The James Logan Courier

By Dale Kasler
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California is being left behind by the new Gold Rush.
Despite sky-high prices and the state's rich gold legacy, the industry here is mostly dormant. California trails the leading gold-producing state, Nevada, by a wide margin.

A California revival is hardly imminent. Companies trying to reopen old mines in Grass Valley and near Sutter Creek have slogged through years of red tape, and there are no guarantees of success. The Sutter Creek plan is at least a year away, while Grass Valley is several years from reopening.

Standing in the way: scarcity of capital and strict environmental standards.

By David Sarno
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

If today's fastest smart phones deliver e-mails and Web pages with the speed of a thoroughbred racehorse, then the next generation of phones — now rolling onto the runway — may feel like jet planes.

Powered by souped-up 4G networks (that's fourth generation), new smart phones will be more like mobile entertainment centers, allowing users to watch live, high-definition TV broadcasts, download entire movies in seconds and make smooth, uninterrupted video phone calls from street corners and hilltops alike.

But don't burst into song quite yet: For all their high-flying potential, 4G networks are still a long way from taking off.

By Julia Scott
Contra Costa Times (MCT)

PESCADERO, Calif. — Locals have spent every winter for the past 15 years watching silvery steelhead trout die in Pescadero Marsh. Now they are tired of waiting for state officials to step in, and are preparing for a major fight — in court.

The problem has been studied to death, literally. "We're now 15 years in and the problem is still unsolved. When the system is in utter collapse, you don't study that. You take action," said Ronda Azevado Lucas, an attorney representing a group of Pescadero anglers and concerned citizens who have accused state resources agencies of abdicating their responsibility to protect sensitive fish and amphibians under the California Endangered Species Act.

By Margot Roosevelt
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

LOS ANGELES — A task force of California politicians, business people, academics and environmentalists is calling on incoming Gov. Jerry Brown to appoint a climate risk council within his office to focus statewide attention on adapting to the effects of global warming.

In a report to be released Monday, the 23-member California Adaptation Advisory Panel, a group convened by the Los Angeles-based Pacific Council on International Policy, calls for stepped-up data-gathering, monitoring and coordination among state agencies and in the private sector to prepare for a steep sea level rise, diminishing water supplies and the spread of wildfire, as studies have predicted.
"Adaptation to climate change has been virtually ignored," said panel co-chairman William K. Reilly, a former administrator with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

"A report like this reminds the agencies to pay attention and stiffens their spines. It implies planning: We're not going to build a road in this place because the odds are it is going to get washed out."

Courier Staff Report
Logan administrators this morning served breakfast to the school's staff.

Teachers and other staffers broke their fasts in the Staff Lounge with heaping helpings of scrambled eggs, fancy pancakes, crisp bacon and other side dishes, dished up by the school's administrators

"We want to do our part to send you waddling off to Thanksgiving break," wrote Rhonda Neagle, vice principal of operations, in an email invitation to the event,"Let the Thanksgiving over-indulgence begin!"

By Matt Weiser
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — In a glassy conference room alongside a Sacramento River levee, a committee of 25 people struggled Thursday to do what Californians have never been able to do before: reach agreement on how to drink from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta without killing it.

After meeting for four years and spending $140 million, the committee drafting the Bay Delta Conservation Plan aimed Thursday to complete a "Nov. 18 draft" of their progress so far. This odd name for the document reflects the enormous stakes in crafting a plan that meets two goals: restoring the delta ecosystem and building a pair of tunnels or canal to ferry its water elsewhere.

By Shashank Bengali
McClatchy Newspapers (MCT)

JUBA, Sudan — As world capitals go, this surely would rank among the more modest. No grand boulevards; only a few two-lane roads. No commanding monuments; only some grim government buildings rising from dirt lots that turn to muck when it rains.

Nothing, however, captures the unassuming air of Juba better than the warm equatorial wind that blows through the city, sweeping across muddy fields and grassy pastures, and deposits into the face of the unwitting visitor that distinctive scent of informality: cow manure.

Juba is a work in progress, but as the capital of Sudan's semiautonomous south its profile could soon increase dramatically. On Jan. 9, the Texas-sized region of some 8 million people is scheduled to hold a referendum on whether to secede from northern Sudan.

By Rick La Plante,
Director, Parent & Community Relations

The Board of Education on Tuesday night received the annual report on Measure A, a $120 million bond measure passed by New Haven voters in 2003.

Counting state matching funds, interest, deferred maintenance funds and local revenues, the District leveraged the bond for a total of $164.8 million. To date, $156.7 million has been committed, for projects at every school in the District as well as at the New Haven Adult School, the Educational Services Center, the Mary Cordoza (Food & Nutrition) Center and the Corporation Yard.

By Jessica Guynn
Los Angeles Times (MCT)

SAN FRANCISCO — In a bold challenge to its rivals, Facebook Inc. is launching a messaging service for its more than half a billion users, setting off a battle that could shape the future of communication on the Internet.

Facebook Messages will meld the three major forms of communication — e-mail, instant messages and text messages — so that users can manage all their communications through a single inbox on their personal computer or mobile device.

The common gateway will be an "(at)facebook.com" e-mail address.

By Cody Mongoso, Courier Staff Writer

Logan's Suavecito dance, hosted by the school's Mecha Club, helped introduce a new type of rhythm and beat by playing a variety of culturally-preserving tunes. Held last Saturday, the dance showcased such genres as meringue, bacchante, reggaeton and salsa. It also included hiphop to keep people interested.

In previous years, Logan held the Sabor Latino dance. The difference is that the Suavecito dance--whose name is derived from the Spanish word for smooth--played softer, slower music. Some artists whose songs were played included Alacranes Musical, Pitbull and Nancy Flores.

Students said they were pleased with the dance.

By Beatrice Esteban, Courier Staff Writer

James Logan graduate and author Shawn Grady returned to his alma mater Tuesday to talk to current English Two students about his careers as a firefighter and an action-novel writer.

Grady, who was graduated from Logan in 1994 and currently works as a firefighter in Reno, told the sophomores who gathered in the Little Theater for the event that he had wanted to write a novel ever since he was a student here, but that idea daunted him until he jotted down the first lines of his first novel, Through the Fire, on a napkin while on a dinner date with his wife.

During his first presentation of the day to first period English Two students, Grady told them he didn't know how to begin his novel until he read Ernest Hemingway's book A Movable Feast, about Hemingway's days as an ex-patriot writer in Europe.

By Matea Gold and Jordan Steffen
Tribune Washington Bureau (MCT)

McLEAN, Va. —: Aja Sutter is the kind of voter the Democrats could not afford to lose this year. The 26-year-old physical therapist, part of a legion of unmarried women that has long been one of the most reliable Democratic bases, enthusiastically voted for President Barack Obama in 2008.

But in last week's midterm election, Sutter cast her ballot for Republicans, frustrated by the administration's lack of progress in righting the economy.

"A lot of the things that were promised, in my opinion, didn't happen, and I wasn't satisfied," said Sutter, who noted that many of her female friends, feeling let down and ignored by politicians, did not even bother to vote.

By Rick La Plante,
New Haven Schools Director, Parent & Community Relations

New Haven Unified School District voters elected Linda Canlas and Sarabjit Cheema to seats on the Board of Education in Tuesday's election, both for their first term.

Ms. Canlas, principal of Faith Ringgold School for the Arts & Sciences in Hayward and the mother of two college-age daughters who attended New Haven schools, was the leading vote-getter in the four-candidate race.

By Beatrice Esteban, Courier Editor-in-Chief

Motivational speaker Arthur “AR” Renowitzky discussed gun violence and death last Thursday to Logan students.

Renowitzky, founder of Life Goes On Foundation (LGO), was shot and robbed by an unknown assailant outside a San Francisco nightclub in 2007. After a 23 day long coma, Renowitzky was told that he would never be able to walk again. His experience inspired him to help prevent similar occurrences and he founded LGO that same year.

The 22-year-old came to Logan and spoke to students during their second or third period classes with the help of Ramon Camacho, house three principal.

“I think it’s important for everyone to be more aware, and I want to help raise consciousness,” said Camacho. “This is one step in a long process, but I want to help them.”

By Amanpreet Tatlah, Courier Staff Writer

A zombie infestation game among Logan students put a twist on the yearly routine of dressing up for Halloween last Friday.

The game was planned via a Facebook event that Logan students were invited to. To play, people dressed up as either a zombie or survivor. Zombies made a letter Z on any part of a survivor's body and survivors made either an X on the zombie's face or two X's on their neck. Although survivors were allowed to run, zombies were not.

At the end of the school day, zombies and survivors alike had to make it to Colt Court by 4 p.m., where the winning side would be announced.