Sacramento

CITRUS HEIGHTS, Calif. - After a 10-day, coast-to-coast manhunt, authorities found murder suspect Nikolay Soltys hiding in his mother's back yard yesterday, capturing him moments after his breakfasting relatives fled the home in terror to call for help. Barefoot, disheveled and carrying a potato peeler and a map, Soltys was arrested without incident by undercover officers who had kept his family under surveillance since the bloody killings of his wife, son and four other relatives. Sacramento County Sheriff Lou Blanas said the unshaven Soltys may have been hiding for several days in a wooded ravine behind his mother's home.

Baseball Athletics: Purchased contract of P Erik Hiljus from Triple-A Sacramento. Recalled OF Eric Byrnes from Sacramento. Optioned C Tom Wilson to Sacramento. Blue Jays: Placed IF Chris Woodward on 15-day DL with strained right groin. Recalled 1B Luis Lopez and P Roy Halladay from Triple-A Syracuse. Dodgers: Activated IF Tim Bogar Giants: Signed P Brad Hennessey, first-round draft pick, to $1.38 million contract. Mets: Purchased contract of C Vance Wilson from Triple-A Norfolk. Reds: Assigned P Ricardo Aromboles to Double-A Chattanooga.

Baseball Angels: Activated P Ismael Valdes. Optioned P Brian Cooper to Triple-A Salt Lake. Athletics: Recalled P Luis Vizcaino from Triple-A Sacramento. Optioned OF Ryan Christenson to Sacramento. Basketball Bucks: Activated F Jerome Kersey. College Saint Louis: Named Brad Soderberg, former Wisconsin interim men's basketball head coach, assistant coach. Texas Tech: Named Chris Beard men's assistant basketball coach. Football Patriots: Signed RB Chris Fuamatu-Ma'afala to one-year contract offer sheet; Steelers have until Friday to match.

SACRAMENTO -- Gov. Gray Davis sat at the far end of a long table in an unlit conference room the other day, quietly explaining how he intended to rescue California -- and perhaps his own political career -- from the dark shadow of the worst electricity crisis in the state's history. Leaving the lights off was a small symbolic gesture of the power conservation that is a key element, along with increased power generation, in his formula for getting through a dicey spring and an expected rougher summer, amid the severe power shortage that has brought "rolling blackouts" into the American lexicon.

WASHINGTON - For once, the Washington Wizards had the perfect excuse to take a mental night off, and didn't, but as usual, it didn't matter. With the Sacramento Kings, the fourth best team in the NBA, visiting on a snowy night when Washington's best player, Juwan Howard, had been traded to the Dallas Mavericks before the game, the Wizards had every excuse to phone it in at MCI Center last night. Instead, the Wizards gave an inspired effort before dropping a 115-110 decision to the Kings (35-17)

Maid to Perfection Corp., a Baltimore-based cleaning franchise company, wants to sweep the nation with 100 new franchises by the end of the year. In November, the company began announcing ambitious plans to acquire independent maid companies and janitorial services. Newspapers in Detroit, central Ohio, Pittsburgh and Sacramento, Calif., published articles saying Maid to Perfection would open 10 businesses in six months. It also announced plans to expand into Arizona. Now, Maid to Perfection is abandoning the Detroit area.

The four remaining teams in the NBA's Western Conference playoffs owe the Sacramento Kings in general and Chris Webber in particular a small debt of gratitude. The Los Angeles Lakers should thank the Kings for pushing them to the limit in a five-game, opening-round series that ended with the league's best regular-season team and pre-playoff favorite winning, 113-86, Friday night. The Phoenix Suns, who will face the Lakers in the conference semifinals beginning today in Los Angeles, as well as the Portland Trail Blazers and the Utah Jazz, should thank Webber for showing the way to finish what the rest of the Kings couldn't.

David Stern can climb back in off the ledge. The Lakers have lived to see the second round of the playoffs. Faced with an elimination game way before anyone had ever imagined, the Los Angeles Lakers never were in danger of choking away their season last night. With Shaquille O'Neal giving an Most Valuable Player-like performance, the Lakers played like the same juggernaut everyone saw in the regular season and all other remaining playoff teams fear. By blowing out the Kings, 113-86, in Game5 of their first-round series, the Lakers advanced to meet Phoenix in the conference semis, with the opener on tomorrow here at Staples Center.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- The turnaround here in reading is stunning. From 1998 to 1999, first-grade reading scores in Sacramento jumped from the 54th national percentile to the 61st. Second-graders leapt from the 35th percentile to the 50th. And this took place in a school system in which almost two-thirds of the students come from low-income families. For teachers such as Julie Peterson, there's no secret behind this city's newfound success in reading. "It's the instruction," says the first-grade teacher at Ethel I. Baker Elementary School.

With no disrespect to Allen Iverson and Stephon Marbury, rookie point guard Jason "White Chocolate" Williams just might have the best handle in the NBA. Triple-double threat Chris Webber and Vlade Divac are probably the best passing front line in the league.Let's face it: Showtime is in California, but it ain't in Los Angeles. It's in northern California, where the Sacramento Kings have emerged as the most exciting team in the NBA.But will that excitement translate to success for a franchise that has failed to record a winning season since moving from Kansas City to Sacramento in 1985?