| Talks' pace irks Vaca teachers
Vacaville teachers plan to protest the lack of progress in contract talks during a school board meeting tonight. Timothy Sisson, a teacher at Vaca Peña Middle School, will address the Vacaville Unified School Board regarding the need to restructure the teachers' salary schedules, according to a press release from the Vacaville Teachers Association. Teachers have been upset to learn that the current salary structure may result in a $100,000 loss to certain teachers over the course of their career. The Vacaville Teachers Association and the Vacaville Unified School District have been at the negotiating table for more than four months with little measurable progress, the press release said. "My wife and I chose to work for Vacaville Unified because of its reputation as a community that cared about its schools and its students," Sisson said.
Romney Seeks Rebound in New Hampshire
PORTSMOUTH, N.H. Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney reached into the sports metaphor closet Friday as he sought to give perspective to an Iowa caucus loss that put added pressure on him to win next week's New Hampshire primary. "This is still a nice, long process here," he told about 150 campaign workers who defied frigid temperatures and the 3 a.m. hour to greet his plane as it returned from the Midwest. "We've had, if you will, the first inning of a game that has, let's say, 50 innings in it." The businessman-turned-politician promised to rebound by selling voters on his outsider image and pledge to replace partisan bickering in Washington with government productivity. He made several veiled jabs at Sen. John McCain, a congressional veteran who is challenging Romney's longstanding lead in New Hampshire.
the has-been
Most of the 22 items on Craig's list are standard fare: $200,000 for a "gravity pressure delivery system"; $4 million for "vacuum sampling pathogen collection"; $1.5 million for "coordination, facilitation, administrative support, and cost-shared weed control." But in his swan song, Craig has graciously offered to cooperate with the authorities. According to the Taxpayers for Common Sense earmark database, he found $1 million so the Idaho State Police can improve "criminal information sharing." He earmarked another $100,000 for the Idaho Department of Corrections to take part in the National Consortium of Offender Management Systems. While there's irony in every earmark, these are rich indeed. Craig was banking on the poor quality of criminal information sharing when he pled guilty in August and assumed the people of Idaho would never find out.
Voice of academia
After a long career in journalism, including stints as head of the Voice of America and host of All Things Considered, Sanford J. Ungar was named president of Goucher College in March. He recently discussed his plans for the school, its role in the life of Baltimore and the rising cost of education.
Are there any parallels between being a college president and a journalist? Did one prepare you for the other?
I think that journalism is good preparation for life -- it is a sort of an ongoing liberal arts education in many respects. So, yes, I think in that sense it is good preparation for running a liberal arts college because it is in itself a liberal arts education. I think that what it takes to do journalism well is to have curiosity, to be able to put oneself in other peoples positions and think about what they would like to know and to have a sort of empathic sense of whats going on in the world.
Wounded Iraq Vet A Can-Do Spirit Giant
As the team's top defensive lineman, he played much larger than his five-foot-eleven-inch, 195-pound frame.
In 1988, when Gadson was a senior at the academy, his Army team played one game at Giants stadium. At the time, no one could have predicted that, almost 20 years later, his life would intersect with the Giants once again.
"When men devote their emotional input, and they put all of their energies into something that's greater than them, you forge a bond that will last a lifetime," Gadson told Glor.
After his injury in Iraq, one-by-one. his football brothers rallied around their fallen comrade. "It's incredible how, without hesitation, these guys have been there for me," Gadson marvels.
Within hours, Will Huff was at Gadson's side, from a Baghdad hospital all the way to Landstuhl, Germany.
Oakland woman killed in printing press accident
This is the second accident where an individual was doing nothing other than doing their job, being at work, trying to earn a living for their families. It hurts when you lose someone" you are trying to save, he said. Calls to Digital Pre Press were not returned Tuesday. Also Tuesday, authorities identified the man killed Monday in a building collapse as Luis Gonzalez, 43, of Ceres. He was killed when the wall of an old power plant at 1100 Evans Ave. in Hunters Point being prepared for demolition collapsed on him and two other workers. One worker suffered a severe crushing injury on his legs; the other was crawling from the rubble when rescuers arrived. Both workers, whose names were not released, were taken to a San Francisco hospital; one was released Tuesday, authorities said.
Why Cape Breton shakes in the echo of this distant boom
There were four elementary schools, as many gas stations, and more than a dozen convenience stores dotting what was, for the town's size, a vibrant downtown strip. Today, the population has been sliced in half, and the high school's enrolment has dwindled to 813. Only one elementary school remains, and the corner stores have either been sold or boarded up, replaced by a Needs chain. There is even talk that some of the area's six Catholic churches will be shuttered in the coming months. Unemployment has remained stubbornly high since the last mine closed in 2001 and, despite the introduction of a large call centre, the town is struggling to adopt to a new economic reality. Fort McMurray has stepped into this benighted breach, single-handedly keeping hundreds of families off the welfare rolls and pumping millions of dollars into New Waterford.
Tancredo Defeats Thompson
Thompson had picked up a very, very slight comeback narrative in the past week, thanks to a strong showing at the Des Moines Register debate and a two-week bus tour through Iowa. But, predictably, just as Fred got going, he started stumbling. First came a schadenfreude-rich column from Roger Simon, and then came news that he doesn't have any money. So, today's Tancredo withdrawal was a last chance that turned into a last gasp for Fred. It was expected that Tancredo would endorse another candidate—most likely Romney or Thompson. And after a close friend of Tancredo's, Iowa Rep. Steve King, endorsed Thompson, Thompson seemed to be in line to get the nod from Tommy the Tank. But that was not to be. Tancredo endorsed Mr. Illegal-Immigrant-Groundskeepers instead.
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