February 25, 2003

As Annika Sorenstam, the world's top female golfer, prepares to play at a stop on the men's tour, she represents an evolution in the aspiration of female athletes. No longer are some elite women content simply with an opportunity to compete, a freedom hard won in the gender struggles of three decades ago. Increasingly, according to athletes, coaches and women's sports activists, women are seeking challenges to explore the full potential of their skills. When Sorenstam plays on the PGA Tour in May at the Colonial tournament in Fort Worth, she will become the latest in a string of women taking on men in sports traditionally separated by gender.

Doctors report that low doses of warfarin, cheap blood-thinning drug, can safely prevent dangerous blood clots in veins of people who are prone to them, and they urge immediate change in treatment for high-risk patients; full dose of drug, also sold as Coumadin, is now halted after three to six months to reduce risk of severe bleeding, and almost third of patients will form another clot within eight years; cutting dose in half after a few months of standard treatment reduces risk of more clots without increasing risk of hemorrhage (M)

British advertising company WPP Group reports declines in revenue and profit for 2002 and remains cautious on outlook for advertising sector in 2003; says net income fell to 25.5 million pounds ($40.4 million) from 219.6 million pounds year earlier; chief executive Sir Martin Sorrell comments; graph (S)

AOL Time Warner, seeking to sell its book publishing division, has elicited interest from Random House, unit of Bertelsmann, and HarperCollins, part of News Corp; all discussions have been preliminary and no terms have been discussed (M)

India's core industries grew 4.1 percent in January; concrete industry grew 9.2 percent; petroleum refining sector rose 9.2 percent, compared with 9.9 percent rise year ago; crude oil sector grew 0.4 percent, compared with 1.4 percent last year (S)

IN a sport that is dying a slow, public death, he is a fast-talking, self-assured life preserver. In a sport that has lost its soul and significance, falling in relevance to its present lowbrow status, slumping somewhere between pro wrestling and reality shows that feature bug-eating celebrities, he is a small piece of granite.

Patrick E Tyler analysis holds that Pres Bush's decision to go all out to win second United Nations Security Council endorsement to wage war on Iraq was made primarily to help Prime Min Tony Blair, who has come under fire in Britain, and that it risks diplomatic embarrassment in face of determined opposition of France, Germany and Russia; says that while Bush may not need legal authority to attack Iraq, he may need moral authority that comes with having shown that he has done everything within reason to test Saddam Hussein's willingness to disarm and to settle all questions of what happened to chemical and biological agents that have not been accounted for (M)

All Nippon Airways expects to lose twice as much money in fiscal year ending in March because of decline in domestic passenger traffic and price war with other carriers; says it will cut retirement and pension benefits by about 10 percent and eliminate about 1,200 jobs (S)

Cia de Bebidas das Americas, Latin America's largest brewer, says fourth-quarter net income rose to 431.4 million reais ($127 million) from 178.7 million reais year earlier; revenue increased 13 percent, to 2.44 billion reais (S)

Fifty years ago, James D Watson and Francis Crick's announcement that they had discovered structure of DNA began amazing biological revolution; indentifying this sequence of life sparked fast-paced advancements as quickly as it spawned worries of misuse; today, DNA helps criminologists convict guilty, as well as, protect innocent; new revelations and small successes push pace of research faster as scientists hope for cures to disease, tests to predict illness and new preventative medicines; DNA and study of human genome, still guided by its original foundation, is no longer pure science, but has become applied science; drawing (L)

York, Pa, Mayor John Brenner introduced in Dec 2002 unique way of bridging city's budget gap of $720,000; asks visitors to contribute $3.32, or cost of McDonald's Happy Meal, to raise money; Gov Edward G Rendell calls program innovative as he makes his own contribution (M)

Australia's Woolworths says first-half profit rose 18 percent, to 350 million Australian dollars ($211 million), as sales rose 11 percent, to 14.1 billion Australian dollars ($8.5 billion) (S)