With North Carolina's Tyler Hansbrough and Duke's Greg Paulus no longer around, fiery Maryland guard Greivis Vasquez expects to become Atlantic Coast Conference basketball fans' biggest target of verbal abuse this season.

His response: Bring it on.

It seems like Texas and either Florida or Alabama have been written into the national championship game since August. With three weeks left before the regular season ends and bowl season begins, now is the time those teams will show why they deserved to be glorified.

President Obama's just-concluded trip to East Asia did not result in major accords but was noteworthy nonetheless, for reasons somewhat overlooked.

BANGOR, Wash. - Specially trained Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions will help guard a Trident submarine base in Washington beginning next year, the Navy announced this week.

With the stock market up about 60 percent since bottoming out in March, Wall Street may appear to be not as dangerous a place to those who fled for safer havens when the market collapsed last fall.

But making a long-term decision based on short-term phenomenon can be risky business, as documented in a report T. Rowe Price sent to investors this month.

In most cases, I welcome seeing the number 11.

Blackjack. Craps. Even my favorite convenience store -- 7-11.

But that number just doesn't cut it when it totals the amount of carries the Dallas Cowboys give their three-headed rushing attack in a game.

In a move to track down uncounted Spanish-speakers, the U.S. Census Bureau is traveling to schools and telling children to explain the once-a-decade headcount to their parents. And the Census Bureau has enlisted a Spanish-language soap to include the census theme as a story line.

If fearful immigrants refuse to be counted, it could cost towns and cities much-needed government money.