Both team captains made surprise picks ahead of Friday’s opening rubbers in the Davis Cup final between defending champions Spain and the Czech Republic on clay in Barcelona.

While Vollmann confesses that his “rich and intellectual friends are happy and sad,” it’s disingenuous to ignore psychological makeup when considering the impoverished.There’s also the question of how much we can trust Vollmann’s stories. It’s too busy or too gritty, too nouveau riche or too superficial. The fate of Laker announcer Paul Sunderland probably won’t be known until sometime in May. Andrews is bunkers hit — and when Woods won in 2000, the number was zero.*He tied for 41st at St. Six doctors and 15 nurses reached Gizo on Wednesday.An Australian air force transport plane left Sydney before dawn today loaded with more relief supplies, a Defense Department official said.The United Nations said that at least 34 people were killed, raising the toll from 28, when waves as high as 16 feet smashed into the western Solomons after a magnitude 8.1 undersea earthquake.

“Jack” Boultbee, 62, of Toronto swindled Hollinger International out of millions of dollars by having the company pay for the renovation of one Park Avenue apartment for Black’s servants and buying another Park Avenue apartment from the company at far below the fair price.Besides Black and Boultbee, those charged are Peter Y Atkinson, 58, a Canadian attorney, and Mark S. Some complained about a wasted day, while others praised the youths’ activism.”What pleases me is that our kids are politically active,” said Ventura Unified School District Supt Trudy Arriaga. “Who else is going to watch the [Cleveland] Browns and [Baltimore] Ravens unless Jamal Lewis is on your fantasy team?”Sports marketers are scrambling to offer new products and services that target fantasy players; CBS and other broadcasters now incorporate fantasy programming into their regular fare.Last month, Texas-based Biap Systems unveiled Fantasy Sports Tracker, which allows cable viewers to track game-day exploits of their team members via a “crawler” at the bottom of the screen. ATLANTA As the bullpen door swings open and Dan Kolb steps through, the giant video board at Turner Field becomes a frenzy of colors and images.The shiny grill of an 18-wheeler appears first, melding into Kolb’s scowling face — all accompanied by the seething guitars of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman.”The crowd at Turner Field barely reacts to all the commotion.

97 Ford Taurus again this week.”My goal this week is a top-10,” said Wallace, 42, whose older brother Rusty is making what he says is his final NASCAR race Sunday after 25 seasons.A ceremony involving Busch’s championship flag was canceled after he was suspended by Roush Racing for inappropriate conduct when stopped for reckless driving last Friday near Phoenix International Raceway.*(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)Ford 400The final race of the NASCAR season with the Chase for the Nextel Cup still in the balance:Site: Homestead, Fla.* Schedule: Today, qualifying (Speed Channel, 10 a.m.); Sunday, race(Ch. Home to where the mighty Brahmaputra, Ganges and Meghna rivers meet, most of Bangladesh is a vast delta of alluvial plains that are barely above sea level, making it prone to flooding from waterways swollen by rain, snowmelt from the Himalayas and increased infiltration of the ocean.Global warming trends have already exacerbated that, and the situation will probably get worse, scientists say.”A little increase in temperature, a little climate change, has a magnified impact here,” said A. XI) Lions are loaded but have never played a top-25 opponent. He called for mandatory across-the-board spending cuts that would kick in if the budget slipped out of balance. The attributes emphasize that he is the source of all positive qualities in the universe.”We are living in a world united now — whether we like it or not — electronically, economically and politically,” Armstrong said in a telephone interview from New York. By Friday evening, he’d heard from his agents, other studio execs and an ecstatic Avi Arad, the head of Marvel Studios.