“Smith River, Calif.  (UPI) —  An overnight motel guest “went berserk” Sunday night and killed four persons with a high-powered rifle.” That’s the dateline from a newspaper clipping I have from 1975. He was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on July 23rd, 1951. He had also been in trouble with the law, having robbed and beaten a man…

It was drizzling lightly as I pulled into the stations parking lot. A heavy storm was forecast to arrive that might lead to wide-spread flooding so I was at work a few minutes early to get an update on what the local authorities were doing throughout the Reno and Sparks area to prepare. As I walked up to the…

Gasoline was a lot cheaper in Ciudad Juarez than I’d seen un the U.S. in several months. I had jus’ filled up my friends Dodge Colt and had plans to find someplace to spend the night, but I didn’t get very far. The car suddenly started coughing and sputtering, then the engine simply died. Though…

Immigrants brought to the country illegally as children and granted a temporary reprieve by President Barack Obama this summer will be eligible for Nevada driver’s licenses and state IDs, state officials told the Sun this week. And Governor Sandoval says he supports the policy and has no intention of changing it. “As long as all…

Businesses in Nevada will pay about $77 more per employee in state unemployment-insurance taxes next year in order to build up the state’s jobless benefits trust fund, which was depleted during the Great Recession as a record number of workers lost their jobs. Nevada has been borrowing money since late 2009 and as of October…

“I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer universal health care program”—Illinois state Sen. Barack Obama, June 2003. “I have not said that I was a single-payer supporter”—President Obama, August 2009. “Leadership means that the buck stops here. . . . I therefore intend to oppose the effort to increase America’s debt limit”—Sen. Barack…

Officials have approved an alternative for NV Energy customers who don’t want the new smart meters. The Public Utilities Commission of Nevada says southern Nevada customers opting out can pay $98.75 to install an electric meter, plus $8.14 every month. Northern Nevada customers opting out will pay a $107.66 upfront cost, plus an $8.04 monthly…

Credit for the discovery of the Comstock Lode remains disputed. It is said to have been discovered, in 1857, by Ethan Allen Grosh and Hosea Ballou Grosh, sons of a Pennsylvania minister, trained mineralogists and veterans of the California gold fields. The Grosh brothers occupied a shack along with a Canadian named Richard Bucke, and…

My heartaches as I read from the Del Norte Triplicate about the passing of my friend Oscar Gensaw. He and I grew up a year apart in Klamath, attending grade school and high school together. He was born July 3, 1959, at Seaside Hospital in Crescent City, and passed away November 8, 2012. He was a lifelong resident…

Nevada has decided to repeal a state law that allows job discrimination against communists. A 12-member Legislative Commission agreed to introduce a bill at the 2013 session that would repeal a law passed in 1951 during the anti-communist fervor of the Cold War. The law allows employers to reject job applications from communists and their…