News
News from around the world, the nation, and close to home.
A boom in organic pet food
By AIMEE HECKEL
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Look for the bumper stickers soon: "My dog eats better than I do."
Julie Dye said with a laugh she's thinking about making them. Only for many pet owners, the message is not a joke.
The market in Boulder, Colo., for natural and organic pet food is booming alongside residents' interest in organic products.
Trading 'royalty' for an Iraqi assignment
By BILL McAULIFFE
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The Minneapolis Aquatennial Queen of the Lakes is trading her tiara for a Kevlar helmet and the sands of Iraq.
Jessica Gaulke, chosen in July as Queen of the Lakes for a year, is giving up her title because her National Guard unit has been activated for duty in Iraq.
Has O.J. lost his mind?
By C.W. NEVIUS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Attorney John Burris was a part of the "dream team" defense that earned O.J. Simpson an acquittal in 1995 in the lurid double-murder trial that captivated the nation.
Two people badly injured in deer attack
By LILLIAN THOMAS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
When Pennsylvania state police responded to a call about an aggressive deer at a rural home, they figured the creature would be long gone.
Instead, they found a six-point whitetail buck straddling a screaming woman in her back yard, repeatedly goring her face, neck and chest.
A food fight between nuns and feds
By SARA BURNETT
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
This wasn't exactly what the U.S. Attorney's Office had in mind when it asked for restitution.
On Wednesday, several people dropped off a total of 69 food items at the prosecutor's office _ everything from a bag of beans to a tin of chopped clams.
The food, intended for the children of military families, was the latest attempt by three nuns to pay restitution for damage to a fence that occurred during a 2002 protest at a Colorado missile silo.
Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson, all members of the Dominican Sisters order, organized the food drive in lieu of paying the $3,052 cash.
"We don't have the money to pay the restitution, nor would we pay it if we had it," Gilbert said.
Giving money to the U.S.
California prison guards in line for pay raises
By ANDY FURILLO
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association may be miles away from getting a new labor contract with the state, but its members appear to be in line for a pay raise sooner rather than later, thanks to the union's victory in a grievance it filed a year ago.
In a decision dated Saturday, an arbitrator ruled that the CCPOA's 31,000 members are entitled a pay raise based on compensation increases the state gave to the California Highway Patrol.
Why are we still talking about O.J. Simpson?
By ANITA CREAMER
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
The victims' families are outraged. Bloggers and broadcasters are furious, too.
But isn't O.J. Simpson at least half a decade too late for the public to particularly care what he has to say?
In a considerable achievement for our age, poor taste plunged to new depths last week with the announcement that in "If I Did It," a planned book and TV special, Simpson describes how he would have orchestrated the vicious slashing deaths of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in June 1994.
After a firestorm of criticism _ and after several Fox affiliates said they would not run the special, planned for Nov.
Plum trash job
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Every few years, garbage suddenly becomes glamorous when a coveted slot opens on the state Integrated Waste Management Board. You'd never suspect that tire recycling and biosolids would generate such interest, but when a state job offers a six-figure salary for meeting once a month, it becomes a hot ticket for termed-out legislators and others with connections.
Two slots are now open, and so Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez and state Senate Pro Tem Don Perata are being heavily lobbied to hand out this plum to someone or another.
Beginning with former Gov.
Prison guards on the air? It's contract time
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
If you've had your TV on lately, you know that the prison guards union is at it again.
The California Correctional Peace Officers Association is using its formidable political war chest to run ominous television ads to put pressure on Gov.
Thanksgiving with pedigree _ at $10 a pound
By C.W. NEVIUS
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
When you sit down for Thanksgiving this year, take a moment to consider your turkey. How well do you know it, really?
Do you know where it was raised? Did you watch your bird when it was roaming free on an Internet video hookup? Do you know who its ancestors were?
No?
You mean you invited a total stranger to Thanksgiving dinner?
If this concerns you, we have the answer.
