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Louisville basketball coach Rick Pitino and the attorney for a woman accused of attempting to extort him have started the trial's fourth day of testimony with a heated exchange. Attorney James Earhart questioned Pitino on Thursday about calls made to the coach's phone about his 2003 encounter inside a restaurant with Karen Cunagin Sypher.

Olympic organizers will create designated routes across 2.5 percent of London's roads to help athletes, officials and dignitaries get around the congested city during the 2012 Games. A total of 105 miles of roads will be designated as part of the Olympic Route Network, organizers said Thursday. The roads will remain open to regular users but traffic signals will be adjusted and roadwork...

By STUART CONDIE AP Sports Writer

Sports Editors: The U.S. Olympic Committee will accept requests from media organizations starting Tuesday for accreditation to the 2012 Olympic Games in London. The application form is available through the USOC's media-specific site, USOCPressbox,org. Click here to go to the request site: http://pressbox.teamusa.org/Pages/Credentials.aspx.

With the economy spiraling downward and sponsors running away faster than Usain Bolt, the Olympics needed money. Big money. And fast. So, leaders of Olympic organizations started thinking outside the box, peddling their famous rings to new companies, selling multimillion-dollar sponsorship deals to pretty much anyone willing to pay the price.

By EDDIE PELLS AP National Writer

Former NBA All-Star Stephon Marbury has agreed to three more years with a Chinese basketball team, whose owners will set up a company to produce and sell his line of athletic apparel and shoes, the team said Thursday. Marbury played 15 games last season with Shanxi Zhongyu of the Chinese Basketball Association.

China will not tolerate age falsification and has enforced stringent checks on its 70-athlete delegation to the inaugural Youth Olympics in Singapore next month, a top sports official was quoted Thursday as saying. China has long been accused of athlete age falsification. Earlier this year, its women's gymnastics team from the 2000 Sydney Olympics was stripped of its bronze medal after an...

Relatives and friends of Lorenzen Wright gathered Wednesday and grieved for the former NBA player who has been missing for 10 days, as police investigated the discovery of a man's body outside of Memphis. Wright's uncle, Curtis Wright, told The Associated Press that police called the player's father, Herb Wright, Wednesday afternoon with the news he had died.

Los Angeles Lakers center Andrew Bynum is expected to be limited at the start of training camp after undergoing successful surgery on his right knee Wednesday. Bynum had arthroscopic surgery in New York to repair a partially torn ligament. The 7-foot center initially discovered the tear in his meniscus during the Lakers' first-round playoff series against Oklahoma City.

Max Cobb, executive director of the U.S. Biathlon Association, has been named president and CEO of the US Biathlon Team. Team chairman Larry Pugh said on Wednesday that the board wanted to acknowledge the contributions Cobb has made to the sport over the last 20 years. Cobb joined the USBA in 1989 as the head of the domestic race series, and a year later was named assistant coach and manager of the...

A person familiar with the deal says Josh Howard has agreed to a one-year contract to return to the Washington Wizards. The person told The Associated Press on Wednesday that Howard is set to come back after playing only four games with the team last season. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal hasn't been signed.

The Los Angeles Clippers have re-signed free agent forward Rasual Butler. He averaged a career-high 11.9 points, 2.9 rebounds and 33 minutes in 82 games with the team last season. Butler hit 41 percent from the floor, and set a franchise record with 145 3-pointers. "I'm so happy to be back with the Clippers so much unfinished business!" Butler tweeted Wednesday.

Hawks coach Larry Drew is adding former New Orleans Hornets assistant Kenny Gattison to his new staff as an assistant coach. Drew says Gattison adds knowledge and experience to the Hawks. Gattison was with the Hornets from 2003-09. Gattison says the Hawks are "young and talented" as they come off a 53-win season.

West Virginia University says men's basketball coach Bob Huggins has been released from a Las Vegas hospital. The university says Huggins was released Wednesday. He had been hospitalized since breaking seven ribs in a fall in his hotel room on Friday while in Nevada on a recruiting trip.

The Houston Rockets have traded center David Andersen to Toronto for cash and a future second-round draft pick. The 6-foot-11 Australian averaged 5.8 points and 3.3 rebounds in 63 games last season, his first in the NBA. Andersen helped fill the void for Houston while Yao Ming sat out last season with a foot injury.

The United States is down to just two centers, and one of them better pick it up if he wants to make it to Turkey. USA Basketball trimmed its roster of candidates for the world championships Wednesday to 15, a guard-heavy group that features Brook Lopez and Tyson Chandler as its only centers. Rookie of the Year Tyreke Evans, O.J.

Kevin Coble, one of Northwestern's top players, has chosen to skip his senior season after sitting out with a broken left foot last year. The team's leading scorer and rebounder for three years, Coble was injured in a preseason practice and had surgery. In a statement, he says his rehabilitation "is most important," and he will continue to follow the schedule set by his surgeon.

Chris Bosh's former general manager says the player was "checked out" late last season and chose not to play some of the Raptors' final games. Talking on radio station FAN 590 in Toronto, Bryan Colangelo said Bosh wasn't the same player toward the end of the year. Colangelo said on Monday's show that whether Bosh was "mentally checked out or, you know, just wasn't...

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