From the Associated Press

Marin nixes plans for drug-sniffing dogs

MARIN CITY — School board officials have suspended a program that would bring drug-sniffing dogs into a middle school attended primarily by black students.

Sausalito Marin City School District board decided Monday to postpone the program for two months to discuss the issue with parents.

Upset students, parents and civil rights activists had chastised the board for previously approving what they called a racially insensitive program without community involvement.

“I think it is great that they’ve gone in this direction and are finally listening to people’s concerns,” said Bryce Skolfield of the Youth Leadership Institute.

The district’s trustees agreed in November to a contract with a company to use the dogs in monthly sweeps of the Martin Luther King Jr. Academy middle school, a small school attended by 40 black children, mostly from Marin City.

The school trustees, two of whom are black, said the drug-sniffing dog issue was blown out of proportion mostly by uninformed people./AP

Cat plummets 80-feet without injury

SUMMERVILLE, S.C. — Piper the cat may have used up a life or two but was unharmed after falling nearly 80 feet from a tree.

She had been in the tree for eight days when a rescuer started up to save her Monday. But a scared Piper crept away until the limb underneath her snapped.

She fell 80 feet, twisting and turning in the air before slamming onto the ground.

Piper wasn’t even dazed, scampering off before her owner, Rodney Colvin, could catch her.

The cat was found a few minutes later under a vehicle. Her owner said she had no broken bones and was only a little dehydrated./AP