The Local Planet Weekly's Founding Editor and Co-Publisher, Connye Miller, died June 15 of complications related to the rare disease porphyria. Matt Spaur, her husband and co-publisher, remembers her in 475 words of poetry, pain and love.
Coral Eugene Watts has confessed to 13 murders, and authorities in four states believe the true number of victims may total more than 50. They were all women, and they were strangled, stabbed, hanged, or drowned, all part of Watts' plan not just to take their lives, but to "kill their spirit." Today, at 49, Watts marks time in the Texas prison system, patiently waiting for May 9, 2006 -- the day of his scheduled release. Because, as Glenna Whitley of the Dallas Observer reports, Watts has made a career of staying one step ahead of authorities -- and of combining unspeakable wickedness with phenomenal luck.
Orlando Sentinel says it will sue its alternative weekly competitor if it publishes the names of Sentinel "replacement workers" who may take over the jobs of unionized Baltimore Sun employees, who are threatening to strike. Both dailies are owned by the Tribune Co. Lawyers for the Sentinel argue that "the only purpose" for publishing the names is “to expose (the strikebreaking workers') families to harassment from people in Central Florida" and claim that such publication would create a "palpable threat of harm to those employees and their families." Weekly Editor Bob Whitby responds, "Trying to silence reporting on a legitimate story is the worst form of corporate behavior" and calls the Sentinel's threats "nothing short of disgraceful."
"Who owns REI?" the nation's largest recreational outfitter with 66 stores in 24 states, asks Seattle freelancer Andy Ryan, who once owned his own outdoor gear store. "It can't be the members. They aren't even privy to what the co-op's executives earn," Ryan, an REI member, writes in Seattle Weekly, as he takes off on a quest for answers about the Seattle-based co-op's operations.
Bob Kittle, editorial page editor of the San Diego Union-Tribune, claims he had never seen the 10-month-old AAN paper when he learned CityBeat Editor David Rolland would be appearing on a local NPR "Editor's Roundtable" alongside him. Directed to CityBeat’s Web site, Kittle was shocked to find profanity -- so shocked, in fact, that he tried unsuccessfully to get Rolland kicked off the radio program, on which Kittle is a regular pundit. "CityBeat is not journalism. It’s trash," Kittle wrote in a letter to radio station KPBS. In this week’s CityBeat, Rolland responds that Kittle’s real intent was to "limit the range of debate" in San Diego, which he says, "has been too narrow ... for too long."
