North Dakota

FARGO, N.D. -- Out here on the wind-whipped prairies, North Dakota is accustomed to obscurity. Once, the state was even mistakenly omitted from an atlas of America.But North Dakota loomed large on the political map yesterday, and its two U.S. senators looked like a pair of Davids who had felled the Goliaths in Washington.After tantalizing Capitol Hill for days, the senators -- Kent Conrad and Byron Dorgan -- voted against the balanced-budget amendment, sealing, at least for now, its defeat.

Col. Wendell W. Wichmann, a highly decorated career Army officer who fought in three wars, died May 22 of renal failure at Lorien Mays Chapel Health Center in Timonium. He was 96. Wendell Willard Wichmann, the son of farmers, was born and raised in Leonard, N.D., where he graduated in 1934 from Minot High School. After earning a bachelor's degree in 1939 from what is now North Dakota State University, he taught math for three years in Waubun, Minn. Because he had attended reserve officers training during his college days and held a reserve officer's commission, he was called to active duty in mid-1941 and sent to Camp Claiborne, La., where he was assigned to Company D, 164th Infantry Regiment.

North Dakota is calling me. "Come on up!" it says. And then it adds: "Bring thermal underwear!" This invitation resulted from a column in which I poked fun at North Dakota for wanting to drop the word "North" from its name, so that people will stop thinking of it as a cold, frigid, freezing, subzero, arctic, polar, wintry place characterized by low temperatures. My column also made fun of Grand Forks, N.D., and East Grand Forks, Minn., for marketing themselves as "The Grand Cities" and proclaiming that they are "where the earth meets the sky."

SATURDAY'S TELEVISION HIGHLIGHTS NASCAR Nationwide Fontana ESPN5:30 F1 Australian Grand Prix SPEED1:30 a.m. MLB exhib. Toronto@Philadelphia MLB1 Cubs@Texas ESPN24 Minnesota@Boston MLB7 NBA New Jersey@Atlanta NBA7 Chicago@Milwaukee WGN-A8:30 D-II bask. Men's final: Bellarmine vs. BYU-Hawaii 13, 91 Boxing Yuriorkis Gamboa vs. Jorge Solis HBO9:45 PGA Arnold Palmer Invitational: 3rd rd. GOLF12:30 Arnold Palmer Invitational: 3rd rd. 11, 42:30 LPGA Kia Classic: 3rd rd. GOLF6:30 M. hockey NCAA MW semi: North Dakota vs. RPI MASN1:30 NCAA NE semi: Miami (Ohio)

VOLTAIRE, N.D. -- The wheat field outside Henry Frantsen's front door remains armed and dangerous.There is a silo burrowed 90 feet underground, hardened by concrete and steel, topped by a 110-ton hatch, a 20-foot antenna, and 10 yards of railroad track. And there is the missile, the one beneath the wheat, the one with the three nuclear warheads that each could wipe out a major city.For nearly a third of his 92 years, Mr. Frantsen, a second-generation North Dakota farmer, has lived side by side with the missile, a witness to a nuclear holocaust that never was."

WASHINGTON -- Another state -- North Dakota -- got a federal court's permission yesterday to start enforcing an anti-abortion law as the impact of the Supreme Court's latest ruling on that issue continued to spread across the country.Chief U.S. District Judge Rodney S. Webb of Fargo, N.D., ruled that the state's 24-hour waiting period and government-required doctor's medical-legal discussion of the abortion procedure to a woman seeking an abortion could now be enforced, 18 months after he had originally blocked it from going into effect.

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- An 18-year-old North Dakota man whose arms were severed in a farm accident and who then sat in a bathtub so he wouldn't bleed on his mother's carpet is recovering this week after surgeons reattached his limbs.If everything continues to improve for John Thompson, whose surgery at North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, Minn., took place Saturday, his will be one of the few successful double arm reattachments in U.S. history.Infection will be a major concern for five to 10 days, hospital spokeswoman Maggie Drury said.

MINNEAPOLIS - The University of North Dakota, after a couple of seasons of frustrating finishes, is back in the Frozen Four. The Fighting Sioux upended Niagara, 4-1, last night to become the first team booked for Providence, R.I. North Dakota (29-8-5) will take on the winner of today's Michigan-Maine game in an April 6 semifinal. "It's certainly going to be good to get back to the Final Four after three years of not getting there," said North Dakota coach Dean Blais. The Purple Eagles (30-8-4)

BISMARCK, N.D. -- A raw, sleet-filled wind drove across the plains, pushing the wind chill factor down to the misery level, and there was Jim Fuglie -- a plaid-shirted bundle of optimism -- laying plans to extol the virtues of North Dakota to the nation's tourists.Although Mr. Fuglie would not agree, his job as the state's director of tourism is formidable because North Dakota is a tough sell: It is flat as a checkerboard, wickedly cold in winter and, well, simply a place a lot of motorists hurry through, stopping only for gas. His promotion budget is $2 million, less than any state but Nebraska and Delaware.

MINNEAPOLIS -- Greg Gardner was asked if people might know more about him now. "I sure hope so," the Niagara University senior goaltender said. "I hope a few people know who Niagara is. That's more important to me." Gardner stopped 34 shots to lead Niagara to a shocking, 4-1 win over New Hampshire last night in the first round of the NCAA men's hockey tournament. The victory lifted the Purple Eagles into a second-round matchup against North Dakota today. The winner of the West Regional game will advance to the Frozen Four in Providence, R.I. While North Dakota has a strong hockey tradition dating to the 1940s, Niagara started an NCAA Division I program in 1996.

Morgan State (1-1) at North Dakota State (1-1) Time: 7 p.m. Site: FargoDome, Fargo, N.D. Radio: 88.9 FM Series: First meeting What's at stake: Saturday's game marks the first-ever meeting between the two schools. North Dakota State will be the fourth team Morgan State has faced from the Missouri Valley Football Conference, having gone winless in three previous contests. Morgan is coming off a 62-3 loss at Maryland last Saturday in the first-ever meeting between the teams.

Admittedly hurting at the wall and suffering a tad technically, Michael Phelps edged Peter Vanderkaay by 0.04 seconds in the 100-meter butterfly at the Charlotte UltraSwim on Friday, and won both events he entered in the USA Swimming Grand Prix Series event. Phelps, also scheduled to compete in the 100 backstroke on Saturday, needed a final push to hold off Vanderkaay, who passed Chloe Sutton for first place in the series standings by two points. "There was not much left in the tank there at the end," said Phelps, who trails Vanderkaay by three in series points for a $20,000 grand prize.

Off the top of his head, Herscheld Cooper can recall only one other storm - which he believes was in 1958 - that could rival what the state has seen the past five days. Back then, work crews didn't have the equipment to move the snow as they do now, and the 69-year-old Baltimore native remembers the event less for its intensity and more for how it crippled the city. "It wasn't real coordinated," Cooper reminisced as he smoked a cigar outside his senior apartment building.

These teams have earned automatic bids to the NCAA men's tournament by winning their conference tournaments: * Chattanooga, Southern * Cleveland State, Horizon * Cornell, Ivy League * East Tenn. State, Atlantic Sun * Gonzaga, West Coast * Morehead State, Ohio Valley * North Dakota State, Summit * Northern Iowa, Mo. Valley * Radford, Big South * Siena, Metro Atlantic Athletic * VCU, Colonial Athletic * Western Kentucky, Sun Belt automatic bids

Moves Baseball DODGERS -- Named former Ravens executive Dennis Mannion chief operating officer. PIRATES -- Named Greg Smith director of scouting, Kyle Stark director of player development and Bryan Minniti director of baseball operations. RANGERS -- Named Matt Walbeck third base coach and catching instructor. WHITE SOX -- Agreed to one-year contract with SS Juan Uribe. College NORTH DAKOTA -- Announced resignation of AD Tom Buning. PURDUE -- Suspended freshman F Keshia Mosley indefinitely from women's basketball team for violation of team rules.

GADGETS: Foreign phone calls The new National Geographic Talk Abroad Travel Phone lets users receive incoming phone calls without charge in 65 countries, including all of Europe. Rates begin at 90 cents a minute for outgoing calls in Europe, according to Cellular Abroad, the company that is distributing and servicing the phone. The phone, which has the National Geographic name and logo on it, works on a pre paid plan, so users do not have to sign a contract. It can be rented starting at $49 a week and purchased for $199.

I've landed in a place you'd never think to go: a prairie mecca of sauerkraut pizza and buffalo hot dogs, of bull-a-ramas and pitchfork fondues; where sunshine and hailstorms take unpredictable turns blasting the fascinating but wind-swept landscape -- and the fascinating but wind-swept people.I'm in a place where, out back at Bonanzaville in 102-degree heat, off-duty wheat researchers and auto mechanics are spending their Saturday re-enacting the pioneer fur trade, wearing handmade clothes -- and chomping on Dilly Bars from the local Dairy Queen.

PHILADELPHIA -- About 2 1/2 years ago, Philadelphia travel agent Hal Rosenbluth fell in love with a small town in North Dakota. The relationship has been blossoming ever since.By next spring, Mr. Rosenbluth's decision to move some data-processing work of his nationwide travel-management company to Linton, N.D., will evolve into a new line of business. The agency will open a conference center outside the little town for his employees and others who want a really remote setting in which to clear their minds.

GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- By virtually every barometer, this northern outpost that gave the world Cream of Wheat and a perennial college hockey powerhouse is on a run that makes real estate agents and urban planners salivate. In the past decade, the region added almost 12 percent more jobs. All the public schools are nearly new or rehabbed. A new river greenway twice the size of New York City's Central Park is a short walk from sold-out condos being built downtown. And, this afternoon, the city is hosting a free rib dinner in its stunning, multi-use arena.

In the tiny prairie town of Larimore, N.D., the police bust up barroom brawls and reprimand teens drag-racing on their all-terrain vehicles. But until recently, driving faster than the posted speed of 25 mph or parking on the wrong side of the street wouldn't elicit much attention from the town's two-man police force. After all, the neighbors in Larimore will probably be neighbors for life. They'll run into each other at the high school football game - where almost everyone in town turns out on Friday nights - or at the town's only bank.