Brown will return in an unspecified role with the Cleveland Browns, who will formally reunite with the Hall of Fame standout at a news conference on Wednesday. Browns owner Jimmy Haslam is expected to announce Brown's new position with the team he starred with from 1957-65 before retiring to pursue an acting career.

"We're excited to have him back a part of us," Browns CEO Joe Banner said. "It's important to me because he's clearly in the top couple, if not the single most important part of the history of the franchise, and it's the right thing to do."

Brown previously worked as a senior adviser with the Browns. However, his role was eliminated by former team president Mike Holmgren and Brown had been estranged from the team for a few years. He returned to play in an alumni golf outing and was introduced on the field at halftime at a game in September, when he met with Haslam, who had just bought the team from Randy Lerner.

At the time, the outspoken Brown talked about his desire to work again with the team.

"I would love to have a role with the Browns," he said. "I think that's what every ex-player would like to do most of all, to be a contributor to the success of an organization. I'm stuck with being No. 32 of the Cleveland Browns and I can't do anything about it. I don't want to do anything about it. If you didn't like the ball, that's one thing. You're not going to always like my politics, but we are married because of that history. If I can be a part of the development of a new winning attitude and help get some victories, man that would be fantastic.

"Imagine us having a championship team here again?"

The Browns last won a title in 1964.

Brown is the team's career rushing leader with 12,312 yards and 106 touchdowns.

Haslam's arrival seemed to help the Browns patch up any differences with arguably the greatest player in their franchise's history. Haslam said at the NFL owner's meetings in March that he anticipated Brown coming back to work for the team.

Browns linebacker D'Qwell Jackson is thrilled to learn Brown will be back with the team.

"With everything that is moving in the right direction, it's only right to bring Jim Brown back," Jackson said. "It's the perfect time for it because he did a lot when he was here, just his presence alone for a young guy, to be able to have a conversation with him, I was in awe after being around him for three years.

"I want him back."

Brown was at the Browns' stadium on Tuesday to film a scene from the upcoming movie "Draft Day" starring Kevin Costner. Brown acted in a scene with former Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar, who said the return of the famed No. 32 was overdue.

"It's exciting," Kosar said. "It's great. I think the influence he can have on some of the younger kids and some of the younger players is great."

It certainly looks bad. The revelation that the NSA secretly vacuumed up the telephone records of millions of Verizon customers would seem to fit the definition of "data" and "millions of Americans."

Clapper is denying that he misled anyone, telling the National Journal : "What I said was, the NSA does not voyeuristically pore through U.S. citizens' e-mails. I stand by that."

That may have been what Clapper meant. But it wasn't what he said. And it certainly wasn't what he was asked.

Here's the word-for-word exchange in the March hearing of the relevant Senate Intelligence Committee.

Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.who has long warned about excessive government surveillance of Americans, though in veiled terms because the information is classifiedhad just one question for Clapper. The especially important parts are in bold.

Wyden: "And this is for you, Director Clapper, again on the surveillance front. And I hope we can do this in just a yes or no answer, because I know Sen. Feinstein wants to move on.

"Last summer the NSA director was at a conference and he was asked a question about the NSA surveillance of Americans. He replied, and I quote here, '... .'

"The reason I'm asking the question is, having served on the committee now for a dozen years, I don't really know what a dossier is in this context. So what I wanted to see is if you could give me a yes or no answer to the question: Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"

Clapper: "No, sir."

Wyden: "It does not."

Clapper: ". There are cases where they could inadvertently perhaps collect, but not wittingly."

Wyden: "All right. Thank you. I'll have additional questions to give you in writing on that point, but I thank you for the answer."

Civil rights attorney Connie Rice said the lengthy examination found no basis for allegations of racism and bias that Dorner made in a manifesto vowing revenge on his former colleagues and their families.

Authorities said Dorner killed four people, including two law enforcement officers, during a weeklong rampage in February that involved a massive manhunt and ended with his apparent suicide in a mountain cabin following a gunbattle with police.

The findings, which are expected to be made public this month at a Los Angeles Police Commission meeting, concluded that Dorner had a history of embellishing stories, misperceiving slights and making bogus complaints against his fellow officers, Rice said.

He took more than twice as long as most officers to complete his training, was nearly incomprehensible during the hearing over his firing, and only filed a complaint against his training officer when he learned she gave him a bad performance review, Rice said.

The department said in a statement the review had not been finalized.

"Any comments or conclusions about the contents of the review are premature," it said. "The LAPD will announce the review once finalized."

Police Commission President Andrea Ordin said the report still needed to go to the inspector general for review and then to the Police Commission.

Chief Charlie Beck ordered the review as Dorner was on the run after being accused of killing the daughter of his former union lawyer and her fiance and releasing the manifesto saying he would get even for being unfairly fired because he was black.

Rice, a longtime department watchdog and frequent critic, was allowed to review the findings.

"The firing was justified and his allegations are completely unfounded," said Rice, who spent two weeks reviewing the findings. "This guy needed to go. And the question was, even if he needed to go, did the LAPD get rid of him in a way that was illegitimate? And the answer for me was no."

The roughly 40-page report relied on about 80 documents, including 900 pages of transcripts from the Board of Rights hearing that concluded Dorner lied when he claimed a training officer had brutally kicked a mentally ill man during an arrest. He was fired for making a false report and a Los Angeles Superior Court judge sided with the department during a 2010 appeal.

The internal LAPD review conducted by Gerry Chaleff, the department's special assistant for constitutional policing, also re-examined at least 10 complaints Dorner officially lodged with the department while he was an officer, Rice said.

In his manifesto, Dorner said the LAPD had tarnished his reputation, ruined the former Navy reserve's military career, and destroyed his life.

"He raised all that racism stuff in my mind because he knew he'd get a rise out of them," Rice said. "He did everything he could to hurt the department."

The department is also conducting a review of the overall discipline system and will also review the cases of a handful of former officers who have since formally requested reviews of their firings.

Rice said she spoke with many black officers in the department who said that though the department still had issues with racism, it had changed a great deal over the past decades.

"Just because racism didn't play a leading role in what happened to Dorner doesn't mean the LAPD is now an inter-racial nirvana," Rice said. "It does still have serious problems like every department does and we shouldn't forget that."

___

Follow Tami Abdollah at http://www.twitter.com/latams

Some pretty big names, led by Alex Rodriguez, could be on the hot seat.

A-Rod, Ryan Braun, Nelson Cruz, Melky Cabrera and Bartolo Colon are among the 20 or so players who may be disciplined for their links to the now-closed Miami anti-aging clinic, Biogenesis of America.

The players' union says it has been assured no decisions regarding discipline will be made until the interviews are completed.

"It would be unfortunate if anyone prejudged those investigations," union head Michael Weiner said in a statement Wednesday.

And it appears the process has a while to run.

Interviews with players started three weeks ago and are scheduled until the end of June, according to people with knowledge of the process who spoke on condition of anonymity because statements on those details weren't authorized. Dan Halem, Steven Gonzalez and Patrick Houlihan, lawyers in baseball's labor relations department, conducted several interviews, and some players haven't been scheduled.

"Every player has been or will be represented by an attorney from the players' association," Weiner said. "The players' association has every interest in both defending the rights of players and in defending the integrity of our joint (drug) program. We trust that the commissioner's office shares these interests."

MLB has been seeking the cooperation of Biogenesis founder Anthony Bosch since Miami New Times reported in January that it obtained what the paper said were records detailing drug purchases by Rodriguez, Cabrera, Cruz and Colon. Yahoo Sports reported that Braun, the 2011 NL MVP, was mentioned in the records.

MLB sued Biogenesis and its operators in a Florida court in March, an attempt to pressure Bosch. A person familiar with the case told The Associated Press on Tuesday night that Bosch agreed to talk to MLB, a deal first reported by ESPN. MLB wants to speak with Bosch in the next few days,

"Due to ongoing litigation, it would be inappropriate to comment on any aspect of this matter at this time," Bosch's lawyer, Susy Ribero-Ayala, said in a statement.

Among the players linked to the clinic, Cabrera, Colon and San Diego catcher Yasmani Grandal already have served 50-game suspensions following positive tests for testosterone announced by MLB last year.

"It looks like it could be getting to the bottom of this and finding some information that hopefully would help Major League Baseball as far as cleaning this game up," said San Francisco manager Bruce Bochy, who managed Cabrera last year. "I always thought they should be a little stricter to keep these players from trying to beat the system and cheat. I'm all for stiffer penalties."

Once MLB interviews Bosch and the players, it will have to determine what penalties to impose.

"WADA commends the decision of Major League Baseball to seek suspension of an estimated 20 players," World Anti-Doping Agency Director General David Howman said in a statement.

"More and more, information and evidence gathered in the investigative process is proving an effective means of uncovering doping in sport. MLB has approached this issue in a professional way, and the evidence gathered will undoubtedly be pivotal," Howman said.

Any suspensions for first offenders would be put on hold if the union files a grievance, a process that would put the matter in front of an arbitrator and delay possible sanctions for weeks or months. Second offenders would serve suspensions during the grievance process.

Baseball's drug agreement calls for a 50-game suspension for a first violation, 100 for a second and a lifetime ban for a third for positive tests for banned PEDS or their use or possession. The agreement also allows discipline for "just cause" for a violation not specified.

Any player disciplined could file an individual grievance, and it isn't likely that cases would be combined into one proceeding. If Bosch testifies at a hearing, he would be subject to cross-examination, and players' lawyers likely would try to attack his credibility.

The Florida Department of Health sent Bosch an unlicensed activity citation on April 25, accusing him of practicing medicine without a license from 2009 through 2012 and asking him to sign a "cease and desist agreement." That action was first reported by the New York Daily News on May 6.

Most players have denied the Biogenesis link either directly or through spokesmen or lawyers.

Rodriguez admitted in 2009 that he used performance-enhancing drugs while with the Texas Rangers from 2001-03. As baseball's highest-paid player with a $28 million salary this year, he would lose $7.65 million during a 50-game ban.

Rodriguez, who turns 38 next month, has not played since hip surgery in January and is not expected to be available to the New York Yankees until after the All-Star break. The third baseman, a three-time AL MVP, has been working out since May at the team's minor league complex in Tampa, Fla., and he drove past reporters without stopping when he arrived and left three hours later Wednesday after batting practice, fielding and agility drills.

A-Rod drove a black Chevrolet SUV rather than the black Maybach he usually arrives in

In addition to Rodriguez, Yankees catcher Francisco Cervelli was linked to the clinic. Cervelli, currently on the DL because of a broken hand, said he consulted Biogenesis for a foot injury, but didn't receive any treatment.

"My focus is not on what MLB is investigating. I don't want to get caught up in that," Yankees manager Joe Girardi said. "My job is to manage the guys in the clubhouse."

Girardi said the Yankees still planned for Rodriguez to rejoin the team after the All-Star break. Asked what he would do if A-Rod were suspended 100 games, Girardi responded: "We'll cross that bridge."

Braun's 50-game suspension for a positive test was overturned by an arbitrator in February 2012 after the union filed a grievance and challenged the handling of his urine sample. Braun has acknowledged he was mentioned in Biogenesis records because his lawyers used Bosch as a consultant during the grievance.

After the Brewers' 4-3, 10-inning win over Oakland at Miller Park on Tuesday night, the 2011 NL MVP said he was finished talking about the clinic.

"I've already addressed everything related to the Miami situation. I addressed it in spring training. I will not make any further statements about it," he said. "The truth has not changed."

Braun said the speculation hasn't affected him on the field.

"No, of course not. I've dealt with this for two years now. I'm pretty good at avoiding distractions," he said.

___

AP Baseball Writer Ben Walker, AP Sports Writers Stephen Wilson and Josh Dubow, AP Legal Affairs Writer Curt Anderson and AP freelance writer Mark Didtler contributed to this report.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The new chief of the Internal Revenue Service conceded on Friday there was "inappropriate" spending on a 2010 agency conference, a subject set to be the focus of one of three U.S. congressional hearings next week at which the IRS will likely face more criticism.

The IRS is already embroiled in a major political scandal over extra scrutiny it gave to conservative groups seeking tax-free status, and Republicans in the House of Representatives are likely to keep the White House on the defensive over the agency's actions.

Acting IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said expenses associated with a conference held three years ago "should not have occurred."

The conference will be the focus of a report set for release on Tuesday from an IRS watchdog, Werfel said in a statement.

"This conference is an unfortunate vestige from a prior era. While there were legitimate reasons for holding the meeting, many of the expenses associated with it were inappropriate," said Werfel, named acting IRS commissioner two weeks ago.

The IRS has been under a spotlight for three weeks since a mid-level administrator publicly apologized at a conference for the extra scrutiny given to applications for tax-exempt status filed by conservative political groups.

The controversy that followed led to the ousting by President Barack Obama of the agency's top executive and an FBI investigation, and has become a major distraction for the White House.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, a watchdog agency that monitors the IRS, is expected to issue a long-planned report on the agency's spending on conferences, travel and awards, next week.

Republican Representative Darrell Issa, among the lawmakers probing the IRS, will hold a hearing on the report on Thursday, a congressional aide said.

The panel will hear from watchdog agency head J. Russell George, who earlier this month issued an audit on the extra scrutiny by the IRS of Tea Party groups' applications.

The aide said the hearing would be about "an upcoming audit uncovering information about excessive spending at IRS conferences."

A spokesman for the watchdog agency said he could not comment on the matter.

Werfel said that a conference like the one that took place in 2010 would not happen today. "Sweeping new spending restrictions have been put in place at the IRS," he said.

Earlier this year, Representative Charles Boustany, a Republican in charge of a House oversight subcommittee, wrote the IRS about reports that it produced a video including a parody of the television show "Star Trek" as part of an employee training program.

Steve Miller, whose last day as acting IRS Commissioner was Friday after he was asked by Obama to resign, responded at the time that the video was part of worker education to reduce travel and other costs, according to Boustany.

Boustany on Friday released what he said was a video made by IRS employees, showing several in a mock dance lesson of "SB-SE" executives at "an undisclosed location." Those initials refer to the IRS small business-self employed division.

The earlier "Star Trek" video shows IRS workers dressed as characters from the show in a spaceship.

"Its never-ending mission is to seek out new tax forms, to explore strange new regulations, to boldly go where no government employee has gone before," a narrator says.

These two and a third video with a theme using the television show "Gilligan's Island" were all produced for an Anaheim, California, employee conference, according to a congressional aide.

Boustany said Miller acknowledged that the Star Trek and Gilligan's Island videos cost at least $60,000 to make.

THREE HEARINGS

Several congressional committees are probing the scandal involving extra scrutiny for the conservative groups, while others in the past week have raised other concerns.

Issa's House Government and Oversight Committee will hear from George on Thursday. The House Ways and Means Committee will hear from Tea Party groups on Tuesday, and Werfel will testify before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government on Monday.

All are controlled by Republicans.

Obama tapped Werfel to take over as acting IRS head several days after an IRS official apologized for the scrutiny to a meeting of tax attorneys in Washington. The president said he first learned about the scrutiny when that official revealed it on May 10.

The watchdog agency report found no evidence that Obama administration officials directed the targeting of groups with "Tea Party" in their names. Still, many Republicans are skeptical and note that there seems to have been no corresponding list of names for liberal groups seeking tax-exempt status.

Agency officials say the rise of the Tea Party movement at the time led low-level officials to take shortcuts in processing a surge of new applications for tax-exempt statue.

The IRS is late in providing documents to three of the congressional committees that have sought internal emails and other correspondence.

The agency in a statement said it is "moving aggressively and taking the data requests very seriously. As a precautionary measure, the IRS is casting a wide net to capture any potentially related materials."

(Additional reporting by Patrick Temple-West; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Eric Walsh)

In the late 1950s, the Palm Beach socialite had time to spare and a wealthy husband who owned citrus groves, so she opened an orange juice stand just off the island's main shopping street. Pulitzer needed to hide all the juice stains on her clothes, though. Instead of just putting on an apron, she asked her seamstress to make some sleeveless dresses in colorful fruit prints, and a fashion staple was born.

Pulitzer died at her home Sunday, according to Quattlebaum Funeral and Cremation Services. She was 81.

Pulitzer's tropical print dresses became a sensation in the 1960s when then-first lady Jacqueline Kennedy, who attended boarding school with Pulitzer, wore one of the sleeveless shifts in a Life magazine photo spread.

The colorful revolution came as fashion shed its reliance on neutrals, and Pulitzer's stuff was almost the housewife version of the more youthful mod look that was migrating from London.

To this day, the Lilly Pulitzer dress remains a popular, if not a necessary, addition to any woman's closet.

"I designed collections around whatever struck my fancy ... fruits, vegetables, politics, or peacocks! I entered in with no business sense. It was a total change of life for me, but it made people happy," Pulitzer, who married into the famous newspaper family, told The Associated Press in March 2009.

Pulitzer's dresses hung behind her juice stand and soon outsold her drinks. A boutique featuring the company's dresses developed with the help of partner Laura Robbins, a former fashion editor soon replaced the juice stand.

"Today we celebrate all that Lilly meant to us and come together as Lilly lovers to honor a true original who has brought together generations through her bright and happy mark on the world," James B. Bradbeer Jr. and Scott A. Beaumont, who bought the Lilly Pulitzer brand in 1992, said in a statement.

The signature Lilly palette features tongue-in-cheek jungle and floral prints in blues, pinks, light greens, yellow and orange the colors of a Florida vacation.

The line of dresses that bore her name was later expanded to swimsuits, country club attire, children's clothing, a home collection and a limited selection of menswear.

"Style isn't just about what you wear, it's about how you live," Pulitzer said in 2004.

"We focus on the best, fun and happy things, and people want that. Being happy never goes out of style," she said.

In 1966, The Washington Post reported that the dresses were "so popular that at the Southampton Lilly shop on Job's Lane they are proudly put in clear plastic bags tied gaily with ribbons so that all the world may see the Lilly of your choice. It's like carrying your own racing colors or flying a yacht flag for identification."

But changing taste brought trouble. Pulitzer closed her original company in the mid-1980s after filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The label was revived about a decade later after being acquired by Pennsylvania-based Sugartown Worldwide Inc.; Pulitzer was only marginally involved in the new business but continued reviewing new prints from Florida.

"When Lilly started the business back in the '60s, she targeted a young customer because she was young," Bradbeer told the AP in 2003. "What we have done is target the daughter and granddaughter of that original customer."

Pulitzer herself retired from day-to-day operations in 1993, although she remained a consultant and a muse for the brand.

Sugartown Worldwide was bought by Atlanta-based Oxford Industries in 2010. Sales of the Lilly Pulitzer brand were strong in the earnings period that ended Feb. 2. The brand's revenue increased 26 percent to $29.1 million, according to Oxford Industries' earnings report. The company said last week it planned to add four to six new stores each year for its Lilly Pulitzer brand.

Pulitzer was born Lilly McKim on Nov. 10, 1931, to a wealthy family in Roslyn, N.Y.

In 1952, she married Pete Pulitzer, the grandson of newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, whose bequest to Columbia University established the Pulitzer Prize.

Pulitzer had three children in quick succession. After the third was born, she had a nervous breakdown and ended up in a mental hospital that catered to upscale clientele in New York. A doctor there told her that she needed to find a job.

"The doctor there said, 'You're not happy because you're not doing anything,' and I said, 'I don't know how to do anything.' I'd always had everything done for me, always had my nanny and my mummy making up my mind. The doctor said, 'You've got to go out and find something to do,'" Pulitzer told The New Yorker in 2000.

Pulitzer gave the same prescription to her friends. If one of them needed something to do, Pulitzer would open a store in her town.

The Pulitzers divorced in 1969. Pulitzer's second husband, Enrique Rousseau, died in 1993.

"I don't know how to explain what it was like to run my business, the joy of every day," she told Vanity Fair magazine in a story in 2003. "I got a kick every time I went into the shipping department. ... I loved seeing (the dresses) going out the door. I loved them selling in the shop. I liked them on the body. Everything. There's no explaining the fun I had."

Saldia often buzzes around Philadelphia with his year-old feline Mary Jane perched on his shoulder. Their urban adventures have turned heads on the street and garnered big hits on YouTube.

The 26-year-old bike courier didn't intend to become Internet-famous. He originally shot footage of the outings only to prove to his mom that he was taking Mary Jane nicknamed MJ for a spin.

"She said, 'No way! You're not taking your cat out for the ride,' which is the reaction I still get even after people see this video," Saldia said.

Saldia used a GoPro sports camera mounted on his bike to capture images of him and MJ, a brown and black tabby with bright yellow eyes. She seems to take the trips in stride, even nuzzling her owner as he pedals, though she gets a bit spooked by sirens and buses.

"She enjoys seeing everything and having the wind blow in her ears, especially being an indoors cat. This is really her only time outside," he said. "On the shoulder, she loves it. She's in total zen mode."

The first video, which he posted last October, has more than 1.2 million views on YouTube. GoPro spokeswoman AnneMarie Hennes said she saw it earlier this year and was blown away. She immediately reached out to Saldia to get permission to use the footage in a camera ad, which was posted online last month.

"It's just unique and he did a really good job shooting it," said Hennes. "We hooked him up with some cameras so he can make more cool MJ content."

Saldia, who also belongs to long-distance riding club, said he began taking out MJ when she was 2 months old, at first just along his quiet street in downtown Philadelphia. The rides eventually went farther, with positive reactions from both MJ and passers-by.

"People are thrilled to see the guy with the cat ride his bike down the street," Saldia said.

But online commenters have been less kind, questioning whether the unharnessed cat is safe. Saldia noted he is equally vulnerable while riding in the city and takes necessary precautions.

"I'm very confident that the cat would be better off in an accident than I would be, so I'm not worried about taking her out," he said.

Saldia's mom said although she didn't believe her son at first, she now thinks the tandem rides are "kind of cool."

"He enjoys it, the cat loves to be with him (and) it's better than being home alone," said Sarah Saldia, of Sewell, N.J. "I don't think they're hurting anybody."

___

Online:

Saldia's video: http://bit.ly/ZdGK4U

GoPro video: http://bit.ly/1a70dUa

___

Follow Kathy Matheson at www.twitter.com/kmatheson.

One of them sat in the corner of the locker room, a net around his neck, grinning away.

The Louisville Cardinals vowed to finish the job for Kevin Ware.

Boy, did they ever.

With their injured teammate cheering them on from the bench, Louisville capped its run through the NCAA tournament, coming back again from a 12-point deficit to beat Michigan 82-76 in the championship game Monday night.

"These are my brothers," said Ware, still getting around on crutches after a horrific injury in the regional final. "They got the job done. I'm so proud of them, so proud of them."

Ware is just getting started on what could be a yearlong recovery from a broken right leg, but he's already got something no one can take away a championship.

They even lowered the goal so he could take a turn with the scissors, helping cut down the net that wound up around his neck.

"It meant the world to me," Ware said. "I don't really have any other words to describe how I feel right now."

Pitino knows how it feels to win a championship, having guided Kentucky to a crown in 1996. Now, working right down the road from Lexington, he became the first coach to win titles at different schools.

"This team is one of the most together, toughest and hard-nosed teams," he said. "Being down never bothers us. They just come back."

It was quite a capper to perhaps the best week of Pitino's life.

Earlier Monday, he was introduced as a member of the latest Hall of Fame class. On Saturday, his horse won the Santa Anita Derby to set up a run for the roses in the Kentucky Derby. And last week his son got the coaching job at Minnesota.

What's next?

His first tattoo, apparently.

Pitino vowed to get inked up if his players won the championship. They intend to hold him to that promise.

"I have a couple of ideas," said Luke Hancock, who became the first backup in tournament history to be designated as most outstanding player. "He doesn't know what he's getting into."

"Our biggest motivation," Peyton Siva added, "was to get coach a tattoo."

Not a bad week for Louisville, either. The school has a chance to make it two national titles in 24 hours when the surprising women's team faces Connecticut on Tuesday night in the championship game at New Orleans.

On the eve of their big game, the women got together with hundreds of fans in a hotel lobby to cheer on the men.

"It's a great time to be a Cardinal," coach Jeff Walz said.

A great time, indeed. Hancock produced another huge game off the bench, scoring 22 points, and the Cardinals (35-5) lived up to their billing as the top overall seed in the men's tournament.

They sure had to work for it, though.

Louisville trailed Wichita State by a dozen in the second half before rallying for a 72-68 victory. This time, they fell behind by 12 in the first half, then unleashed a stunning spurt led by Hancock that wiped out the entire deficit before the break.

"I had the 13 toughest guys I've ever coached," Pitino said. "I'm just amazed they could accomplish everything we put out there."

No one was tougher than Hancock, who matched his season high after a 20-point effort in the semifinal victory over Wichita State. This time, he came off the bench to hit four straight 3-pointers in the first half after Michigan got a boost from an even more unlikely player.

Freshman Spike Albrecht made four straight from beyond the arc, too, blowing by his career high before halftime with 17 points. Coming in, Albrecht was averaging 1.8 points a game and had not scored more than seven all season.

Albrecht didn't do much in the second half, but Hancock finished what he started for Louisville. He made it 5-for-5 from long range when he hit his final 3 from the corner with 3:27 remaining to give the Cardinals their biggest lead, 76-66. Michigan wouldn't go away, but Hancock wrapped it up by making two free throws with 29 seconds left.

While Pitino shrugged off any attempt to make this about him, there was no doubt the Cardinals wanted to win a title for Ware.

Watching again from his seat at the end of the Louisville bench, his battered right leg propped up on a chair, Ware smiled and slapped hands with his teammates as they celebrated in the closing seconds, the victory coming just 30 miles from where he played his high school ball.

Ware's awful injury will forever be linked to this tournament. Against Duke, he landed awkwardly, snapped his leg and was left writhing on the floor with the bone sticking through the skin. On this night, he hobbled gingerly onto the court with the aid of crutches, basking in a sea of confetti and streamers.

This one belonged to him as much as anyone on the court.

Siva added 18 points for the Cardinals, who closed the season on a 16-game winning streak, and Chane Behanan chipped in with 15 points and 12 rebounds as Louisville slowly but surely closed out the Wolverines (31-8).

Michigan was in the title game for the first time since the Fab Five lost the second of two straight championship games in 1993. Players from that team, including Chris Webber, cheered on the latest group of young stars.

But, like the Fab Five, national player of the year Trey Burke and a squad with three freshman starters came up short in the last game of the season.

"A lot of people didn't expect us to get this far," said Burke, who led the Wolverines with 24 points. "A lot of people didn't expect us to get past the second round. We fought. We fought up to this point, but Louisville was the better team today, and they're deserving of the win."

The first half, in particular, might have been the most entertaining 20 minutes of the entire men's tournament.

Burke started out on fire for Michigan, hitting his first three shots and scoring seven points to match his output from the semifinal victory over Syracuse, when he made only 1-of-8 shots.

Albrecht took control when Burke picked up his second foul and had to go to the bench for the rest of the half. The kid whose nickname comes from his first pair of baseball spikes showed he's a pretty good hoops player, knocking down one 3-pointer after another to send the Wolverines to a double-digit lead.

When Albrecht blew by Tim Henderson with a brilliant hesitation move, Michigan led 33-21 and Louisville was forced to call timeout. The freshman was mobbed on the Michigan bench, as if the Wolverines had already won the national title, with one teammate waving a towel in tribute.

Not so fast. Not against Louisville.

The Cardinals came back one more time.

"We needed a rally and we've been doing it for a couple of games straight, being down," Hancock said. "We just had to wait and make our run."

Burke, who played only six minutes in the first half because of the foul trouble, did his best to give Michigan its first championship since 1989. But he couldn't do it alone. Albrecht was held scoreless after the break, and no one else posted more than 12 points for the Wolverines.

Still, it was quite a run for a fourth-seeded team that knocked off No. 1-seeded Kansas with the greatest comeback of the tournament, rallying from 14 points down in the second half to beat the Jayhawks in the round of 16.

But they came up against the ultimate comeback team in the final, a group that was intent on keeping the title in the bluegrass state after Kentucky won it all last season.

Louisville had already pulled off a stunning rally in the Big East championship game down by 16 in the second half, they won by 17 and another against Wichita State.

"I've had a lot of really good teams over the years, and some emotional locker rooms, and that was the most emotional we've ever had," Michigan coach John Beilein said. "We feel bad about it. There are some things we could have done better and get a win, but at the same time, Louisville is a terrific basketball team."

No wonder Ware was grinning from ear to ear.

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UT Arlington will gain insight into training offered at a Voluntary Protection Programs certified site, while JSC hopes to better understand industry-focused training as the agency prepares for increased partnerships with commercial companies in the future.

William "Bill" McArthur, Jr., director of Safety and Mission Assurance at JSC, and John Hall, UT Arlington vice president for Administration and Campus Operations, signed a Space Act Agreement in a ceremony at Space Center Houston May 23. Afterward, a technical interchange meeting was held to begin development of a framework to audit environmental, health and safety classes and to determine leading practices.

Ultimately, the benchmarking activities will enhance training quality and knowledge sharing of environmental, health and safety provided to JSC's various constituencies. Elmer "Bubba" Johnson, JSC's Program Assessment Team lead, and Teresea Madden-Thompson, UT Arlington associate vice president, will coordinate technical activities.

"With more than 20 years of experience training NASA personnel, the NASA Safety Training Center provides training using standards unique and unobtainable from any other sources," McArthur said.

"The agency's current focus on partnering with commercial companies to achieve its mission requires evaluating new approaches to our training methods," McArthur added. "This agreement creates an opportunity for NASA to benchmark with UT Arlington to identify best practices and obtain feedback to ensure that we offer the best training to our personnel."

Hall said the agreement creates an opportunity for the University to help shape training opportunities in the aerospace industry and its reach in the professional development sector.

"We are proud of this new partnership with NASA Johnson Space Center, and we look forward to sharing our expertise in professional education and training with an agency that sets the standard for innovation," Hall said.

Madden said the agreement will position UT Arlington's Division for Enterprise Development for new opportunities with governmental agencies.

"We look forward to learning from NASA's expertise as well," Madden-Thompson said. "We will build on this expertise to create educational and training programs that will benefit the Division of Enterprise Development's other clients and support NASA's commitment to environmental, health and safety."

The NASA Safety Training Center (NSTC) at JSC was established in May 1991 by the NASA Headquarters Office of Safety and Mission Assurance to provide up-to-date, high-quality, NASA-specific safety training on location to NASA centers, or simultaneously to multiple centers through video teleconferencing in the pursuit of the ultimate goal of safe operations for NASA. The NSTC provides safety, as well as, mission success and mission unique training that enable agency personnel to meet uniform engineering and technical requirements for processes, procedures, practices and methods that have been endorsed as a standard for NASA programs and projects.

The UT Arlington Division for Enterprise Development provides professional development, technical assistance and training to public and private organizations in Texas and the nation. The division consists of several units that serve environmental, health and safety training and education needs across the public and private sectors. They include the U.S. Department of Labor federally approved Region VI OSHA Education Center, the Center for Environmental Excellence, Environmental Training Institute and the Public Works Training Institute. UTA is a research institution of more than 33,800 students and 2,200 faculty members in the heart of North Texas.

For more information about NASA and its programs, visit:

Learn more about the University of Texas Arlington here:

For pictures from the signing ceremony, visit:

SOURCE NASA

OSLO (Reuters) - Extreme global warming is less likely in coming decades after a slowdown in the pace of temperature rises so far this century, an international team of scientists said on Sunday.

Warming is still on track, however, to breach a goal set by governments around the world of limiting the increase in temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times, unless tough action is taken to limit rising greenhouse gas emissions.

"The most extreme rates of warming simulated by the current generation of climate models over 50- to 100-year timescales are looking less likely," the University of Oxford wrote about the findings in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The rate of global warming has slowed after strong rises in the 1980s and 1990s, even though all the 10 warmest years since reliable records began in the 1850s have been since 1998.

The slowdown has been a puzzle because emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases have continued to rise, led by strong industrial growth in China.

Examining recent temperatures, the experts said that a doubling of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere above pre-industrial times - possible by mid-century on current trends - would push up temperatures by between 0.9 and 2.0 degrees Celsius (1.6 and 3.6F).

That is below estimates made by the U.N. panel of climate scientists in 2007, of a rise of between 1 and 3 degrees Celsius (1.8-5.4F) as the immediate response to a doubling of carbon concentrations, known as the transient climate response.

OCEANS

The U.N. panel also estimated that a doubling of carbon dioxide, after accounting for melting of ice and absorption by the oceans that it would cause over hundreds of years, would eventually lead to a temperature rise of between 2 and 4.5 C

(3.6-8.1F).

Findings in the new study, by experts in Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, France, Germany, Switzerland and Norway, broadly matched that range for the long-term response.

But for government policy makers "the transient response over the next 50-100 years is what matters," lead author Alexander Otto of Oxford University said in a statement.

The oceans appear to be taking up more heat in recent years, masking a build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that passed 400 parts per million this month for the first time in human history, up 40 percent from pre-industrial levels.

Professor Reto Knutti of ETH Zurich, one of the authors, said that the lower numbers for coming decades were welcome.

But "we are still looking at warming well over the two degree goal that countries have agreed upon if current emission trends continue," he said.

Temperatures have already risen by about 0.8 Celsius (1.4F) since the Industrial Revolution and two degrees C is widely viewed as a threshold to dangerous changes such as more floods, heatwaves and rising sea levels.

"The oceans are sequestering heat more rapidly than expected over the last decade," said Professor Steven Sherwood of the University of New South Wales in Australia, who was not involved in the study.

"By assuming that this behaviour will continue, (the scientists) calculate that the climate will warm about 20 percent more slowly than previously expected, although over the long term it may be just as bad, since eventually the ocean will stop taking up heat."

He said findings "need to be taken with a large grain of salt" because of uncertainties about the oceans.