Perfect bracket nets you $1 billion

Basketball: Correctly predicting the outcome of every game in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament is no layup. There’s now a $1 billion prize waiting for anyone able to pull off the feat.

Quicken Loans Inc. announced Tuesday that it will team with investor Warren Buffett on the “Billion Dollar Bracket Challenge.”

Any qualified entrant who correctly predicts the winners of every game in the tournament will be paid in 40 annual installments of $25 million. A winner also can elect to receive an immediate $500 million lump-sum payment.

Associated Press

Metal detectors await Mariners fans

Baseball: Fans attending Seattle Mariners games at Safeco Field will have to walk through metal detectors starting with the 2014 season.

The Mariners’ additional security screenings comply with a mandate from MLB that all teams have a screening program in place by the start of the 2015 season.

The Mariners will have fans use walk-through magnetometers when their tickets are scanned at all public entrances. Fans who do not want to use the walk-through metal detectors will have the option of being checked with a hand-held device.

Associated Press

Seahawks fan little too fanatical

Football: When Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman made the game-saving play to send Seattle to the Super Bowl, a Bellingham resident celebrated the “Legion of Boom” defense by firing a shotgun into the air.

Police responded to neighbors’ complaints Sunday and found five shotgun shells in the yard of a 60-year-old man who admitted he was responsible for the booms.

The slightly intoxicated man was arrested for discharging a weapon within the city limits. The shotgun was impounded.

Bellingham Herald