FIRST WORKOUT: The Ducks’ first draft pick...

FIRST WORKOUT: The Ducks’ first draft pick was finally signed, sealed and delivered on Thursday--for a cool $6.5 million for three seasons. (C1) Paul Kariya will step onto The Pond of Anaheim ice for the first time during a free public practice Monday. . . . Kariya, 19, will be at one of three two-hour sessions with the Ducks from 11 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. He led Canada to the silver medal in the 1994 Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway.

AIRMAN: U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), who favors a commercial airport at El Toro, is acknowledging behind-the-scene efforts to stop a $700,000 federal planning grant for the Marine base until after a countywide vote on the airport in November (B4) . . . Local officials who ended up getting the money anyway are miffed. “In Congress there is a certain amount of value in being vocal and dramatic,” said Kenneth H. Bruner, an aide to Board of Supervisors Chairman Thomas F. Riley. “Mr. Rohrabacher does that well, but I think he is somewhat removed from the workings of local politics.”

BIG NUMBERS: Lifting whatever weights you’re comfortable with, how long would it take you to lift a million pounds total? Glen Tenove, 39, a mortgage banker from Costa Mesa, did it in just under one hour and 39 minutes--a world record (lifting 200 pounds 5,000 times.) “I like endurance challenges,” he says. Like: doing 10,000 push-ups in seven hours. Tenove will try to break his own “million-pound” record in a demonstration at the Raging Waters water park in San Dimas on Labor Day.

VAMPIRE CLIMB: In Style, a new magazine emphasizing who--and what--is hot, this month includes Rockreation in Costa Mesa, the indoor climbing arena where you can practice going up a steep mountainside. They chose a local climber to demonstrate it too: actress Kristy Swanson of Mission Viejo, star of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer.”

TONIGHT: Shakespeare Orange County production of “King Lear” continues at the Waltmar Theatre at 8, Chapman University, 301 E. Palm St., Orange. (714) 744-7016.WEATHER: Sunny with highs in the upper 70s, lows will be in the mid-60s. (B8)

* The Top of Today’s News is on A2