The legislation has been decades in the making, and is currently being considered by the House of Representatives, where it will likely face some opposition.

Nonetheless, many states are hoping it will pass, saying an Internet sales tax will allow them to bring in much-needed revenue.

The total estimates of how much money states can make by taxing purchases from outside their borders remains to be seen, and S&P said it "believes revenues would be unlikely to boost tax revenues significantly in the near term compared with the size of total state budgets."

S&P also said there will be no near-term credit implications.

But if the bill is delayed for several years and states do not pursue other revenue sources, there is a possibility state revenues will erode. That, in turn, would hurt their credit, the agency said.

(Reporting by Caryn Trokie, additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington)

(Reuters) - Consumer review aggregator Yelp Inc, which analysts say could face intense competition from Facebook Inc's "graph search", is open to partnering with the social networking website's latest offering, Yelp's Chief Financial Officer Rob Krolik told Reuters.

Facebook, in January, unveiled its graph search feature, available in a beta version, letting users trawl their network of friends to find everything from restaurants to movie recommendations, bringing it into direct competition with Yelp.

Analysts have viewed this as a big negative for Yelp as companies such as Facebook have a lot of opportunity to imitate smaller companies, and over a larger audience.

"We are actually happy to partner with Facebook (for graph search) if that's something that they're interested in," Krolik said.

Facebook declined to comment on any possible partnership.

Yelp's mobile app makes it easier for people to discover local businesses. It combines Yelp's reviews and other relevant information with knowledge of the consumer's location. It also allows consumers to "check-in" at local businesses.

Google Inc, through its Google Plus Local product, also recommends businesses to its users based on circles, past reviews, location and allows them to publish reviews and photos of favorite places.

"Facebook and Google and some other players really are attacking the local space via technology," Krolik said.

Krolik said Yelp, which is integrated into Apple Inc's Maps product and their Siri product, would definitely monitor Facebook's graph search and see what it's all about.

"I just don't think people go to Facebook to find a great local business. I think they connect with their friends, see a lot of photos."

Macquarie Research analyst Tom White said it was not particularly likely that the partnership would happen, because Facebook thinks they have enough data to do it themselves.

He, however said, if it was to happen, it would benefit Yelp, and would cut down competition from Facebook.

"It would mean broader distribution for their reviews, and more people reading their reviews," White said.

"It's not directly a revenue generator, but in theory it would increase the value of advertising on Yelp, just because you're getting it out to more people."

The success of graph search, which will rely heavily on local information, depends on Facebook launching a mobile app. In addition, graph search lacks the depth of review content offered by Yelp.

If Yelp were to partner with Facebook for graph search, the consumer review aggregator would be in a better position to compete with Google, Jefferies analyst Brian Fitzgerald told Reuters.

Yelp already has a tie-up with Facebook Connect, which allows users to login with their Facebook credentials without having to create separate accounts for different websites.

A Yelp user can see if a Facebook friend has reviewed a business. (http://r.reuters.com/fyp58t)

Jefferies' Fitzgerald said Yelp could also make a good acquisition target for Apple, Google or Facebook.

"Any one of those guys could acquire Yelp and they would be able to use it pretty productively," he said.

Yelp was founded by former PayPal engineers Jeremy Stoppelman and Russel Simmons as a start-up idea in a business incubator in 2004. It has never been profitable since its inception.

Analysts expect the company to post its first profit of 1 cent per share for the first quarter of 2014, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

The company's earnings quality score on Thomson Reuters StarMine rose to 7 out of 100, from 5, after it reported its earnings for the January-March quarter. This compares with a sector median of 63.

The earnings quality model rates companies according to the sustainability of their earnings.

Yelp shares, which have risen about 80 percent in the last year, closed marginally down at $29.81 on the New York Stock Exchange on Friday. They had fallen 6 percent on January 15, when Facebook unveiled its graph search.

(Additional reporting by Supantha Mukherjee in Bangalore and Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco)

Yahoo News is following the latest developments via social media from meteorologists, storm chasers and government officials. We welcome your comments, especially if you have firsthand information about this dangerous storm.

One of those political problems is his Attorney General, whos doing even worse in the polls.

Just 25 percent of likely voters have a favorable opinion of Attorney General Eric Holder, while 47 percent view him unfavorably, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll out Friday. Asked if he should resign, a 42 percent plurality says yes.

Republicans have been calling for Holders head since last year when the fast and furious gun-tracking fiasco was revealed, and the more recent secret tracking of journalists phone records has revived those calls.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a statement that Holder "has trampled on the First Amendment and failed in his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution, and as a result the president should ask for his immediate resignation.

Sen. Ted Cruz, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, and other lawmakers are among those in Congress saying it's time for Holder to go.

But calls for Holders resignation are coming from the left as well, and that has to be more troubling to the White House.

The attorney general has done little in his tenure to protect civil liberties or the free press, writes George Washington University law professor Jonathon Turley, who describes himself as neither a Republican nor conservative.

Rather, Holder has supervised a comprehensive erosion of privacy rights, press freedom and due process, Mr. Turley writes in a USA Today column. I believe Holder should be fired.

Matthew Rothschild, editor of The Progressive magazine, has called for Holders resignation as well.

In an interview on Democracy Now! Mr. Rothschild listed several reasons: Justice Department probes of Associated Press writer and editors and James Rosen of Fox News, essentially waging war on whistleblowers under the Espionage Act, and providing the legal justification for what critics see as an assassination program using drone aircraft.

Thats not due process, and thats not what the Justice Department should be doing, Rothschild said. Certainly the attorney general, the chief law enforcement officer of this country, should know better than that.

James Goodale, a First Amendment lawyer who was chief counsel for the New York Times during the Pentagon Papers, says Holder should resign for his role in the James Rosen case.

He signed off on a search warrant to Rosen, a Fox News reporter, Mr. Goodale writes in the Daily Beast. This warrant treated Rosen as a common criminal. It sets a terrible precedent. Holder should resign to erase this precedent.

A Quinnipiac University national poll out Thursday brought more bad news for Obama.

He gets a negative 45-49 percent job approval rating, compared to a 48-45 percent positive in a May 1 survey conducted before allegations surfaced that the Internal Revenue Service had targeted tea party and other conservative groups.

The news here for Holder is not good either.

"There is overwhelming bipartisan support for a special prosecutor to investigate the IRS," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Voters apparently don't like the idea of Attorney General Eric Holder investigating the matter himself, perhaps because they don't exactly think highly of him. Holder gets a negative 23-39 percent job approval rating."

Will Obama let Holder go? So far, hes expressing full confidence in his Attorney General.

But the drip-drip-drip of criticism and political pressure continues.

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Most of all, they claimed he had failed to carry out a single spectacular operation, despite the resources at his disposal.

The employee, international terrorist Moktar Belmoktar, responded the way talented employees with bruised egos have in corporations the world over: He quit and formed his own competing group. And within months, he carried out two lethal operations that killed 101 people in all: one of the largest hostage-takings in history at a BP-operated gas plant in Algeria in January, and simultaneous bombings at a military base and a French uranium mine in Niger just last week.

The al-Qaida letter, found by The Associated Press inside a building formerly occupied by their fighters in Mali, is an intimate window into the ascent of an extremely ambitious terrorist leader, who split off from regional command because he wanted to be directly in touch with al-Qaida central. It's a glimpse into both the inner workings of a highly structured terrorist organization that requires its commanders to file monthly expense reports, and the internal dissent that led to his rise. And it foreshadows a terrorism landscape where charismatic jihadists can carry out attacks directly in al-Qaida's name, regardless of whether they are under its command.

Rudolph Atallah, the former head of counterterrorism for Africa at the Pentagon and one of three experts who authenticated the 10-page letter dated Oct. 3, said it helps explain what happened in Algeria and Niger, both attacks that Belmoktar claimed credit for on jihadist forums.

"He's sending a message directly north to his former bosses in Algeria saying, 'I'm a jihadi. I deserve to be separate from you.' And he's also sending a message to al-Qaida, saying, 'See, those bozos in the north are incompetent. You can talk to me directly.' And in these attacks, he drew a lot of attention to himself," says Atallah, who recently testified before Congress on Belmoktar's tactics.

Born in northern Algeria, the 40-something Belmoktar, who is known in Pentagon circles by his initials MBM, traveled to Afghanistan at the age of 19, according to his online biography. He claims he lost an eye in battle and trained in al-Qaida's camps, forging ties that would allow him two decades later to split off from its regional chapter.

Over the years, there have been numerous reports of Belmoktar being sidelined or expelled by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb. The letter recovered in Timbuktu, one of thousands of pages of internal documents in Arabic found by the AP earlier this year, shows he stayed loyal to al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, until last year, and traces the history of their difficult relationship.

The letter, signed by the group's 14-member Shura Council, or governing body, describes its relationship with Belmoktar as "a bleeding wound," and criticizes his proposal to resign and start his own group.

"Your letter ... contained some amount of backbiting, name-calling and sneering," they write. "We refrained from wading into this battle in the past out of a hope that the crooked could be straightened by the easiest and softest means. ... But the wound continued to bleed, and in fact increasingly bled, until your last letter arrived, ending any hope of stanching the wound and healing it."

They go on to compare their group to a towering mountain before raging storms and pounding waves, and say Belmoktar's plan "threatens to fragment the being of the organization and tear it apart limb by limb."

They then begin enumerating their complaints against Belmoktar in 30 successive bullet points.

"Abu Abbas is not willing to follow anyone," they add, referring to him by his nom de guerre, Khaled Abu Abbas. "He is only willing to be followed and obeyed."

First and foremost, they quibble over the amount of money raised by the 2008 kidnapping of Canadian diplomat Robert Fowler, the highest-ranking United Nations official in Niger, and his colleague. Belmoktar's men held both for four months, and in a book he later published, Fowler said he did not know if a ransom was paid.

The letter says they referred the case to al-Qaida central to force concessions in the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, a plan stymied when Belmoktar struck his own deal for 700,000 euros (about $900,000) for both men. That's far below the $3 million per hostage that European governments were normally paying, according to global intelligence unit Stratfor.

"Rather than walking alongside us in the plan we outlined, he managed the case as he liked," they write indignantly. "Here we must ask, who handled this important abduction poorly? ... Does it come from the unilateral behavior along the lines of our brother Abu Abbas, which produced a blatant inadequacy: Trading the weightiest case (Canadian diplomats!!) for the most meager price (700,000 euros)!!"

The complaint reflects how al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, initially considered one of the group's weaker wings, rose to prominence by bankrolling its operation with an estimated $89 million raised by kidnapping-for-ransom foreign aid workers and tourists. No less than Osama bin Laden endorsed their business model, according to documents retrieved in the terror leader's hideout in Pakistan.

The letter also confirms for the first time that payments from European governments went directly toward buying arms to carry out attacks against Western targets, as long speculated by experts. The council chides Belmoktar for not following this practice.

"(The chapter) gave Abu Abbas a considerable amount of money to buy military material, despite its own great need for money at the time. ... Abu Abbas didn't participate in stepping up to buy weapons," the letter says. "So whose performance deserves to be called poor in this case, I wonder?"

The list of slights is long: He would not take their phone calls. He refused to send administrative and financial reports. He ignored a meeting in Timbuktu, calling it "useless." He even ordered his men to refuse to meet with al-Qaida emissaries. And he aired the organization's dirty laundry in online jihadist forums, even while refusing to communicate with the chapter via the Internet, claiming it was insecure.

Sounding like managers in any company, the Shura leaders accuse Belmoktar of not being able to get along with his peers. They charge that he recently went to Libya without permission from the chapter, which had assigned the "Libya dossier" to a rival commander called Abou Zeid. And they complain that the last unit they sent Belmoktar for backup in the Sahara spent a full three years trying to contact him before giving up.

"Why do the successive emirs of the region only have difficulties with you? You in particular every time? Or are all of them wrong and brother Khaled is right?" they charge.

The letter reveals the rifts not only between Belmoktar and his superiors, but also the distance between the local chapter and al-Qaida central. The local leaders were infuriated that Belmoktar was essentially going over their heads, saying that even AQIM has had few interactions with the mother brand in Pakistan and Afghanistan, a region they refer to by the ancient name of Khorasan.

"The great obstacles between us and the central leadership are not unknown to you. ... For example, since we vowed our allegiance, up until this very day, we have only gotten from our emirs in Khorasan just a few messages, from the two sheiks, bin Laden (God rest his soul) and Ayman (al-Zawahri)," they write. "All this, despite our multiple letters to them."

Belmoktar's ambition comes through clearly not only in the bitter responses of his bosses, but also in his own words: "Despite great financial resources ... our works were limited to the routine of abductions, which the mujahedeen got bored with."

In another quote, he calls bin Laden and al-Zawahri "the leaders of the Islamic nation, not the leaders of an organization alone. We love them and we were convinced by their program. ... So it's even more now that we are swords in their hands."

To which AQIM replies with more than a hint of sarcasm: "Very lovely words. ... Do you consider it loyalty to them to revolt against their emirs and threaten to tear apart the organization?"

Belmoktar's defection was a long time in the making, and dates back to his time as a commander of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC. When the Iraq war started in 2003, his ambition created friction between younger Algerian fighters like himself, who wanted to join the global jihad, and an older generation whose only goal was to create an Islamic state in Algeria, according to Islamic scholar Mathieu Guidere, a professor at the University of Toulouse.

The younger faction won, but Belmoktar felt slighted because his contemporary, Abdelmalek Droukdel, was named emir of the GSPC, instead of him.

Soon after, the group petitioned to join al-Qaida. The terror network announced a "blessed union" on the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks in 2006.

Both Belmoktar and Droukdel wrote "candidacy letters" to bin Laden asking to be emir, according to Guidere's book on the subject. Again, Droukdel won.

Frustrated, Belmoktar drifted farther south. He set up in the ungoverned dunes of neighboring Mali, took a Malian wife and tapped into the smuggling routes that crisscrossed the Sahara, amassing arms and fiercely loyal fighters who called themselves, "The Masked Brigade."

His fighters killed more than a dozen soldiers at a military garrison in Mauritania in 2005 and gunned down four French tourists there in 2007. On multiple occasions Belmoktar was declared dead, including most recently in March, and each time, he re-emerged to strike again.

The sharpest blow in the council's letter may have been the accusation that, despite this history of terrorism, Belmoktar and his unit had not pulled off any attack worthy of mention in the Sahara.

"Any observer of the armed actions (carried out) in the Sahara will clearly notice the failure of The Masked Brigade to carry out spectacular operations, despite the region's vast possibilities there are plenty of mujahedeen, funding is available, weapons are widespread and strategic targets are within reach," the letter says. "Your brigade did not achieve a single spectacular operation targeting the crusader alliance."

In December, just weeks after receiving the letter, Belmoktar declared in a recorded message that he was leaving the al-Qaida chapter to form his own group. He baptized it, "Those Who Sign in Blood."

With that name, he announced his global ambition. "Those Who Sign in Blood" was also the name of an Algerian extremist unit that hijacked an Air France flight leaving Algiers in 1994. Though their goal to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower in Paris was thwarted, the unit foreshadowed the terrorist vision that led to the fall of the Twin Towers in New York.

On Jan. 11, French warplanes began bombarding northern Mali, the start of a now 5-month-old offensive to flush out the jihadists, including Belmoktar's brigade. Five days later, suicide bombers took more than 600 hostages in Ain Amenas in far eastern Algeria and killed 37, all but one foreigners, including American, French and British nationals. Belmoktar claimed responsibility in a triumphant recording.

It was no accident that he chose Ain Amenas, Guidere said. The area is in the home province of Abou Zeid, Belmoktar's longtime rival who commanded a different Saharan brigade and was always in step with the Algeria-based emirate.

"It's a punch in the gut," Guidere said. "It's saying, 'You've never been able to do anything even in your native region. Watch me. I'll carry out the biggest hostage operation ever in that very region. ... Ain Amenas is the illustration of his ability to do a quality operation, when he is under no authority other than his own, when he doesn't have to turn in expense reports or answer to anybody."

As if to turn the knife even further, last week Belmoktar also claimed responsibility for a May 23 attack at a French-owned uranium mine in Arlit, Niger. It was in Arlit in 2010 that Abou Zeid carried out his boldest operation and seized seven foreign hostages, including four French nationals who are still in the hands of AQIM.

In an apparent attempt to raise the stakes, Belmoktar's men slipped past a truck entering the mine and detonated explosives inside. More than 100 miles to the south, a different unit of fighters under his command killed 24 soldiers at a military camp, with help from another local al-Qaida off-shoot, called the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa.

Jean-Paul Rouiller, the director of the Geneva Center for Training and Analysis of Terrorism, compared the escalation in attacks to a quarrel between a man and a woman in which each tries to have the last word. "They accused him of not doing something," Rouiller said. "His response is, 'I'll show you what I can do.'"

Belmoktar might have seen a certain justice in the coverage of the last week's attack in Niger in the leading French daily, Le Monde. Among the adjectives used to describe the event: "Spectacular."

___

Rukmini Callimachi, AP's West Africa bureau chief, reported this article in Dakar, Senegal and Timbuktu, Mali. Lee Keath, AP's Mideast enterprise editor in Cairo, translated the Arabic letter into English. The letter can be found in Arabic and English at:

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/_pdfs/al-qaida-belmoktar-letter-english.pdf

http://hosted.ap.org/specials/interactives/_international/_pdfs/al-qaida-belmoktar-letter.pdf

___

Callimachi can be reached at www.twitter.com/rcallimachi

Michael Adebowale, 22, confirmed his name, address and date of birth as the investigation into the shocking killing entered its courtroom phase.

He is one of two men suspected of attacking Lee Rigby near military barracks in southeast London. The other, 28-year-old Michael Adebolajo, remains hospitalized and has not been charged. He is likely to be charged once he has recovered sufficiently to be released from hospital.

The daylight attack on Rigby by two men wielding knives and meat cleavers has aggravated tensions in Britain, especially since Adebolajo carrying bloody weapons invited onlookers to film him after the killing as he ranted about the British government's presence in Muslim lands. There has been a surge in anti-Muslim protests and attacks on mosques since the killing, and far-right groups have mobilized.

Security was extremely tight for Adebowale's first court appearance. He is scheduled to be back in court Monday for another hearing and remains in custody.

Adebowale was charged late Wednesday night, two days after he was released from hospital. He was also charged with threatening people with a revolver, police said.

Autopsy results made public Wednesday indicated that Rigby, 25, was first struck by a car and then attacked. He died of multiple stab wounds, the report said.

Both prime suspects were shot by police who arrived on the scene roughly 14 minutes after the soldier's death. Video showed two suspects rushing a police car that arrived on the scene, then being shot by police and given first aid on the ground.

Britain's Home Office, charged with managing Britain's borders and internal security, confirmed Thursday that the Greenwich area, which includes the attack site in Woolwich, was deemed in a 2011 governmental review to be at a low risk of extremist activity and so did not receive anti-terror funding under a government program, called Prevent.

This designation was reversed a year later, meaning anti-terror projects there could again be funded, but no proposals for that area were approved in that time frame. Before 2011, the funding was used to bring young people into contact with Muslim soldiers and other veterans. Other funded programs encouraged sports, art and discussion programs.

The Prevent plan, part of a broader anti-terror strategy run by the Home Office, depends in part on the belief that "radicalization and recruitment can be identified and then provided with support" that keeps vulnerable individuals from embracing militant viewpoints, its website states.

The goal is to intervene and halt the radicalization process before a crime is committed.

Kenyan police have said they believed Adebolajo, a British citizen, had earlier associated with a radical Kenyan Muslim cleric who tried to help him join an al-Qaida-linked rebel group in neighboring Somalia.

Adebolajo was arrested with five other young men in November 2010 near the Kenya-Somalia border and eventually returned to Britain, police in Kenya said.

British officials said the two main suspects had been known to them for some time as part of previous investigations. The attack has raised questions about whether Britain's intelligence services could have done more to prevent Rigby's killing.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supreme Court justices appeared divided on Monday as they considered a challenge to a law requiring non-profit organizations to adopt an anti-prostitution policy in order to obtain federal funding for HIV/AIDS programs abroad.

Several justices voiced concerns that the law imposes unconstitutional limits on freedom of speech, but others indicated the government had a right to direct how its money should be spent.

The 2003 law bars funding for non-governmental organizations that work on HIV/AIDS prevention but do not have a policy opposing prostitution and sex trafficking.

The Alliance for Open Society International and Pathfinder International - NGOs that receive funding for overseas HIV/AIDS prevention - sued in 2005, citing the First Amendment's guarantee of free speech.

The organizations challenging the provision do not want to take a stand on prostitution. They say the law interferes with their work providing advice and counseling to prostitutes about the risks of HIV infection.

The non-profit world is divided, with 46 groups, many of which focus on women's rights, supporting the law.

The groups obtained an injunction in 2006 that has prevented the policy from being enforced ever since.

Justice Elena Kagan is recused, most likely due to her previous role as solicitor general in the Obama administration, meaning only eight justices are presiding over the case.

At least three indicated they had concerns about the law, with Justice Samuel Alito the most outspoken.

He signaled discomfort with the general concept of the government having a broad right to direct groups it is funding on what they can and cannot say.

"It seems to me like quite a dangerous proposition," he said. Alito questioned whether, for example, the government could impose similar conditions to funding for higher education.

FIRST AMENDMENT QUESTIONS

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg focused on a move made by the Bush administration, later amended by the Obama administration, to resolve some of the First Amendment questions. The government has said that NGOs could set up affiliate groups to receive the funding without the parent organization having to announce a position on prostitution.

Ginsburg said that approach may not solve the problem because it's "no simple thing" for an NGO to set up a new organization in another country. She said that requiring this extra step is "quite an arduous" burden to place on NGOs.

Taking another line of attack, Justice Sonia Sotomayor questioned whether the law restricted an NGO's ability to "stay true to its own beliefs."

Other justices, while not wholeheartedly endorsing the government's argument in defense of the law, did not appear to feel that there was a problem in general with Congress attaching conditions on funding.

Justice Stephen Breyer said there were "dozens and dozens" of examples in which the government gave funding to groups because they shared the same goals. "Otherwise, they wouldn't be in the program," he said.

Chief Justice John Roberts said the government is "just picking out who is an appropriate partner."

Under a barrage of questioning from the justices, David Bowker, the NGOs' attorney, seemed momentarily stumped by one of Roberts' questions.

The chief justice asked whether, during the period in which South Africa was racially segregated, the U.S. government could have limited funding for public health programs to NGOs that were opposed to the policy, known as apartheid.

After a lengthy pause, Bowker conceded the question was tougher than the one posed in his case, but that it would still be impermissible for the government to make decisions on that basis.

The case is Agency for International Development v. Alliance for Open Society International, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 12-19.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Howard Goller and Bill Trott)

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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Follow Paul Newberry on Twitter at www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Congress awarded the Congressional Gold Medal to 14-year-olds Addie Mae Collins, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley, and 11-year-old Denise McNair, who were killed in the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama.

The girls' deaths at the height of conflict over the end to segregation were instrumental the passage of the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bans discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

"They gave their all," said U.S. Representative John Lewis, a Georgia Democrat and influential civil rights leader.

"This medal will serve as a compelling reminder of the sacrifices so many freedom fighters made to help us achieve equality and social change," Terri Sewell, an Alabama Democrat, and one of the bill's sponsors, said in a statement.

In 1963, Alabama was the center of a non-violent civil rights movement led by Martin Luther King and others that was met with violence from the Ku Klux Klan and state and local officials trying to enforce racial segregation laws.

"The civil rights victories were achieved by the principles of non-violence. Love carried the day against hate," Spencer Bachus, an Alabama Republican, who also sponsored the bill.

Scheduled to attend the White House signing ceremony were Birmingham Mayor William Bell and Doug Jones, a former prosecutor who finally brought the last two church bombers to justice in 2001 and 2002. Also attending were family members of Denise McNair and Carole Robertson.

"We feel that this honor given by Congress means that our great country recognizes the sacrifices made for freedom in our country," Lisa McNair, the 49-year-old sister of Denise McNair, told Reuters.

The families of Addie Mae Collins and Cynthia Wesley have criticized the medals as useless symbolism for families who received little compensation for an atrocious act.

"They were murdered. I am not going to go get the Congressional Medal until justice has been fulfilled. I want restitution," Sarah Collins Rudolph told Reuters.

She was the fifth girl in the church bathroom where the four were killed. She survived, but still suffers from her injuries. She has asked for $5 million in compensation as a victim of terrorism.

The medals are to be awarded at a Congressional ceremony later this year and will be displayed in the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

(Reporting by Verna Gates; editing by Jackie Frank)

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