Davis matched a career high with four hits as the Rangers wrapped up a 2-4 road trip and moved a half-game ahead of the idle Los Angeles Angels in the AL West.

With one out in the 12th, Nelson Cruz doubled to the right field gap off Esmerling Vasquez (1-2), snapping an 0-for-18 slump. One out later, Davis drove a 2-2 pitch into the right-field seats for his 14th homer.

Two pitches later, Murphy followed with a shot to the same vicinity for his fourth homer.

Eddie Guardado (1-1) pitched a scoreless 11th and Jason Jennings earned his first save in two chances despite yielding two runs in the 12th. Jennings gave up a two-out, two-run single to Miguel Montero before retiring Ryan Roberts to end the game.

Mark Reynolds hit a pair of two-run homers for the Diamondbacks, who dropped to 2-10-1 in home series this season. They haven’t won a series at Chase Field since taking two of three from the Chicago Cubs April 27-29.

Reynolds’ first homer came in the first inning against Scott Feldman and gave the Diamondbacks a 2-0 lead.

With Arizona down 6-4 in the eighth, Reynolds hit a 3-2 delivery from Frank Francisco an estimated 433 feet into the left field seats to tie the game.

It was the second time this season, and the sixth in his career, that Reynolds has homered twice in a game. He has 21 homers, fourth in the NL.

After spotting the Diamondbacks a 2-0 first-inning lead, Texas used two singles, two walks and two errors to rally for three runs in the third against Arizona starter Jon Garland.

Jarrod Saltalamacchia and Davis opened with singles and moved up on a bunt. After Garland walked Ian Kinsler to load the bases, Reynolds allowed a run to score on his 12th error.

Garland walked Young to force in another run, and then third baseman Augie Ojeda booted Andruw Jones’ hot grounder to give Texas a 3-2 lead.

After Kinsler led off the fifth with a double, the Rangers made it 5-2 on a two-run homer to left field by Jones, his ninth.

In the first, Texas shortstop Omar Vizquel singled for his 2,678th career hit, most by a native of Venezuela. The 42-year-old Vizquel moved ahead of Hall of Fame shortstop Luis Aparicio, who played in 107 fewer games.

Griffin was the consensus college player of the year after leading the nation with 14.4 rebounds per game while averaging 22.7 points last season for Oklahoma. Now he’ll try to turn around the long-suffering Clippers.

“I’m looking forward to it,” Griffin said. “I know what’s happened in the past, everybody keeps telling me that. But you know, I’m not going to say, ‘OK, we haven’t had that many winning seasons, why don’t we give up now?’”

That attitude, as much as his hardworking style of play that helped him lead the nation in double-doubles, immediately won over Los Angeles. The Clippers said they would take the forward with the top pick just hours after they won the draft lottery last month, and never considered changing their minds.

“The fact is we’re getting an incredible player, incredible person, an impeccable work ethic and a guy that we plan on having in L.A. for many years to come,” Clippers coach Mike Dunleavy said. “He’s going to be a great, exciting fit for our ballclub.”

The draft followed a day of big trades in the NBA.

The deal that sent Shaquille O’Neal to play alongside LeBron James in Cleveland was completed earlier Thursday, and Eastern Conference champion Orlando acquired Vince Carter from the Nets in a swap completed shortly before the first pick was made.

San Antonio landed Richard Jefferson from Milwaukee on Tuesday, and more big names could be available this summer as teams are forced to slash payroll. The best way to improve quickly this year was through trades, because the draft was considered weaker than in recent years.

It lacked the star power of 2007, when Greg Oden and Kevin Durant battled it out for top pick honors, or when Derrick Rose beat out Michael Beasley last year.

There was no debate this time.

The Clippers began a marketing campaign featuring Griffin the day after the lottery, and are hoping the forward turns out better than their last No. 1 overall pick. They opened the 1998 draft by taking center Michael Olowokandi, a bust who is out of the league.

“Hopefully I can bring something they don’t have,” Griffin said. “I know they have a lot of great players but at the same time I’m excited about the opportunity and hopefully I can bring something to the table that they don’t have or maybe they need.”

The Memphis Grizzlies then grabbed Connecticut center Hasheem Thabeet, a dominant rebounder and shot blocker who doesn’t have strong offensive skills.

After the two big men, the rest of the first round was dominated by guards — the Minnesota Timberwolves going for a few of them — with at least 10 players selected who could play the point. Seven guards went in the first 10 selections.

The Timberwolves snapped up Spanish teenager Ricky Rubio at No. 5, a pick they acquired from Washington earlier this week, before going for Syracuse’s Jonny Flynn with the next pick.

It was thought Rubio might go as high as No. 2, but that never worked out for Memphis. Instead the Grizzlies went with Thabeet, the 7-foot-3 native of Tanzania who switched from soccer to basketball just a few years ago. He has rapidly developed his defensive skills, but still has work to go on the other end.

“The whole season I spent working on my offense and working with so many different people, and to me this is a great opportunity to come out here and go play,” Thabeet said.

Rubio has to pay a multimillion dollar buyout to his Spanish club team to get out of his contract, and he said Wednesday his mother doesn’t like cold weather. So he sounded lukewarm about heading to Minneapolis.

“I have to think about that, because I’m just three minutes from a Timberwolves player,” he said. “So I’m going to talk with my agent about that and we are going to see.”

Oklahoma City took high-scoring Arizona State guard James Harden with the No. 3 pick and Sacramento followed by drafting Memphis freshman Tyreke Evans. Stephen Curry, the NCAA scoring leader from Davidson, went at No. 7 to Golden State.

Jordan Hill (New York), Demar DeRozan (Toronto) and Brandon Jennings (Milwaukee) rounded out the top 10, but Jennings didn’t come out to don his Bucks hat and shake hands with commissioner David Stern. His agent, Bill Duffy, released a statement earlier Thursday saying he had advised Jennings and his family not to attend the draft and wait in the green room because he was unsure of his client’s draft position.

However, Jennings — the point guard who skipped college to spend a year playing in Europe — came out from behind the stage, wearing the Milwaukee cap, to greet Stern and wave to the fans after the 14th pick was announced.

A run of forwards followed before Philadelphia grabbed another point guard, UCLA’s Jrue Holiday, who was considered a top 10 pick but tumbled to No. 17. Minnesota followed with its third point guard of the draft, Ty Lawson of national champion North Carolina — though he was shipped to the Denver Nuggets in yet another deal. Atlanta grabbed still another playmaker, Wake Forest’s Jeff Teague, at No. 19. Utah kept up the run by selecting Eric Maynor from Virginia Commonwealth.

The Knicks made a pair of trades, acquiring the No. 29 pick, guard Toney Douglas, from the Los Angeles Lakers for a future second-round pick and cash. New York also acquired former No. 2 overall pick Darko Milicic from Memphis for Quentin Richardson and cash.

Minnesota grabbed another playmaker, Florida’s Nick Calathes, in the second round, but dealt his rights to Dallas. The Wolves needed backcourt help after trading Randy Foye to Washington.

Second-round highlights included Pittsburgh teammates Sam Young and DeJuan Blair going with consecutive picks to Memphis and San Antonio at Nos. 36 and 37; and Taylor Griffin, Blake Griffin’s older brother, going to Phoenix with the 48th pick.

Blagojevich arrived back in Chicago shortly after midnight after spending several weeks in Costa Rica for the show. She was greeted at O’Hare International Airport by her husband, former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, daughters Annie and Amy, and her sister, Illinois State Rep. Deborah Mell.

Annie jumped into her mother’s arms as Patti Blagojevich got off the escalator at baggage claim, where the ousted former governor stood signing autographs and having his picture taken with onlookers.

Patti Blagojevich said the hardest part of appearing on the show was being away from her daughters. But she acknowledged the experience was a welcome distraction from her family’s troubles.

“It was nice to go down there and meet people that didn’t have an agenda with me, that became my friends and it helped restore my faith in people,” she said.

Now that Blagojevich has returned to real life in Chicago, she’ll resume dealing with the ongoing legal problems of her husband. Bounced out of office by lawmakers, Rod Blagojevich faces federal corruption charges for trying to sell the U.S. Senate seat once held by President Barack Obama. He has pleaded not guilty.

The reality series was an image-changer for Patti Blagojevich, who came off as a down-to-earth, well-liked mom. She spent 23 days on the show before getting voted off during Tuesday night’s episode. Actor Lou Diamond Phillips went on to win.

“I was totally flattered by the votes I received,” she said Friday.

Before the show, Blagojevich was mostly known for being a foul-mouthed political spouse caught on federal wiretaps prosecutors had made of her husband.

When she was asked if she thought she’d now be more famous than the former governor, Rod Blagojevich jumped in: “She’s a heckuva lot more popular.”

Patti Blagojevich has said she lost 12 pounds eating rice and beans in the jungle; one of the first things she wants to do at home in Chicago is eat ribs.

She also said her family has recorded all the shows for her and, after a good night’s sleep, she plans to watch them for the first time.

The 50-year-old musical superstar died Thursday, just as he was preparing for what would be a series of 50 concerts starting July 13 at London’s famed 02 arena. Jackson had been spending hours and hours toiling with a team of dancers for a performance he and his fans hoped would restore his tarnished legacy to its proper place in pop.

An autopsy was planned for Friday, though results were not likely to be final until toxicology tests could be completed, a process that could take several days and sometimes weeks. However, if a cause can be determined by the autopsy, they will announce the results, said Los Angeles County Coroner Investigator Jerry McKibben.

Police said they were investigating, standard procedure in high-profile cases.

Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in the posh Los Angeles neighborhood of Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital, where doctors continued to work on him.

“It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known,” his brother Jermaine said.

Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems.

Jackson’s death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music’s premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.

His 1982 album “Thriller” — which included the blockbuster hits “Beat It,” “Billie Jean” and “Thriller” — is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.

As word of his death spread, MTV switched its programming to play videos from Jackson’s heyday. Radio stations began playing marathons of his hits. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital. In New York’s Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.

“No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow,” Michael Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message a friend had sent him. “It’s like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died.”

The public first knew him as a boy in the late 1960s, when he was the precocious, spinning lead singer of the Jackson 5, the singing group he formed with his four older brothers out of Gary, Ind. Among their No. 1 hits were “I Want You Back,” “ABC” and “I’ll Be There.”

He was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation, known for his backward-gliding moonwalk, his feverish, crotch-grabbing dance moves and his high-pitched singing, punctuated with squeals and titters. His single sequined glove, tight, military-style jacket and aviator sunglasses were trademarks, as was his ever-changing, surgically altered appearance.

“For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don’t have the words,” said Quincy Jones, who produced “Thriller.” “He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I’ve lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him.”

Jackson ranked alongside Elvis Presley and the Beatles as the biggest pop sensations of all time. He united two of music’s biggest names when he was briefly married to Presley’s daughter, Lisa Marie. Jackson’s sudden death immediately evoked comparisons to that of Presley himself, who died at age 42 in 1977.

“I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible,” Lisa Marie Presley said in a statement. “I am heartbroken for his children who I know were everything to him and for his family. This is such a massive loss on so many levels, words fail me.”

As years went by, Jackson became an increasingly freakish figure — a middle-aged man-child weirdly out of touch with grown-up life. His skin became lighter, his nose narrower, and he spoke in a breathy, girlish voice. He often wore a germ mask while traveling, kept a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles as one of his closest companions and surrounded himself with children at his Neverland ranch, a storybook playland filled with toys, rides and animals. The tabloids dubbed him “Wacko Jacko.”

“It seemed to me that his internal essence was at war with the norms of the world. It’s as if he was trying to defy gravity,” said Michael Levine, a Hollywood publicist who represented Jackson in the early 1990s. He called Jackson a “disciple of P.T. Barnum” and said the star appeared fragile at the time but was “much more cunning and shrewd about the industry than anyone knew.”

Jackson caused a furor in 2002 when he playfully dangled his infant son, Prince Michael II, over a hotel balcony in Berlin while a throng of fans watched from below.

In 2005, he was cleared of charges that he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused of plying the boy with alcohol and groping him, and of engaging in strange and inappropriate behavior with other children.

The case followed years of rumors about Jackson and young boys. In a TV documentary, he acknowledged sharing his bed with children, a practice he described as sweet and not at all sexual.

Despite the acquittal, the lurid allegations that came out in court took a fearsome toll on his career and image, and he fell into serious financial trouble.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary. He was 4 years old when he began singing with his brothers — Marlon, Jermaine, Jackie and Tito — in the Jackson 5. After his early success with bubblegum soul, he struck out on his own, generating innovative, explosive, unstoppable music.

The album “Thriller” alone mixed the dark, serpentine bass and drums and synthesizer approach of “Billie Jean,” the grinding Eddie Van Halen guitar solo on “Beat It,” and the hiccups and falsettos on “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.”

The peak may have come in 1983, when Motown celebrated its 25th anniversary with an all-star televised concert and Jackson moonwalked off with the show, joining his brothers for a medley of old hits and then leaving them behind with a pointing, crouching, high-kicking, splay-footed, crotch-grabbing run through “Billie Jean.”

The audience stood and roared. Jackson raised his fist.

During production of a 1984 Pepsi commercial, Jackson’s scalp sustains burns when an explosion sets his hair on fire.

He had strong follow-up albums with 1987’s “Bad” and 1991’s “Dangerous,” but his career began to collapse in 1993 after he was accused of molesting a boy who often stayed at his home. The singer denied any wrongdoing, reached a settlement with the boy’s family, reported to be $20 million, and criminal charges were never filed.

Jackson’s expressed anger over the allegations on the 1995 album “HIStory,” which sold more than 2.4 million copies, but by then, the popularity of Jackson’s music was clearly waning even as public fascination with his increasingly erratic behavior was growing.

Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley in 1994, and they divorced in 1996. Later that year, Jackson married Deborah Rowe, a former nurse for his dermatologist. They had two children together: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., known as Prince Michael, now 12; and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson, 11. Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.

Jackson also had a third child, Prince Michael II. Now 7, Jackson said the boy nicknamed Blanket as a baby was his biological child born from a surrogate mother.

Billboard magazine editorial director Bill Werde said Jackson’s star power was unmatched. “The world just lost the biggest pop star in history, no matter how you cut it,” Werde said. “He’s literally the king of pop.”

Jackson’s 13 No. 1 one hits on the Billboard charts put him behind only Presley, the Beatles and Mariah Carey, Werde said.

“He was on the eve of potentially redeeming his career a little bit,” he said. “People might have started to think of him again in a different light.”

Jackson, a former child star who became one of the best-selling pop artists of all time before a descending into a strange and reclusive lifestyle, died on Thursday afternoon at a Los Angeles hospital, where he had been rushed in full cardiac arrest after collapsing at his nearby rental home.

His passing was front page news around the world, airwaves were filled with his greatest hits from “Thriller” to “Billie Jean,” social networking sites were bombarded with messages and tributes from fans and musicians continued to pour in.

“It’s so sad and shocking,” said former Beatle Paul McCartney. “I feel privileged to have hung out and worked with Michael. He was a massively talented boy man with a gentle soul. His music will be remembered forever.”

Few details were known about the circumstances surrounding Jackson’s death, but the entertainer was reportedly unconscious and not breathing by the time he arrived at UCLA Medical Center, and doctors were unable to revive him.

His body was flown by helicopter from the hospital to the coroner’s office late on Thursday.

Brian Oxman, a spokesman for the Jackson family, told CNN on Thursday the family had been concerned about his health and had tried in vain to take care of him for months.

“Michael appeared at rehearsals a couple of times, he was very seriously trying to be able to do those rehearsals,” Oxman said of Jackson’s preparations for a series of 50 concerts that were scheduled to begin in London in July.

“His use of medications had gotten in the way, his injuries which he had sustained performing, where he had broken a vertebrae and he had broken his leg from a fall on the stage, were getting in the way,” Oxman told CNN.

Authorities have scheduled an autopsy for Friday. But they cautioned it could take weeks to determine a cause of death, which will likely have to wait for the return of toxicology tests. Those tests will determine if Jackson had any drugs, alcohol or prescription medications in his system.

Detectives from the Los Angeles Police Department’s Robbery Homicide division searched Jackson’s home in the upscale Holmby Hills neighborhood of Los Angeles at the behest of Chief William Bratton. But they called the investigation an “every day” event.

TAINTED TALENT?

Jackson dominated the charts in the 1980s and is considered one of the most successful entertainers of the past century, with a lifetime sales tally estimated at 750 million records, 13 Grammy Awards and several seminal music videos to his name.

“Michael was and will remain one of the greatest entertainers that ever lived,” said Motown Records founder Berry Gordy, Jackson’s first label boss.

“He was exceptional, artistic and original. He gave the world his heart and soul through his music.”

But Jackson’s reputation as a singer and dancer was overshadowed in recent years by his increasingly abnormal appearance, and bizarre lifestyle, which included his friendship with a chimp and a preference for the company of children.

He named his estate in the central California foothills Neverland Valley Ranch, in tribute to the J.M. Barrie’s Peter Pan stories, and filled it with amusement park rides and a petting zoo.

Jackson was twice accused of molesting young boys and was charged in 2003 with child sexual abuse. He became even more reclusive following his 2005 acquittal and vowed he would never again live at Neverland.

Facing a battered reputation and mountain of debts the Wall Street Journal reported ran to $500 million, Jackson had spent the last two months rehearsing for the London concerts, including Wednesday night at the huge Staples Center arena, home to the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team.

Despite reports of Jackson’s ill-health, the promoters of the London shows, AEG Live, said in March Jackson passed a 4-1/2 hour physical examination with independent doctors.

“I can’t stop crying over the sad news,” Madonna said in a statement. “I have always admired Michael Jackson. The world has lost one of the greats but his music will live on forever.”

Jackson was born on August 29, 1958, in Gary, Indiana, the seventh of nine children and first performed with his brothers as a member of the Jackson 5.

His 1982 album “Thriller” yielded seven top-10 singles. The album sold 21 million copies in the United States and at least 27 million internationally.

The following year, he unveiled his signature “moonwalk” dance move, gliding across the stage and setting off an instant trend, while performing “Billie Jean” during an NBC special.

In 1994, Jackson married Elvis Presley’s only child, Lisa Marie, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1996.

“I’m so very sad and confused with every emotion possible. … This is such a massive loss on so many levels, words fail me,” Presley said in statement.

Jackson married Debbie Rowe the same year and had two children, before splitting in 1999, and he later had another child with an unidentified surrogate mother.

He is survived by three children named Prince Michael I, Paris Michael and Prince Michael II, known for his brief public appearance when his father held him over the railing of a hotel balcony, causing widespread criticism.

Despite going 0-5 against the Red Sox this year, the Yankees went north following Monday night’s 5-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays with a one-game AL East lead and the best record in the American League. Now they have to figure out how to beat Boston.

“Obviously we would like to get payback and say all that good stuff, but we have to go out and play well,” Johnny Damon said.

Mark Teixeira, Nick Swisher, Damon and Derek Jeter homered against Andy Sonnanstine (4-6), who gave up four homers for the first time in his big league career and dropped to 1-6 on the road.

New York has won 19 of its last 25 games, improving to 34-23 after its usual slow start.

“Obviously, we’re playing a lot better,” Jeter said. “We don’t really take too much stock in what happened however long ago we played them.”

When the Yankees played at Fenway from April 24-26 and faced the Red Sox at home May 4-5, they were missing Alex Rodriguez.

“When Alex was out of the lineup, we were still scoring some runs. We were falling behind teams and coming back. We just weren’t pitching as good as we are now,” Jeter said. “Our starters have been good. Our bullpen has been good, and Mo has been Mo.”

Mariano Rivera finished with a perfect ninth for the second straight day, getting save No. 496, his 14th in 15 chances this year. Yankees manager Joe Girardi said Rivera, who rebounded from Saturday’s loss, might not be available Tuesday after pitching three days in a row and throwing 42 pitches. But his closer said he’d be ready,

“Oh, definitely, we need to win a game there,” he said.

Teixeira’s solo homer in the first and Swisher’s two-run drive in the second built a 3-0 lead, but the Rays tied the score in the fourth when Rodriguez bobbled Ben Zobrist’s leadoff grounder to third for an error. Michel Hernandez had an RBI single and Gabe Kapler followed with a two-run homer to left, Kapler’s first home run since Sept. 7 for Milwaukee off San Diego’s Chris Young.

Solo homers by Damon in the sixth and Jeter in the eighth finished Sonnanstine.

“I just think we didn’t hit enough balls to right-center. There’s a conveyor-belt effect out there,” Rays manager Joe Maddon said. “It’s kind of like a jet stream.”

There have been 105 homers in 29 games at the new ballpark, a sharp increase from the 160 last season at the original Yankee Stadium, and 63 have been hit to right and right-center. New York won despite finishing with just six hits — and no plate appearances with runners in scoring position for the first time since May 14, 2006.

Andy Pettitte (6-2) allowed three runs — two earned — and five hits in six innings, striking out a season-high seven. After walking 11 in his previous two starts, he cut his bases on balls to three.

“I probably felt as strong as I’ve felt all year starting the game out,” he said.

All-Star third baseman Evan Longoria returned to the Rays’ starting lineup after missing nearly a week with an injured left hamstring and went 0-for-3 with three strikeouts and a walk. Since injuring the leg while running out a grounder last Tuesday, Longoria had been limited to a pair of pinch-hitting appearances against the Yankees.

“He came in. He was adamant. He felt ready to go today, so we threw him out there,” Maddon said.

Athletics 4, Twins 3

At Oakland, Calif., Jack Cust hit a go-ahead solo homer if the fifth off Luis Ayala (1-2) after Jack Hannahan’s tying three-run double, and the A’s won their seventh straight.

It is Oakland’s longest win streak since an eight-game spurt from June 8-16, 2006.

Rookie Josh Outman (4-0) fell behind in the fourth when Carlos Gomez drew a two-out, bases-loaded walk and Matt Tolbert hit a two-run single.

Blue Jays 6, Rangers 3

At Arlington, Texas, Adam Lind hit a pair of two-run homers off Scott Feldman (5-1), who lost for the first time in nine starts this season, and Toronto stopped a nine-game road losing streak.

Casey Janssen (2-2) gave up three runs, six hits and struck out six in 5 1-3 innings. Scott Downs got the final out in the eighth and finished for his eighth save in nine chances.

White Sox 6, Tigers 1, 1st game

Tigers 5, White Sox 4, 2nd game

At Chicago, Jose Contreras (1-5) returned from the minors and allowed one hit in eight innings to win for the first time since June 27, earning the White Sox a doubleheader split.

Alexei Ramirez, Scott Podsednik and Jim Thome homered off Jeremy Bonderman (0-1), who pitched four innings in his first major league appearance since June 1 last year. Bonderman had surgery June 30 last year to correct a condition that caused a blood clot in his pitching arm.

In the opener, Brandon Inge hit a go-ahead single in the ninth off Scott Linebrink (2-3) after Joel Zumaya (3-0) allowed a tying homer to Paul Konerko in the eighth. Fernando Rodney worked the ninth for his 11th save in as many chances for the AL Central-leading Tigers.

Furyk missed the cut in 2002 with rounds of 73 and 80 on the difficult New York course, recalling a setup that “was definitely not good for my game.”

“Of all the U.S. Opens I’ve played, it probably was the most problems for me,” Furyk said Monday before hosting his annual Exelon Invitational charity event, which included Anthony Kim, Kenny Perry and Paul Casey, at The ACE Club in suburban Philadelphia.

Furyk comes into the Open having finished second to Tiger Woods by one shot in the Memorial on Sunday. Woods is the defending U.S. Open champion — and also won it seven years ago at Bethpage.

In his return to Bethpage, Furyk, who won the U.S. Open in 2003 at Olympia Fields near Chicago, is resting his hopes on the United States Golf Association’s kinder, gentler setup in recent years — along with a weather pattern more conducive to scoring.

“I’m hoping its not winter again there, put it that way,” Furyk said. “It was in the 50s, raining sideways and blowing. That’s not summer, I’m sorry.

“I think, more importantly, we have a new setup for U.S. Opens the last few years. I think the positive I’m taking is going to Bethpage with an open mind thinking that it’s going to be different than it was last time and hopefully a little more suited for my game.”

Perry also recalls a bear of a golf course. He made the cut, finishing tied for 45th at 15-over par, but he has not forgotten the test.

“In 2002, I remember there wasn’t a birdie hole out there,” Perry said. “I remember the rain, the thick rough. It just seemed like if you didn’t hit the fairway, every hole was a struggle.”

He said he’ll use a strategy similar to his approach at this year’s Masters, where he lost to Angel Cabrera in a playoff, and that’s to focus on getting the ball in the fairway and go from there.

“I’m going in there with a driver with a little more loft. I’m going to try to get something to act like a 2-wood, just to make sure I get the ball in play this year,” he said. “That’s kind of what I did at Augusta. I made sure I got it in the fairway, didn’t short-side myself on the greens. I tried to give myself as many par opportunities and maybe steal a birdie here or there.

“Hopefully by the end of the day we’re in good shape.”

Neither Casey nor Kim, two of the PGA Tours young stars, were in the field in 2002. Neither has ever even played Bethpage Black.

“I’m excited to see it and having not experienced it in ‘02, I don’t have, should we say, the scars from the stories I’ve heard and how tough it was,” said Casey, ranked No. 3 in the world. “The way the USGA announced setting up the Open with the graduated rough and maybe moving some tees around, I think it will be quite a different golf course.”

Casey will get his first look at the course during a practice round on Tuesday. He’s already received advice from fans who have played the public course.

“I’ve been getting advice from the people we’ve been meeting out (on Tour), shaking hands and signing autographs, who are telling me about the holes,” said Casey, whose best U.S. Open finish in six starts was a tie for 10th in 2007 at Oakmont. “I like the challenge, sometimes I’m good at it, sometimes I’m not but that’s why we play the game. We want to test ourselves not only against the best players, but the toughest golf courses in the world and this has a reputation of being exactly that.”

Kim will play a practice round Thursday before caddying for pop singer Justin Timberlake on Friday in Golf Digest’s U.S. Open Challenge.

“I’ve heard that course is a monster,” Kim said. “I’m going to spend a little time up there and get ready, maybe play Thursday, caddie Friday and head back (home) and come back on Tuesday so it doesn’t beat me up too bad before the event starts.”

Some say the same whims that informed their long sentence could work in the favor of Ling and Lee, who were reporting for Al Gore’s Current TV when they were detained. North Korean activists like Seoul-based Kim Sang Hun, who has interviewed nearly two dozen former prisoners, says that the journalists “won’t see the real conditions” in the North’s prison system because even Pyongyang knows the situation in the country’s penal system is something to be ashamed of - a humiliating condition that the Americans would only bear witness to once they were released. Kim thinks the journalists probably will not endure corporal punishment, and could, in fact, be out of North Korea soon, depending on the political climate between Pyongyang and Washington. “There’s no rule of law, so the sentence is meaningless,” says Kim.

The Americans are likely to be separated from the general prison population and may be secluded from the true hardships of penitentiatry life. That doesn’t mean it will be easy. North Korea’s prisons and camps are scary places, the horrors of which are gradually becoming known to the world. Indeed, Kim and others believe that while the two women will be treated differently, they will still probably be sent to a “regular” prison - called a kyohwaso or reformatory - a more dire fate than a prison for political prisoners. Kyohwaso life is extremely harsh: scholars estimate only 50% of prisoners survive their first year. One of the first accounts of the North Korean prison system, a 2000 memoir called The Aquariums of Pyongyang, tells of routine torture and deprivations on par with Nazi concentration camps. The book’s author, Kang Chol Hwan, was imprisoned in Yodok concentration camp at the age of 9 for 10 years with his family, where he suffered starvation, disease and was forced to attend public executions. “I attended some 15 executions during my time in Yodok,” he wrote. Kang was imprisoned at the camp because his grandfather had been sentenced for suspicious behavior. “It’s guilt by association,” says Tim Peters, a Christian activist living in South Korea who has helped numerous North Korean defectors find safe havens in other countries.

Shin Dong Hyuk, a 27-year-old who is reportedly the only living former prisoner to escape a North Korean prison camp, also wrote a recent book about his experiences, Escape to the Outside World. Shin says he was born and raised in a camp about 55 miles north of Pyongyang, and like many prisoners, witnessed routine atrocities, including the execution of both his mother and brother. Before his escape in 2005, Shin was tortured at least twice, once for accidentally dropping a sewing machine in the garment factory where he was forced to work at the camp. He also watched a prison guard beat a small girl to death for hiding a few grains of wheat in her pocket.

Kim Tae Jin, president of a Seoul-based organization called the North Korean Gulag Shutdown Movement, spent four years in Yodok for trying to escape the country. “I was always hungry and cold,” he says, recalling life in the camp. He recalls scavenging for dead rodents and snakes to eat. “When I found one, that would be a good day,” he said. At his camp, he explains, it “was normal for the prison guards to be cruel. No one had hope or cared about anything,” says Kim, who was finally released. The camps’ pervasive sense of hopelessness is a common theme woven through many defectors’ accounts, says Peters. “Any sense of justice is completely absent,” he says. “People often don’t even know what their crime is. It is really grim stuff.”

These stories come from North Korean survivors who did not have the potential advantage of the world’s attention as they served out their long and difficult sentences. Lee and Ling have the Obama administration moving on their behalf; the White House has already urged North Korea to release them “on humanitarian grounds.” Knowledgable sources about North Korean politics and prisons say Pyongyang will not allow their high-profile prisoners to starve to death, die of disease or endure torture. Small comfort. In any case, since their detention in March, the journalists have been visited by representatives of Sweden’s embassy in Pyongyang, and over the weekend, some news outlets reported that former U.S. Vice President Al Gore may also be trying to go to North Korea on their behalf. How quickly those outside influences will make their way inside North Korea’s camps, however, remains to be seen.

If HarperCollins publishes the new edition of “Triple Cross” by Peter Lance this month “and it defames me or casts me in a false light, HarperCollins will be sued,” Patrick Fitzgerald said in a letter to the New York-based company.

The book focuses on, among other things, major terrorism cases that Fitzgerald prosecuted when he was an assistant U.S. attorney in New York in the 1990s.

Its content goes beyond normal criticism, which “goes with the territory” for public figures, Fitzgerald told The Associated Press on Monday.

“This is different,” he said. “The book lied about the facts and alleged that I deliberately misled the courts and the public in ways that in part caused the deaths in the 1998 embassy bombing attacks and in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.”

Fitzgerald said the lives lost in those attacks were personal for him and he decided to stand up for himself because “it is outrageous to falsely accuse me of causing those deaths corruptly.”

The author said Fitzgerald has tried to “kill” the book with “baseless” allegations.

“Patrick Fitzgerald accuses me of making charges in the book that I never made,” Lance said. “At the same time, he continually fails to respond to the substantive allegations documented in 604 pages, 1,425 end notes and 32 pages of documentary appendices.”

He said the book was revetted “out of an abundance of caution” and because the accusations were made by Fitzgerald, known for successfully prosecuting prominent terrorism and public corruption cases.

The new edition with 26 additional pages and an introduction responding to Fitzgerald will be published June 16, Lance said.

HarperCollins spokeswoman Erin Crum and publisher Jonathan Burnham did not immediately return telephone calls on Monday.

Fitzgerald has been U.S. attorney in Chicago since September 2001. He won a conviction against former Illinois Gov. George Ryan for political corruption, and as a special prosecutor successfully presented the case against former vice presidential aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who was convicted of lying to a grand jury in the CIA leak investigation.

As an assistant U.S. attorney in New York he successfully prosecuted major terrorism cases such as those responsible for the 1998 bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa and Omar Abdel-Rahman, the so-called “blind sheik” convicted in 1995 of plotting to bomb the Holland Tunnel and other key sites around the city.

Manohara Odelia Pinot, 17, last week told reporters she was treated like a sex slave after her marriage last year to Tengku Temenggong Mohammad Fakhry, the prince of Malaysia’s Kelantan state.

She escaped the prince’s guards at a Singapore hotel and returned to her family in Indonesia with tales of abuse, rape and torture at the hands of the 31-year-old prince.

“There are slash wounds on many parts of her body, especially on her chest. Some are still fresh,” forensic doctor Mun’im Idries said.

“We are still examining her blood and urine samples because she said she had been given jabs,” he said adding that he also found an injection mark on her back.

Manohara — a well-known socialite in Jakarta — claimed to have been cut with a razor and injected with drugs which made her vomit blood while being held under guard in her bedroom at the palace.

She said after the examination on Tuesday that the prince would have sexual intercourse after injecting her with an unidentified substance.

“I don’t know what I had been given but I could not move. I could see, feel, hear and smell… my senses are still there but I couldn’t move,” she told TV One channel.

With the help of Singapore police, the former model escaped home to Jakarta while visiting her father-in-law, Sultan Ismail Petra Shah II who was being treated at a Singapore hospital.

“The medical examination has been completed and the result confirmed that there is physical abuse all over her body. Her story has proven to be true,” one of her lawyers Farhat Abbas said.

He said his client on Tuesday formally lodged a written report on the alleged abuse with the Indonesian police. Besides the prince, she had named six other people, including the sultan and his wife, as accomplices.

“We have received the report today,” national police spokesman Abubakar Nataprawira said.

“Indonesian police is not able to investigate the case as the alleged abuse took place in Malaysia which is out of our jurisdiction. But we will assist in reporting the case to Malaysian police,” he added.