News

By MICHAEL HEWLETT
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
"Hello honey, looking for hot talk?" says a soft female voice.

It's not what callers would expect to hear when they dial the toll-free number that had been listed on Fred McClure's insurance company Web site until he discovered it this week.

McClure said he was horrified when he found out about the phone problem Monday.

"It's on all my cards, and it's on the Web site," he said.

McClure owns McClure Insurance Group and has had the 800 number for years, he said.

McClure Insurance Group began long-distance service with Lexcom Communications in 1994, but McClure switched to Sprint in 1995, said Richard Reese, the president of Lexcom Communications.

Whenever a person or company switches telephone carriers, their numbers are supposed to transfer to the new carrier, Reese said.

By EDIE LAU
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Thanksgiving is a time of excess, but gorging on food need not require gorging on energy.

Little things you do in the kitchen, from keeping lids on cooking pots to resisting the urge to peek in the oven over and over, can help keep electricity and gas use from spiking higher than necessary over the holiday, experts in household energy consumption say.

While no one keeps statistics on energy use on Thanksgiving Day specifically, it's common sense that the flurry of activity in the kitchen puts a higher-than-usual household demand on energy, and for that reason, the California Energy Commission recently prepared a tip sheet for an "energy-wise" Thanksgiving.

By STEVE RUBENSTEIN
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A California high-tech worker and his new wife drowned while swimming at a beach with notoriously treacherous surf on the northwest coast of Maui, authorities said.

By JOE GAROFOLI
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Anti-war activists Donna Sheehan and her partner, Paul Reffel, concocted a way for the world to communally create a lot of peaceful vibes.

They want everyone to have an orgasm on the same day.

On Dec.

By ANN RODGERS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Although their words about sex grabbed the headlines at their meeting last week, the nation's Catholic bishops also spent some time on singing.

Acting under Vatican orders, they approved a plan to check the theological orthodoxy of all songs sung at Mass.

By GLEN WARCHOL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Every flight for Dawn Gonzales is a worst-case scenario _ three children under 7 and enough luggage, including child seats and a collapsible crib, to overwhelm any baggage cart.

But despite the holiday travel season , Gonzales, daughters Elena and Isabel, son Mark and husband Mark arrived in Salt Lake City this weekend still smiling.

By THOMAS HARGROVE
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Brazen attack on Iraqi convoy

British and U.S. forces fought with gunmen Friday in southern Iraq, scene of a brazen attack on a large truck convoy in which four American contractors for the Crescent Security Group and their Austrian colleague were kidnapped.

By PETER RICE
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Not many jobs open to high-school-age kids could be considered even remotely literary, but 17-year-old Claudia Tarin holds one of the few.

Every Sunday evening and Wednesday afternoon, Tarin visits most of the city's 140 or so transit buses and stocks them with five or six children's books.

The job description draws some interesting reactions from friends.

"They get surprised.

By TOM MOONEY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The federal government has charged a private dog club with killing and poisoning hawks and owls that were preying on the club's rabbits.

Inc. and its president, William Forward, have been charged with one count of violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and five counts of illegally using insecticide.

Cowesett Road club, which trains beagles to flush rabbits out of cover, and hosts field trials, killed the birds using guns, steel leg-hold traps, and by setting out as bait, eggs and animal carcasses seeded with the insecticide carbofuran.

As a result "red-tailed hawks, Cooper's hawks, great-horned owls, northern flickers, northern mockingbirds, turkey vultures and mourning doves" died, according to a statement this week by U.S.

By JANE KAY
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
A California sea lion lurking in San Francisco's Aquatic Park Lagoon is terrorizing swimmers, biting at least 14 on the legs and chasing 10 others out of the water this week.