The trio of Mārtiņš Freimanis, Lauris Reiniks and Yana Kay, known collectively as F.L.Y., will represent Latvia in the Eurovision Song Contest scheduled May 24 in Rīga.

The three well-known singers, who performed the song “Hello From Mars,” were the resounding winners in the Latvian national contest, Eirodziesma 2003, held Feb. 1 in the Ventspils Olympic Hall.

F.L.Y. finished well ahead of the other contestants in two rounds of voting.

Freimanis is lead singer of the Liepāja rock group Tumsa. Yana Kay is a popular Russian-Latvian pop and dance music performer. And Reiniks is a relatively new talent who has quickly become a celebrity in Latvia. All three have competed in previous national contests.

A total of 15 artists were in competition. The winner was chosen in a two-stage process. After all the songs had been performed, people around Latvia voted by telephone during a 30-minute period. The top five songs were then performed once more and listeners given another 15 minutes to vote again.

In the first round of telephone voting, “Hello From Mars” received almost twice as many votes as the second-place song to finish well in the lead. The song got 43,922 votes, according to results posted on the Eirodziesma Web site.

Ivo Fomins and Tomass Kleins came in second, earning 22,248 votes for their performance of “Muzikants,” the only Latvian-language entry in the contest.

Rounding out the top five were Madara Celma’s “Away From You” with 10,759 votes; Tatjana Tamčuka’s “Roses and Tears” with 10,235 votes, and Andris Ābelīte’s “I Need Love” with 10,235 votes.

A total of 126,350 votes were cast in the first round.

In the second round, F.L.Y.‘s ‘Hello From Mars” got 64,850 votes. In second place was “Muzikants,” with 43,304 votes, followed by “Away From You” with 16,175 votes, “Roses and Tears” with 14,179 votes, and “I Need Love” with 12,109 votes. In all, 150,617 votes were cast in the second round.

The national contest was broadcast live on Latvian state television and radio, as well as streamed over the Internet.

A total of 57 songs were submitted to the national contest. Fifteen earned a spot in the national competition, with three songs in reserve.

Defenseman Sandis Ozoliņš has been acquired by the Anaheim, Calif.-based Mighty Ducks team of the National Hockey League. Ozoliņš previously played for the Florida Panthers.

Ozoliņš, a native of Rīga, is a four-time NHL All-Star player and has been in 712 regular season games in his NHL career, according to a Mighty Ducks press release. Ozoliņš, 30, was traded to the Florida team by the Carolina Hurricanes, which had acquired him from Colorado. He began his NHL career when he was drafted in 1991 by the San Jose Sharks.

Ozoliņš also played in one game on the Latvian national team in the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.

In addition to Ozoliņš, Anaheim got left wing and defenseman Lance Ward from the Panthers. In exchange, Anaheim gave the Panthers center Matt Cullen, defenseman Pavel Trnka and a fourth-round selection in the 2003 NHL Entry Draft, the press release said.

Ozoliņš is one of more than dozen players from Latvia or of Latvian heritage who are active in the NHL or minor league hockey. For example, his former teammate, goalie Arturs Irbe, plays for the Carolina Hurricanes.

Latvian-American Aris Brimanis, a native of Cleveland, Ohio, is a defenseman for the Worcester (Mass.) IceCats of the American Hockey League. Brimanis, 30, has over the years also played in the NHL, most recently for the Anaheim Mighty Ducks, and late last year signed with the St. Louis Blues as a free agent.

At least 20 old newsreels featuring Latvia and Latvians before the Second World War and under Soviet occupation are becoming available for free viewing on a British Web site.

British Pathe Ltd., which for decades provided newsreels to inform British moviegoers, began putting its collection of 3,500 hours of digitized movies—spanning 75 years of British and world history—online in July, according to the company and The New York Times newspaper. All newsreels, published and unpublished, are to be online by May, according to British Pathe.

The site provides downloadable copies of low-resolution preview digital movie files. The preview files are in Windows Media format, which can be viewed on Windows-based and Macintosh computers equipped with the free Windows Media Player software. Users may also purchase high resolution digital files or videotape of the newsreels.

Among the newsreels related to Latvia is one showing presidents of all three Baltic republics—including Latvia’s Janis Čakste—being greeted as they attend the 1926 song festival in Rīga. Another shows Latvia’s “crack cavalry” performing for President Čakste.

Darker moments of Latvia’s history also are covered, such as the 1944 entry of Soviet troops into Rīga, shown in a nearly three-minute Russian-language newsreel.

Perhaps one of the most interesting newsreels for Latvians living abroad may be a short and silent 17-second clip from the early 1950s showing a Swedish vessel, the Gundel, bringing Latvian, Lithuanian and Swedish refugees to Boston.

The British Pathe Web site is at www.britishpathe.com.