Sand

After six highly successful years of exploring the red sands of Mars, NASA's rover Spirit will rove no more. With its six wheels stuck in powdery sand and two wheels no longer working at all, the resilient little explorer will become an immobile scientific observatory -- if it can survive the harsh temperatures of the upcoming winter. "Its driving days are likely over," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a telephone news conference Tuesday.

The sun is high and it's a slow day for selling and there's not much for a camel trader to do except scatter hay and greens and listen to the big beasts munch. Sounds like shoes walking through gravel. Essam Ammar lifts a cellphone from his tunic. "Hi, Ahmed. No, I won't lower the price." Eyes roll. Ammar pulls the phone from his ear and looks at it; Ahmed's words crackle in the air. Click. It's not even noon. The day seems in retreat. "I've been doing this for 29 years," says Ammar, who wears a white-lace cap and an even snowier pinstriped vest, a risky choice amid blowing dust and rubbish fires.

The gradual erosion of Southern California's majestic coastal bluffs contribute a far greater amount of beach sand than previously thought, according to a university study that may arm environmentalists with a weapon in fighting oceanfront development.

Mexican politicians have made the first move in a clash with the United States over sand. Yes, sand. The recent construction boom in San Diego County has created a lucrative market in Mexican sand, which is used to make concrete for everything from sidewalks to office buildings. But now, many in Baja California worry that sand mining and exporting is leaving the picturesque peninsula short for its own building needs while wreaking havoc on riverbed ecosystems.

Mexico plans to spend 1 billion pesos ($91.6 million) to replace sand on the Caribbean beaches of Cancun, Cozumel and the Riviera Maya that has been eroded away by storms, threatening to turn off tourists.

IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif. -- The Pacific Ocean crashing behind him, Greg LeBon tied on his Husky tool belt crammed with chisels, plastic straws and a blush brush big enough to coat a whole cheek. He stared at the sand. It had been soaked and raked, and the sun had dried it. Now LeBon and his nine teammates had five hours to chisel it into a 7-foot-tall coral reef and bug-eyed fish.

The British firm Hanson, the world's No. 1 producer of crushed rock for the construction industry, denied on Monday that it stole sand from San Francisco Bay -- days after being sued for $200 million by California over sand dredging royalties. The company defrauded the state by mining outside leased areas, underreporting the amount of sand taken and making prices appear low to avoid royalty payments, according to a claim filed Friday by California Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer.

UCLA researchers have found that the wet sand of some enclosed, family-friendly beaches in Southern California may harbor higher levels of certain bacteria -- and by extension certain pathogens -- than unsheltered beaches with better water circulation.

From the California coast to North Carolina's Outer Banks, the nation's beach communities are marshaling their forces to oppose President Bush's push to slash federal funding for sand replenishment projects. In the White House's view, Washington can no longer afford to pump sand onto beaches that are doomed to erode again and again. But to some members of Congress -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- Bush's proposal to cut the money threatens to erode the economic base of coastal communities.

Baris Volkan, 17, was at Corona del Mar State Beach on Sunday, 30 days and half a world away from his native Turkey, when at noon there was a thunderous boom from a cannon--the signal to begin digging. Full of youth's fury, he and a team of foreign exchange students attacked the sand with hands and shovels as if treasure lay deep within the dunes.

After six highly successful years of exploring the red sands of Mars, NASA's rover Spirit will rove no more. With its six wheels stuck in powdery sand and two wheels no longer working at all, the resilient little explorer will become an immobile scientific observatory -- if it can survive the harsh temperatures of the upcoming winter. "Its driving days are likely over," Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said in a telephone news conference Tuesday.

'Spartacus: Blood and Sand' Where: Starz and Encore When: 10 tonight Rating: TV-MA (may be unsuitable for children under the age of 17)

CAST: Sarah Jessica Parker, Kristin Davis, Kim Cattrall, Cynthia Nixon, Miley Cyrus, Penélope Cruz and Liza Minnelli. Written and directed by Michael Patrick King. BACK STORY: "I knew what I wanted the tone to be before I came up with the idea," King says. "The first film I felt had to be emotional and epic and have heartbreak in it. This one I wanted to be a big summer party, more along the road pictures of the '30s. I thought of the [economic] depression we're in and wanted to make a fun escapist movie."

What started as a pile of rubble became a patterned driveway that's not only beautiful but also permeable, meaning winter rains will percolate into the ground instead of spilling into the street. Steve Gerischer, owner of Larkspur Garden Design in Los Angeles, salvaged old brick and broken concrete from job sites to create a floral-inspired tapestry over his 14-by-40-foot driveway in Glassell Park. The driveway had been covered with gravel, but over the years it had mostly become dirt.

The sun is high and it's a slow day for selling and there's not much for a camel trader to do except scatter hay and greens and listen to the big beasts munch. Sounds like shoes walking through gravel. Essam Ammar lifts a cellphone from his tunic. "Hi, Ahmed. No, I won't lower the price." Eyes roll. Ammar pulls the phone from his ear and looks at it; Ahmed's words crackle in the air. Click. It's not even noon. The day seems in retreat. "I've been doing this for 29 years," says Ammar, who wears a white-lace cap and an even snowier pinstriped vest, a risky choice amid blowing dust and rubbish fires.

No. 14 Yardage: 313. Par: 4 Scoring average: 3.8. Rank: 18th. Key fact: Padraig Harrington caught Tiger Woods with a seven-foot birdie putt, but Woods regained the lead for good by using the blade of his sand wedge to knock in a 15-footer. -- ON TELEVISION Today: 8 a.m., TNT; 11 a.m., Channel 2.

Two days after the body of a small boy was found buried in the sand at an Albuquerque park playground, investigators focused on trying to find the child's relatives. "We are looking for the person who was the primary caretaker of the child, whether it is a parent, a grandparent or guardian," police spokesman John Walsh said. A preliminary autopsy provided no clues about how the 3- to 5-year-old child died. The body was found Friday by a woman who had taken her children to the park and spotted a shoe sticking out of the sand.

Anaheim police are working with Disneyland officials to determine who spread "fine, light-colored sand" across the counters of several ticket booths Sunday morning, forcing hundreds of visitors to wait outside the park for hours, authorities said. "We don't know if it was a prank or an intentional act to disrupt the activities" of the park, said Sgt. Rick Martinez of the Anaheim Police Department. Disneyland employees called authorities about 7:30 a.m. after noticing a suspicious powder on many of the ticket booths.

A contractor helping clear debris from Hurricane Ike is looking for the owner of an ammunition box he found buried in sand that contained keepsakes, including an 1863 Confederate $50 bill, war medals and diamond earrings. The green steel Army ammunition canister found Jan. 7 by Michael Pate also held several clues that could help him confirm the owner: family photographs, a driver's li- cense and a Social Security card. Pate was working on a tractor equipped with a grappling arm, snatching storm debris from the sand at Galveston Island State Park, when he found the box. The can's rubber seal preserved the treasures inside.