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STATE BRIEFING No changes planned in LAX security after gun LOS ANGELES (AP) — No changes will be made to security pro- cedures at Los Angeles International Airport after a loaded handgun fell out of checked baggage being loaded on a plane, a Transportation Security Administration spokesman said Wednesday. The agency has no plans to change the policy of screening only carry-on luggage for guns, TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said. He noted that the weapons are legal to carry in checked bags if they are unloaded, declared and in a proper case. ''They are not ... of themselves a security threat in the belly of an air- plane because no one has access to them,'' Melendez said. Authorities said Alaska Airlines hadn't been notified about the .38-cal- iber handgun that tumbled out of a duf- fel bag being loaded onto a Portland- bound flight on Sunday in Los Ange- les. The gun owner, whose name hasn't been released, was questioned by police and allowed to board a later flight for Oregon. The TSA can assess a civil penalty if it finds an undeclared firearm in a checked bag, Melendez said. In 2000, a loaded gun went off on an Alaska Airlines flight and the bullet passed through the floor of the cabin and lodged in a diaper bag. The TSA is required to screen all checked baggage for explosives. In its early days, the security agents also scanned bags on monitor screens that could capture images of the contents, including guns. ''Over the course of 10 years, the technology has gotten better,'' Melen- dez said. ''We're able to get more effi- cient with our resources and screen bags more effectively.'' He noted that TSA also no longer looks for hazardous materials, such as paints, in checked baggage. Carry-on luggage still is checked for weapons, Melendez said. ''In the last year, we've found 800 guns at security checkpoints (nation- wide) that we've kept out of the cabins of airplanes,'' he said. Calif. begins new talks on public pension fix CARSON (AP) — Economically battered California has promised gov- ernment retirees billions of dollars in future benefits that it might not be able to pay, and legislators Wednesday kicked off a new round of talks to con- tain rising pension costs that are caus- ing havoc across the state. The discussions got underway as Gov. Jerry Brown finalized details on a retooled proposal to stabilize public pension systems, after earlier negotia- tions stalled in Sacramento gridlock. The recession pummeled govern- ment pension funds, whose invest- ments tumbled in value with the stock market and real estate prices. In March, the California State Teachers' Retire- ment System reported that it had 71 percent of the assets needed to cover long-term retirement costs for its 852,000 members and family mem- bers, with an estimated shortfall is $56 billion. At a hearing in Carson, near Los Angeles, Santa Monica City Manager Rod Gould told a Senate-Assembly panel that pension costs are eating into municipal budgets and projections that the trend will continue ''are turning out to be true.'' As costs accumulate, cities and counties ''will have to further reduce services and staffing,'' warned Gould, speaking on behalf of the League of California Cities. In a letter to legislative leaders Tues- day, Brown said the state needs pen- ANNIE Continued from page 1A the support she has given him. "Being a performer is about passion and devo- tion," he said. "You can't just do this because you think that it's a good after school activity to use up your time." Meagher said he nailed his audition for the role of Warbucks after months of trying to perfect the char- acteristics of the billion- aire character. Warbucks is confident in himself. He's indiffer- ent to most things except for his business. It's not until later on when Annie comes into his life that he figures out he's been miss- ing out in life, Meagher said. "He might not come off as a good person at first, but deep down he's really a good person," Meagher said. Both Scott and Meagher said after months of dedication and practice, they are looking forward to the real shows that start Friday. Students will perform Friday morning for their sion systems that are ''truly sustainable over the long-time horizon.'' Estimates for the gap between what is owed to current and future public retirees, and what will be available to pay them, have varied widely with the fluctuating economy. A report last year by the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research said that retirement funds for 2.6 mil- lion California teachers, state workers and university employees together faced long-term gaps of over $500 bil- lion. The California Public Employees' Retirement System has $75 billion in unfunded future pension liabilities, and the state is on the hook for an estimat- ed $51.8 billion in unfunded retiree health care costs. Union representatives warned the panel that cutting too deeply into pen- sions could lead to talent drain. Faced with financial pressures, many unions around the state have started paying more into pension and benefit funds, including in Los Angeles, the nation's second-largest city. Generous retirement benefits approved years ago have come under scrutiny, as have rules that allow many workers to begin taking retirement pay years before they become senior citi- zens. Union officials said a typical state worker earns an annual pension of about $31,000, but benefits can vary widely. A highway patrolman with 28 years of service can take home a pen- sion of over $90,000, said David Lam- oureux, a deputy chief actuary with the state Public Employees' Retirement System. According to one tally cited by Republicans, more than 9,000 state employees are receiving six-figure pensions. It appeared there was wide agree- ment that the practice of pension ''spik- ing'' — boosting a final year's salary with overtime to boost retirement pay- ments — should be banned. Capping payments is also being considered, but it wasn't clear at what level. ''I just hope that we don't overreact and go too far,'' said Aaron Read, rep- resenting state firefighters and the Cal- ifornia Association of Highway Patrol- men Stolen historic bell found in Oakland OAKLAND (AP) — A historic bell that was stolen from outside San Fran- cisco's St. Mary's Cathedral has been recovered. San Francisco police say after get- ting a tip Wednesday afternoon they found the 2-ton copper bell across the street from a scrapyard. The bell was in an open area, but was covered by a tarp. Authorities say the bell disappeared from its concrete stump sometime over the past month. Investigators believe the thieves stole it to sell the metal, but they're not sure how they managed to haul off the bell. According to church officials, the bell was cast in 1889 by a Baltimore foundry and hung at St. Mary's old Van Ness Avenue location. There, it managed to survive the 1906 earthquake and the fire that destroyed the church in 1962. Former Sears employee awarded $5.2M in race suit SACRAMENTO (AP) — A jury in California has awarded $5.2 million in damages to a Sears Home Improve- ment Products employee who sued for racial harassment and retaliation. Medro Johnson, 49, of Elk Grove, sued after being referred to as a slave in front of his family, among other inci- dents, The Sacramento Bee reported (http://bit.ly/rvWJg4 ). While Johnson was at a company picnic in 2008 with his wife, son and daughter, a co-worker said, ''Medro calls me Masta,'' in what court records Thursday, October 27, 2011 – Daily News 7A Report: Industry decides referred to as a ''slave dialect.'' In another incident, the same employee threatened Johnson with vio- lence, court documents stated. Johnson claimed that he com- plained to supervisors but no action was taken. The Sacramento Superior Court jury on Friday found that Sears' poli- cymakers and managers failed to inves- tigate or act on Johnson's complaints. Instead, managers told Johnson that both he and the other employee would be terminated if the complaint was taken to human resources, according to court documents. ''That was a threat designed to intimidate him and shut him up,'' Christopher Whelan, Johnson's attor- ney, told the Bee. Whelan said the company ignored the offending comments because the employee was one of their top sales- men in the country. A Sears spokesman said the compa- ny is disappointed in the verdict and is exploring an appeal and other options. Johnson said he was pleased with the jury's verdict, especially since he had been struggling financially since being fired from his job at Sears, which is part of Sears Holdings Corp., based in Hoffman Estates, Ill. ''I feel like justice was served, and I would hope that the award will send a message to Sears and that they will change their behavior so no one has to suffer like I had to suffer over these years,'' he said. US, Swedish researchers crack 250-year-old cipher LOS ANGELES (AP) — Scientists in California and Sweden said they have used computer translation tech- niques to solve a 250-year-old mystery by deciphering a coded manuscript written for a secret society. The University of Southern Califor- nia announced Tuesday that researchers had broken the Copiale Cipher, a 105-page, 18th century docu- ment from Germany. The handwritten, beautifully bound book didn't contain any sort of Da Vinci Code but rather a snapshot of the arcane rituals practiced by one of the many secret societies that flourished in the 1700s. It also recorded rites for some apparent sects of Freemasonry that showed political leanings. ''This opens up a window for peo- ple who study the history of ideas and the history of secret societies,'' USC computer scientist Kevin Knight, who was on the deciphering team, said in a statement. ''Historians believe that secret societies have had a role in revo- lutions, but all that is yet to be worked out, and a big part of the reason is because so many documents are enci- phered.'' The handwritten Copiale Cipher was discovered in East Berlin after the Cold War and is now in a private col- lection. Most of the book was written in a cipher of 90 characters that includ- ed abstract symbols and Roman and Greek letters. Knight and Beata Megyesi and Christiane Schaefer of Sweden's Upp- sala University went to work cracking it earlier this year. They used a com- puter program to automate a key code- breaking procedure — tallying the fre- quency and grouping of the letters and symbols — then automated the process of comparing the cipher to known lan- guages. It's a method used by many auto- mated translation programs. The researchers tried the Roman let- ters first, comparing them to some 80 languages. ''It took quite a long time and result- ed in complete failure,'' Knight said. Eventually, they determined that the abstract symbols, not the unaccented Roman letters, bore the message. The first words deciphered were German for ''ceremonies of initiation'' and ''secret section.'' classmates, followed by three public performances. The first public show will be 7 p.m., Friday. The other two shows will be 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., Saturday. All performances will be at the State Theatre. Tick- ets are $8 for adults and $6 for students and children. Tickets are available at the door. The play is being directed by teachers Phil Located in Chico, CA Combining Quality and Low Cost is what we do. 529-3655 www.affordablemortuary.net Anker and Ryan Heimlich. ——— Tang Lor can be reached at 527-2153, Ext. 110 or by e-mail at tlor@redbluffdailynews.c om. food ingredient safety SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Thousands of ingredients that go into food have been classified as safe by private industry alone, without any government oversight, according to a new report published Wednesday. Since the early 1960's, private companies and industry trade associations have determined at least 3,000 ingredients are safe, with no federal scrutiny, the study found. The ingre- dients include everything from artificially synthesized chem- icals used in chewing gum to grape seed extract used in cheese and instant coffee. The peer-reviewed report published in the Comprehen- sive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety journal draws on research funded by the Pew Health Group, the health and consumer safety arm of the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts. The Grocery Manufacturers Association says the indus- try only classifies ingredients as safe after a battery of rigor- ous biological tests, but agrees that more transparency in the vetting process would help build consumer confidence. ''The system is less transparent than it should be so we're looking to open that dialogue,'' said Leon Bruner, the asso- ciation's chief science officer, who agreed the study's esti- mates were reasonable. ''We are completely comfortable with increasingly the transparency or the visibility of ingre- dients that go through the process.'' The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act makes man- ufacturers responsible for ensuring food ingredients are safe. Companies can classify an ingredient as ''generally recog- nized as safe'' for use in a specific product but aren't required to tell the Food and Drug Administration about what they find. Some do, through a voluntary notification program that gives the FDA a chance to review the findings. Officials have said in the past that if a company markets a food or beverage the agency believes is unsafe, the gov- ernment can always issue warning letters or seize the prod- uct. ''We don't know the names of a lot of these chemicals because the companies have never told FDA or the public about them,'' said Erik Olson, Pew Health Group's director of food and consumer safety programs and one of the study's authors. ''Often there is not publicly available data on the potential health impacts because FDA has never evaluated them.'' TRAIL Continued from page 1A Mill Road to the 35 to 40 or so acre of city-owned land in the East Sand Slough, around Antelope Island and back to Antelope Boulevard. On the south side, connect- ing the Shasta College cam- pus to the trails in the Red Bluff Recreation Area and on Sale Lane would require access near the pumping plant under construction and across the Red Bluff Diver- sion Dam. Already in the works is a 300 feet extension of the trail from the Main Street under- pass heading west along Reeds Creek. Timboe just received approval from the Bureau of Reclamation and should be presenting the pro- ject to the Red Bluff City Council soon. "At this point, the name of the game is for us to plan and get easements so when we get money we don't have to worry about getting land," Timboe said. Funding is one of the obstacles that stands in the way. Transportation staff is actively looking at applying for a Bicycle Transportation Account grant from Cal- trans, Harrasser said. Hughes suggested having a fundraiser where members of the community could make a donation to buy cubic yards of dirt and rock to establish trails. Shasta College was able to recently complete its por- tion of the trail through a grant from the California Conservation Corps. There have been several people using the trail since in opened just a few weeks ago, said Tom Orr, dean of extended education at Shasta College. People are enjoying the scenic offerings available on the trail, including the man-made fire suppression pond that was created during Diamond Mill's operation. There are plans for a sec- ond phase to add paved trails by the campus, Orr said. With the Shasta College portion completed, the next best portion that should be bumped to the top of the list is a section from Brearcliffe Drive, past the city's waste- water treatment plant con- necting the campus. A trail in that area has the least amount of restrictions and the most maximum ben- efit, which includes having an alternative route for stu- dents to get to Shasta Col- lege, Timboe said. Having the connection would create a complete loop. When that portion will be completed is unknown at this time. Timboe said with limited resources and time, the trail plans have been put on hold for other city projects, including a focus on mitiga- tion projects for getting to the river now that the boat ramp at River Park is no longer accessible with the loss of Lake Red Bluff. While the presenters were hesitant to predict when all of this would happen, they pledged that it would get done someday, somehow. "This is not a pie in the sky dream that many of us in this room have," Orr said. "It really can happen." ——— Tang Lor can be reached at 527-2153, Ext. 110 or by e-mail at tlor@redbluffdailynews.com. Come see the Giant Pumpkin October 29th at the Tehama District Fairground Activities Include: • 10:00 am-11am Kids planting • 10:30 am Carved Pumpkin Contest bring in your most creatively carved pumpkin • 11:30 am Award Ceremony Best Carved Pumpkin Heaviest Pumpkin Red Bluff Garden Center 527-0886 766 Antelope Blvd. (Next to the Fairground)