By Duane Sherrill Never have I seen a case so polarizing here as that of Mary Winkler. People on both sides are rabid about their convictions of whether it was poor little abused Mary taking up for herself and her children, or whether it was cold-blooded, shoot-a-sleeping-man-in-the-back Mary. To speak her very name the past…

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) ? Farmers in the South are planting crops ahead of schedule, but many in the North are waiting for warmer temperatures before getting into their fields. The difference between the regions is remarkable, said Brad Rippey, a U.S. Department of Agriculture meteorologist in Washington. ?If you draw a line through Kentucky,…

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) ? Steaks, pork chops, milk and other products from cloned livestock would have to be clearly labeled on grocers? shelves under a bill pending in the California Legislature. If passed, the requirement could be more stringent than federal rules. The Food and Drug Administration is poised to give final approval to meat…

The Warren County Farm Service Agency (FSA) has received numerous reports of damage and loss to crops due to freeze. The freezing temperatures that occurred in early April appears to have caused considerable damage to commodity crops, nursery crops, and some vegetable crops. Producers have reported temperatures falling into the teens in outlying areas. Officially,…

By Mark Halcomb I?m writing this April 23. Our plants look worse than last week. I expect they will look worse next week. It will be wait and see for months. It will be this fall and next year before we really know our losses. There will not be any local straw. Since the wheat…

Baby Girl Ava Lauren Jones, daughter of Travis and Andrea Jones, was born Feb. 13 at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. The infant weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces and was 19 1/2 inches in length. She is welcomed by big sister, Anna Brooke. Her grandparents are Mark and Paula Prater and Linda Jones and Cliff Jones.…

Cannon County native Lois Rachel Banks Nunley, 96, died April 19 at River Park Hospital after an extended illness. A homemaker and a member of Ivy Bluff United Methodist Church and the Ivy Bluff Home Demonstration Club, she was the daughter of the late Odus and Ada Good Banks; and was preceded in death by…

BLACKSBURG, Va. (AP) ? Investigators pressed ahead Saturday with their search for Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho’s motives, even as more of his victims’ families said goodbye to their loved ones. Authorities sought Cho’s cellphone records on the chance he warned someone about what would become the nation’s worst mass shooting in modern history. They…

By Chuck Shepherd Veterinarians in Tallahassee, Fla., were enthralled in January when a duck, “killed” by a hunter and placed in his freezer for two days, suddenly sprang to life and was rushed into surgery at Goose Creek Wildlife Sanctuary to repair its leg and wing. Then, on the operating table, the duck (named “Perky”…

By Diana West Like a cultural earthquake, the Virginia Tech massacre violently jolted all news and events to a halt. Or, rather, all non-massacre news and events. Massacre updates remain constant: the survivors’ ghastly stories, which are ghastly; the victims’ harrowing ends, which are harrowing; the campus authorities’ inexplicable actions, which are inexplicable. Is there…