where he sank a 60-foot, underhanded shot – as well as at a concert for President Obama he hosted at Quicken Loans Arena with rapper and close friend Jay-Z.

James told Kroft he still watches Game 5 of the 2007 Eastern Conference finals, where he scored the Cavaliers’ final 25 points in a double overtime victory at Detroit.

“The game was so magical,” James said.

Kroft marveled at James’ performance, calling it in his narration, “one of the greatest clutch performances in history,” and asked James, “You didn’t feel nervous taking those shots?”

“No. You can’t be afraid to fail,” James said. “It’s the only way you succeed – you’re not going to succeed all the time, and I know that. You have to be able to accept failure to get better.”

The Associated Press

NUMBER OF THE DAY

.773

Winning percentage by the Big East (17-5) this year in the NCAA Tournament, the best of any conference so far. Other leaders:

2. Conference USA .667

2. West Coast .667

4. Big 12 .647

5. Big Ten .571

6. Atlantic Coast .538

7. Pac-10 .500

7. Four other conferences .500

QUOTABLE

'I'm buying a house out here (in the Phoenix area).'

JIM CALHOUN,

UConn basketball coach, after the Huskies advanced to their third Final Four. Connecticut has won the West Regional in the Phoenix area all three times.

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ON THIS DATE

1940: Indiana routs Kansas 60-42 for the NCAA basketball championship.

1981: Sophomore guard Isiah Thomas scores 23 points to lead Indiana to a 63-50 victory over North Carolina for the NCAA basketball title.

2003: Martin Brodeur becomes the first NHL goalie with four 40-win seasons as New Jersey beat the New York Islanders 6-0.

2007: Kobe Bryant scores 53 points for his eighth 50-point performance of the season as the Los Angeles Lakers lost to Houston 107-104 in overtime.

The Associated Press

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SPORTS SOUND-OFF

Wright may be right choice for Arizona

Re: UA men’s basketball coaching search

• I like the idea of Jay Wright from Villanova. Arizona has always been know as a school for guards, and he has molded some real good ones. I also like the way his teams play defense.

RSTRAD

• Keeping tradition and having a good team would be the great dream for next year. Tradition is strong at UA but recruiting could hurt for a while. A top-notch coach is the key for a right-now fix. Keep the school’s pride and fan base and it will return to a power sooner than one might think.

BELIEVE

• Louisville just lost. Let’s make sure we get either (Louisville coach Rick) Pitino or (Pittsburgh) Jamie Dixon.

TIEHAZE

President Barack Obama talks about Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds in Washington.

WASHINGTON – After 10 weeks in office trying to save the U.S. economy, President Obama is ready to take on the world economy. Whether the world is ready for his remedy remains in doubt.

Obama flies to London on Tuesday, then on to four other nations, for his first overseas trip since assuming office and with the global economy in shambles. It’s one of the most anticipated presidential trips since John Kennedy went to Berlin in 1963.

Although much of the attention will focus on Obama, the world economy hangs in the balance. Obama will try to persuade leaders of the Group of 20 that they should act boldly to stimulate spending, stabilize financial systems and sidestep increased trade protectionism. He also has a reinvigorated war plan for Afghanistan to promote.

Still new on the world stage at 47, Obama will meet privately with at least six presidents, prime ministers and a king in London, then five more as he travels on to France, Germany, the Czech Republic and Turkey. He’ll attend three summits, deliver two major addresses and hold a roundtable with students in Istanbul. He’ll take time out to see Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace and sightsee from Strasbourg to Istanbul.

The goal of the trip, says Denis McDonough, deputy national security adviser, is nothing less than “restoring America’s standing in the world.” It will produce at least two story lines: one symbolic, one substantive.

In the first, Obama will likely be greeted warmly by Western European leaders, thanks to his popularity among their constituents.

“Barack Obama, for most Europeans, embodies the American dream,” says Karen Donfried, executive vice president of the German Marshall Fund, which promotes trans-Atlantic cooperation. “It’s what Europeans love about this country.”

The second and more important theme is about dollars, pounds and euros. Although the president is popular, the U.S. financial collapse precipitated much of the world’s problems. Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, D-Mass., says foreigners “blame the model that we exported.”

Europeans who for years fretted over military preparedness and the threat of terrorism now are consumed with a financial meltdown that has cost millions of jobs – even those of government leaders from Iceland to Latvia. Obama’s task is to lead by example and persuade colleagues to take many of the steps the United States has taken to fix their economies.

“Obama is adored by the general public but still has to prove himself to the governments,” says Reginald Dale, senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “There’s a real opportunity for the president to show global leadership.”

A ‘make-or-break event’

His first chance will come Thursday at the G-20 summit, a follow-up to one held by President Bush in Washington in November. Then, world financial markets were in crisis. Now it’s the entire global economy, which could threaten global security.

Some Eastern European nations are on the brink of default, so the summit “is a make-or-break event,” says international financier and philanthropist George Soros. Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute, a former International Monetary Fund official, says the task is huge: “how to prevent the global economy from imploding.”

The major push-pull is between the U.S. emphasis on government spending and European nations’ preference for more regulation.

Obama insists it’s not a conflict. “This is not an either-or question. This is a both-and question,” he said earlier this month. “Fiscal stimulus is only one leg in the stool. We have to do financial regulation.”

Led by Germany, many G-20 members oppose more government spending as a way to kick-start their economies.

“I think it highly unlikely that countries will press for or agree on a numerical figure for stimulus,” says Dan Price, senior partner for global issues at Sidley Austin and former assistant to the president for international economic affairs in the Bush administration.

Rather than risk being turned down, Obama won’t seek more stimulus now. “Nobody is asking any country to come to London to commit to do more right now,” says Michael Froman, Price’s successor. “There isn’t any single number that is sacrosanct.”

That could leave a boost in lending capacity for the International Monetary Fund as the summit’s most concrete achievement. An increase of as much as $500 billion, as suggested by the Obama administration, would be used to help developing nations.

Choosing words carefully

Then it’s on to a NATO conference along the French-German border, not far from where candidate Obama attracted more than 200,000 people in July. There he will try to convince allies of the wisdom of sending 21,000 additional U.S. troops and trainers to Afghanistan, on top of 62,000 U.S. and NATO troops already there.

Where Bush regularly pressed NATO for more troops, Obama appears ready to settle for trainers and civilian aid. That’s despite increasingly difficult fighting in the country’s southern and eastern regions.

“We are not in an easy situation, there is no doubt,” German Ambassador to the U.S. Klaus Scharioth said last week.

In Prague, Obama will hold a summit with the European Union. There he will meet leaders who negotiated with the Bush administration for a U.S. missile-defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland that Obama has not committed to build.

Having dealt with the thorny issues he inherited, Obama also plans to raise others: climate change, cybersecurity, nuclear proliferation. He plans to give a speech on proliferation in Prague. The trip is set to end in Turkey, a nation that is 99 percent Muslim but has direct ties to the West. “Turkey has always been viewed as a bridge between East and West, a kind of stabilizing influence in the region,” says Ibrahim Hooper of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

In his inaugural address, Obama pledged to seek a new relationship with the Muslim world “based on mutual interest and mutual respect.” As a result, his every move and phrase in Ankara and Istanbul will be closely followed.

“The words will have to be chosen very carefully,” says Bulent Aliriza, director of the Turkey Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Almost 30% optimistic about the economy

WASHINGTON – Some Americans are beginning to see the light at the end of a long tunnel.

For the past two weeks, the percentage of respondents in The Gallup Poll who say the economy is getting better has been steadily ticking up. Monday through Wednesday, 29 percent took the optimistic view – the highest number since July 2007.

That doesn’t mean everyone’s outlook is rosy – 66 percent continue to say the economy is getting worse – but it does signal a significant improvement in public attitudes after nearly two years of downbeat forecasts. The percentage seeing better times ahead has nearly doubled since March 9, when 15 percent said the economy was improving and 78 percent said it was getting worse.

During that time, the stock market has been on the rebound and a few positive economic reports, including a rise in durable goods orders and new home sales, have been released. Funds from the $787 billion stimulus package are beginning to be dispersed, and President Obama in recent days has noted what he calls encouraging signs in the economy.

“There are a number of forces coming together to generate that optimism,” says Sung Won Sohn, an economist at California State University-Channel Islands. “No. 1, clearly, is the stock market.”

Among the demographic groups showing the most dramatic increase in optimism are those earning $90,000 a year or more, the top income group and the one most likely to own stocks.

The poll of 1,473 adults Monday-Wednesday by land-line and cell phone has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Assessments of the economy continue to be dreadful. Just 9 percent say the economy is excellent or good, while 57 percent call it poor. Those surveyed aren’t more likely to say their employers are hiring or that they’re spending more money in stores.

Even so, more positive predictions about the economy’s future could be a harbinger of change on other fronts.

“Attitudes are the easy things to move,” says Frank Newport, Gallup’s editor in chief. “Actual real-world change, on retail spending and jobs, I think will follow. How quickly they will follow, we’ll wait and see, but it’s reasonable that attitudes would move first.”

Visit to Mexico seeks to ease path for Obama; Lieberman calls for aid

Mexico's President Felipe Calderon shakes hands with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Wednesday at Los Pinos presidential residence in Mexico City. Clinton is in Mexico for a two-day visit.

MEXICO CITY – The United States shares responsibility with Mexico for dealing with the bloody drug violence along the border, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday.

“Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade,” she said en route to Mexico City for a two-day visit aimed at easing strained relations between the neighboring countries. “Our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians.”

She arrived Wednesday morning at Mexico City’s Benito Juarez International Airport and was greeted by her Mexican counterpart, Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa, and then whisked off in a motorcade for private talks with Espinosa and President Felipe Calderón at the presidential mansion.

Clinton arrived a day after the U.S. announced a raft of measures aimed at stemming the flow of guns and drug profits southward to Mexico. They included sending hundreds of federal agents, along with surveillance gear and drug-sniffing dogs, to the Southwest border.

“These are important actions of support for the fight that President Felipe Calderón’s government is carrying out,” Espinosa said Tuesday.

The praise followed months of tense relations between the two countries.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., chairman of the Homeland Security Department’s oversight committee, said Wednesday that he wants the federal government to spend more money to help Mexico fight drug cartels and keep violence from spilling across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Clinton’s visit is aimed at smoothing things over before a visit by President Obama on April 16-17, said Jesus Abel Sanchez, director of the International Studies Department at the Autonomous University of Sinaloa.

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DAILY DEVELOPMENTS

• Mexican drug cartels have infiltrated as many as 230 U.S. cities and now represent the most serious organized-crime threat to the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano told a Senate panel Wednesday.

• Soldiers captured Hector Huerta, one of Mexico’s most-wanted drug smugglers, the army said.

Gannett News Service and The Associated Press