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The Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce said in a statement Friday that it has run the ad on Internet search engines since fall 2006. For example, when someone searches Google for "Virginia Beach vacations," a sponsored link called "Escape to Myrtle Beach" also is displayed.

Virginia Beach tourism officials recently discovered the ad and sent a protest letter to the chamber.

Chamber head Brad Dean said he was surprised they took offense at what he called a playful Internet tactic.

Dean said the chamber will not change the ad now but will review the tactic in the future.

South Carolina's April jobless rate edged up slightly, to 5.9 percent, the Employment Security Commission said. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, national unemployment dropped slightly to 5 percent, with Michigan recording the highest jobless rate at 6.9 percent.

Jobs in South Carolina were down by 3,300 last month - some 2,400 of them in the construction industry. That sector continued to slide, down 7,300 from a year ago. One expert said he expects the trend will continue.

"We're going to keep seeing these construction numbers going down," said Paulo Guimaraes, a research economist at the University of South Carolina. "There are no miracles here."

New housing permits in South Carolina have dropped about 40 percent in the last year, Guimaraes said. Nationally, the Commerce Department reported that new home construction posted the biggest increase in more than two years last month, a bump experts expected to be temporary.

Richland 1 trustees today picked Mack over two other candidates, Gerald D. Dawkins of Saginaw, Mich., and Craig Witherspoon, superintendent of Edgecombe County, N.C. schools.

All three visited Columbia May 6 for a whirlwind day of interviews, school tours and a joint appearance at a social gathering that attracted nearly 200 Richland 1 parents and taxpayers.

Mack, 57, will begin work July 1.

“It’s exciting for me. I’m flattered they have the confidence to pick me to lead that district,” Mack said when reached by phone shortly after the vote.

Sowells was frantic. He ran outside, shouting for help and catching the attention of a neighbor sitting on her porch in the early morning. He turned back to the home, lunging for the door only to be pushed back by the heat.

He lunged again as his children screamed for him. A neighbor, Torsan Lundy, held Sowells back, convinced that if he got back into the house, he would never get out.

"I heard them saying, 'Daddy, daddy.' Screaming and then it just stopped," Sowells recalled just days after the Tuesday fire that claimed his family.

Jennifer Sowells, 27, and sons LaKwan, 4; Curtis Jr., 3; and Darrell, 2, died in the blaze. The children's bodies were found near the entrance, their mother in a back bedroom of their small home in Dillon, a town of about 6,400 people tucked in the northeast corner of the state near the North Carolina line.

Chesterfield High senior Parker Anderson tells WBTW-TV he hopes 18-year-old Ryan Schallenberger will read the messages and the Bible and it will change his life.

The Bible was given to prosecutor Jay Hodge, who will try to get it to Schallenberger in jail.

Schallenberger faces several state and federal charges, including attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction.

A federal agent testified last month that Schallenberger told police he wanted to die, go to heaven and kill Jesus.

But when families gather today at the base of the Odell Williamson bridge, it will be testament to the fierce task of survival, of remembering the contributions of seven bright young South Carolinians who died too young.

The town of Ocean Isle Beach, N.C., just across the border from South Carolina, will unveil a cross-shaped monument to the six USC students and one Clemson student who died Oct. 28 in the canalside three-story beach house.

The names of the seven — Cassidy Pendley, 18; Lauren Mahon, 18; Justin Anderson, 19; Travis Cale, 19; Allison Walden, 19; William Rhea, 18; and Emily Yelton, 19 — are inscribed on a granite stone at the base of the cross.

It carries the date of the fire and the inscription “Friends together forever,” a fitting epitaph for a warm, carefree college weekend that went terribly awry.

The then-rising political star privately described his casual drug culture to a SLED investigator last spring when Ravenel was first confronted about his drug use.

Ravenel portrayed himself as being drawn from a healthy lifestyle into a cocaine world that stretched from the Upper King Street bar district to mansions south of Broad Street.

“I was sort of addicted to working out,” Ravenel told Lt. Frank O’Neal during conversations on June 15 and 16.

“Then, recently ... I was just kinda, you know, I was just looking to, I don’t know, I was around people that were doing it.”

Something chewed up the front fender of Bob and Dixie Rawson’s van in February. Bite marks were left on the wheel wells, and blood was found on the vehicle.

A veterinary lab in California tested the blood and found it came from a dog, The (Sumter) Item reported.

But Bob Rawson isn’t sure, saying it would have to be one big dog.

Lee County Sheriff E.J. Melvin isn’t convinced, either. He thinks it was a coyote or wolf.

The state Senate approved legislation Thursday authorizing the state Department of Education to replace PACTs with a new battery of standardized tests.

The last major hurdle appears to be when the new tests will be administered.

The House wants the Education Department to have new tests ready in the spring of 2010. The Senate thinks students should take them next spring. A special committee of lawmakers from both chambers will be assembled to find a compromise.

State schools chief Jim Rex, who last week called on senators to pass the testing change legislation, said his agency prefers to replace PACTs a year from now.

The telephone hot line number — (888) CRIME-SC — will appear on 10 billboards that will feature an image of a dog with a scarred face and missing an eye.

Dogfighting can be associated with crimes including gang violence, drug trafficking, serial killings and child molestation, Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott said.

“If someone will abuse an animal,” Lott said, “they will abuse a human.”

The payout in a fight between two pit bulls in a rural South Carolina ring could be $100,000 — drawing people from New York to Texas, Attorney General Henry McMaster said.

Escalating food and fuel costs nationally are forcing schools across the state to consider raising cafeteria prices next year.

At least three Columbia-area school districts are discussing increasing meal costs.

“What we’re seeing is that the cost of everything is going up,” said Vivian Pilant, state director of the office of school food services. “Usually it’s one thing. This year, everything is going up.”

State education officials have advised districts to budget 10 percent more for food costs in the 2008-09 school year.

“There’s nothing like a year in combat to make you appreciate home,” said Smith, a Columbia Democrat, who commanded a nine-man Army National Guard team in southern Afghanistan.

By day, the team trained Afghan police officers and worked to build trust between the fledgling security forces and skeptical villagers.

By night, Smith and his men hopped on Humvees and tracked down and fought the Taliban across mountainous terrain and vast stretches of dessert.

Smith, 40, said he longed for the green of South Carolina, the shade of its trees, the thickness of its air compared with the thin air of Afghanistan and blowing sand that managed to get everywhere.

Of the state’s eight Edwards delegates, six announced they would support Obama. Two remain uncommitted.

Edwards, an S.C. native and former U.S. senator from North Carolina, endorsed Obama in Michigan on Wednesday night. He asked his delegates — 19 earned in three states — to vote for Obama.

Edwards earned more delegates — eight — in finishing third in South Carolina than in any other state. In 2004, Edwards won the South Carolina primary, and his support in the Palmetto State continues to run deep.

Under party rules, delegates are free to vote for whomever they choose.

Macalister Reid Jr., 21, and Shaina Laquillah-Lynn Whitmore, 19, both of Newberry, are each charged with assault with intent to kill and unlawful conduct toward a child. They are at the Newberry County jail.

The child is the suspects’ and was put in protective custody, the county Sheriff’s Department said.

Deputies were notified of a fight around 5 p.m. at a Wilson Road parking lot in which one person had a pistol. As deputies were en route, the people in the dispute got in their vehicles and sped off, the Sheriff’s Department said.

An unidentified man then called 911 to report he was being chased by another car whose occupants were shooting at him. Authorities said the shooters’ car eventually was spotted back on Wilson Road, and the couple were arrested there without incident.

Clyburn, a Columbia Democrat and the No. 3 U.S. House leader, said former Orangeburg County Council chairman John Rickenbacker has paid his debt to society and deserves a new political lease on life.

“My father was a minister,” Clyburn said. “My faith is very important to me. I do believe in redemption. As a public servant, I believe in rehabilitation. I do believe in the Scripture when it says, ‘Judge not lest ye be judged.’”

Rickenbacker, 56, pleaded guilty in April 2007 to accepting $50,000 from an FBI agent posing as a consultant to a company seeking to buy the Regional Medical Center in Orangeburg.

Rickenbacker was released last month from the Alston Wilkes Society halfway house in Columbia after serving one year and a day in federal prison, most of the time in a minimum-security facility in Bennettsville.

“I hope we can override that veto. Lower Richland needs a little market of its own.”

— Rep. Jimmy Bales, D-Richland, responding to Gov. Mark Sanford’s veto of a bill to create mini state farmers markets around the state. Sanford said the mini markets would dilute the importance of a new State Farmers Market planned for Lexington County.

S.C. PRIMARY

Days left until the June 10 primary: 25

But, he added, there is always room for improvement.

“It looks, at first glance, that (the report) is thorough and full of suggestions, not just for Charleston, but for all departments,” Anderson said.

He added that it is unlikely an incident like the Sofa Super Store blaze — which claimed the lives of nine Charleston firefighters last year — would happen in Columbia because Anderson’s department already complies with 95 percent of the report’s recommendations.

The report cited a lack of “overall direction” and “inadequate supervision” on the scene of the fire.

The report — by a panel of experts commissioned by the city of Charleston — echoed earlier analyses of the fire, saying the Fire Department was undertrained and overmatched June 18 as a small blaze in the Sofa Super Store’s loading dock spread through the building and overwhelmed firefighters.

The blaze killed more firefighters than any emergency since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks..

The report said that firefighters did not follow standard safety practices, and that aggressive offensive tactics exposed firefighters to “excessive and avoidable risks.”

It comes the day after longtime Fire Chief Rusty Thomas announced his plans to retire, and one week after a similar analysis from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.

But when they look at each other, they see flashes of that early morning in October when a fire at a North Carolina beach house took seven of their friends.

For those who died, their families push on, honoring their memory. But for those who survived it’s a different kind of struggle — of coming to terms with living and figuring out what’s next.

“No other friend, family member, anyone can touch on some of the things that the six of us would be able to. At times that makes it kind of awkward,” said Tripp Wylie, who survived the fire after leaping from a second-story window.

At first, the six would hang out on the USC campus. They would talk, sometimes telling funny stories about their friends who died. But the stories were emotional land mines. Different people stepped on them at different times.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control issued water quality approval for the Cliffs at Mountain Park, a new resort community backed by professional golfer Gary Player. The DHEC approval says proposed dams, creeks and bridges won’t hurt water quality in the northern Greenville County river.

Some environmentalists and area residents have opposed the project, saying it could pollute the North Saluda. Mountain Park developers have said they are building the project with the environment in mind.

The drive is from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday at Columbia Place mall.

Donors will receive a free T-shirt and will be entered in a drawing for a chance to win a tour of Universal Studios.

To set up an appointment, visit donatebloodtoday.org, or call South Carolina Blood Services at (800) GIVE-LIFE.

Citizens are asked to donate boxed fans, air conditioners and money. Fans and air conditioners must be in working order.

Businesses can help by installing, servicing and repairing air conditioners.

The program ends Aug. 30. Call the Police Department at (803) 545-3500.

Nazareth Road, 1200 block: A woman called police at 10 a.m. Wednesday to say she was being stalked and harassed by a man with whom she had once worked. The 30-year-old woman told deputies that when she had a car accident a few months ago, the man told her he now works at a car dealership and could get her a car. She said she found a car at his lot and gave him her credit information so he could process the loan, but instead he used that information to hack into her computer.

RICHLAND COUNTY SHERIFF

Two Notch Road, 6400 block: Police were called to a business at 7:30 p.m. Monday after the owner said a shoplifter had threatened him. The owner told deputies he saw the man stuff some hair products into his pants. The man then walked out without paying and the owner confronted him. The shoplifter yelled at the owner, called him names and threatened him with bodily harm.

Piney Branch Road, 600 block: A man called police at 7 a.m. Tuesday after he said his wife told him their neighbor was shooting at their dog. The man told deputies that the neighbor didn’t like his Doberman pinscher and had been harassing it for some time. The wife said the neighbor used an air-powered pellet or BB gun to shoot at the dog, but the dog wasn’t injured.

The State Law Enforcement Division said Thursday that 27-year-old Jesse Reid, of Hephzibah, Ga., was arrested Wednesday and charged with sexual misconduct with an inmate.

SLED said Reid admitted in August to having a sexual relationship with an inmate at McCormick Correctional Institution, a maximum security all-male facility about 80 miles west of Columbia.

A spokesman for the prison system said Reid was hired as a guard in December 2006 and fired in October because of inappropriate relations with an inmate.

The event — from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 24 at the Wal-Mart at 115 E. Church St. — includes a child-safety seat inspection program, a child identification program, law enforcement displays and other community-based health-related information.

The Batesburg-Leesville Police Department and the Lexington County Sheriff’s Department also are hosting.

Not just because it took the staff days to sort through records, brushing off the singed edges of student files.

But because she’d made students leave their workbooks at school to ensure they didn’t lose them over winter break.

Hoffman had no idea she would be the one to blame for “losing” the books.

“They did not ever let me forget that,” she said before laughing.

He was working at Camp Burnt Gin, a summer camp in Wedgefield, for children who have physical disabilities and chronic illnesses.

He met a young man who was a triple amputee. That summer he taught him to swim.

“That kind of spurred me on,” he said. “Every kid can succeed.”

Keister, principal at Granby Education Center, will retire at the end of this school year and return to his hometown of Beaufort.

Hundreds of children later, the two veteran educators are saying good-bye to the classroom. It has been their second home, a place where they created a lasting professional and personal bond. It is a place they will miss, even as they start gallivanting across the globe in retirement.

“We decided that we would go out together because we teach side-by-side,” said Rush, who leaves with nearly 33 years of experience. “You just finally feel like it’s time to start something else.”

The two plan to tour places they’ve not visited in South Carolina, across the U.S. and abroad. Rush is headed to France in June, and Cheekwill tour Italy soon.

It’s the eager students and everyday learning that kept the two friends teaching so long. But, it’s ironic also, because neither one thought they would grow up to be teachers. Cheek was a computer programmer who was persuaded to go into teaching by a superintendent. And, Rush had planned to go to business school.

One day her father gave the mezzo soprano a bit of unsolicited advice.

“He said, ‘In case the opera thing doesn’t work out, you probably need to have a backup plan,’” she recalled.

After taking some education courses and doing some student teaching, Turner said she was hooked and most thoughts of performing disappeared.

“It’s been a wonderful career,” the Dutch Fork High music teacher said. “I’m so glad I made this choice. I did the right thing.”

It says: “You may be just one person in the world but you may be the world to one person.”

The Batesburg-Leesville Elementary teacher will retire at the end of this school year, leaving behind a 35-year career but taking with her thousands of memories.

And that quote.

“I can apply this wherever I go,” she said. “Where God carries me I can certainly be of help to one person.”

A student at Dentsville High School (now Dent Middle School), and later a visual arts teacher, Edmonds will retire at the end of this school year. She’s been teaching for 32 years, and had always planned to retire once she turned 65. At that point, she’d told herself, the children would need a younger teacher.

“I never had a clue that I would be teaching for 32 years,” she said. “But, one year led to another year, and pretty soon I said, ‘Gee, I love doing this and,’ and I just stayed.”

Edmonds, a mother of one son, said her parents — a seamstress and a gardener — were a big influence on her love of art. And, then it was her mother who suggested she go into teaching because she’d get the summers off.

Eventually, teaching proved a natural fit for Edmonds who loved to learn as much as she loved art.

But in August, the retiring teacher will take on a new role — that of a classroom volunteer at Pleasant Hill Elementary.

That’s where her daughter Hope, who graduated from USC this year, will begin her own teaching career.

Hope, 22, said she always dreamed of becoming a teacher like her mother.

“I obviously grew up in my mother’s classroom,” she said. “I’m looking forward to continuing my mom’s legacy. ”

“The street is my classroom,” he says.

It is not uncommon this time of year to see Atkinson and one of his students repeatedly crossing busy Columbia intersections on foot.

His job is to teach blind children the skills they’ll need the rest of their lives to function in the world.

After four decades teaching students how to do what most of us take for granted, Atkinson will retire later this month. He and his wife will relocate to a cabin they’re building on a lake in North Carolina.

RETIRED ENLISTED ASSOCIATION, CHAPTER 38: 5:30 p.m. Friday in the third floor staff room at Moncrief Hospital, Fort Jackson. All retired military, guard and reserves are encouraged to attend. (803) 740-2319; jrodgers11@sc.rr.com

JOHN BACHMAN GROUP OF THE SIERRA CLUB: 7:30 p.m. Monday at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Columbia, Heyward and Woodrow streets. This month’s guest speaker will be Eliott Powell, interim chair of the Gills Creek Watershed Association. Supper will be served at 6 p.m. for a small donation. www.southcarolina.sierraclub.org/bachman/

U.S. SUBMARINE VETERANS INC.: 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Crab Shack, 711 E. Main St. (Old Mill), Lexington. (803) 786-5757

FLEET RESERVE ASSOCIATION BRANCH, UNIT 202: 1 p.m. the third Tuesday at the Naval Reserve Center, 2620 Lee Road, Fort Jackson. New members welcome. The Ladies Auxiliary meets at the same time. (803) 482-4456

HOME WORKS OF AMERICA is seeking youth and adults to make repairs to homes of the elderly and the disadvantaged in the greater Columbia area June 8-15; sessions for middle schoolers (grades 6-8) and a senior high session (ages 14 and older). A planning meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. Thursday, May 22, at Benedict-Allen Community Development Center, 2001 Two Notch Road. Refreshments will be served. (803) 781-4356 or go to www.homeworksofamerica.org

HISTORIC COLUMBIA FOUNDATION is looking for volunteers to lead tours of historic house museums and special tours, educate visitors about Columbia’s history, work with school groups and meet interesting people. Volunteet training sessions will be offered 9 a.m.-2 p.m. Monday and Tuesday at the Seibels House, 1601 Richland St. (803) 252-1770, ext. 24

SEXUAL TRAUMA SERVICES OF THE MIDLANDS will hold volunteer advocate training June 17-23, sessions will meet 6-9 p.m. June 17-19, 23; 9 a.m.-5 p.m. June 21 and 1:30-6 p.m. June 22 (attendance at all sessions is required) at 3700 Forest Drive, Suite 300. Volunteers must be 18 or older; complete the training program, available during required times (on-call at least two shifts per month); and have reliable transportation. (803) 790-8208; www.stsm.org

ROAD TO RECOVERY is a program that provides cancer patients with transportation to and from treatments. Training is scheduled weekly at the American Cancer Society office, 128 Stonemark Lane. Volunteers must have a valid driver’s license, good driving record and a reliable vehicle. Lang Hunt, (803) 759-1693.

The plan by Wally Hollyday Design features a linear skate park with bulges for bowls and ledges at either end. It would be tucked between the existing baseball field parking area and the forest.

If the skate park is laid out as designed, no trees would have to be cut down, according to city parks planner Damon McDuffie.

The skate park would be only slightly larger than the old one, but it will have more efficient use of space. The concrete surface flows from one bowl or ramp to the next.

“I have heard only good things from the skateboarders,” said Ryan Cockrell, who helped organize Pour It Now, an advocacy group that has raised $6,000 for the skate park. “The designs are better than I could have imagined.”

LEXINGTON SHERIFF

Old Two Notch Road, 9800 block, between 6:45 a.m. and 6 p.m. May 5. Someone broke into a home and stole firearms and other items worth $9,570. Damage was $300.

ZIP CODE 29016

PROPERTY TRANSFERS

The officers — bringing the town force to 43 — are the only new employees included in a proposed $19.9 million spending plan that would take effect July 1.

A specialist in gangs is vital as problems like graffiti, youth fights and intimidation “are coming our way,” police chief Terrence Green said. “We need to be proactive in handling that.”

More officers are needed to patrol mainly along U.S. 378 as new stores, offices and apartments open on the east side of town, he said.

The officers will be hired in stages through spring, bringing town staff overall to 128.

ARMY SGT. KENDRA S. WILLIAMS has completed basic combat training at Fort Jackson. The daughter of Sherry Williams of Columbia, she is a 1992 graduate of Irmo High School and received a bachelor’s degree from Carson-Newman College in 1996.

ARMY RESERVE PFC. DELORIAN A. BROWN has completed basic combat training at Fort Jackson. The son of Aaron and Delores Brown of Columbia, he is a 2006 graduate of Columbia High School.

AIRMAN BRENT M. ARCHIE has completed basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio, Texas. The son of Betty Archie of Columbia, he is a 2007 graduate of Airport High School.

ARMY RESERVE 1st LT. BRIAN R. HAMPTON has been decorated with the Army Commendation Medal for participating in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Hampton is a platoon leader and automated logistical specialist with five years’ military service. The son of Richard and Joyce Hampton of Columbia, he is a 2001 graduate of Richland Northeast High School and received a bachelor’s degree from USC Upstate in 2005.

In a 4-3 ruling written by Chief Justice Ronald George, the court struck down California laws that restrict marriage to heterosexual couples, finding the restriction unconstitutional.

The California and Massachussetts Supreme Courts are the only top courts in the country to uphold the right of gay couples to marry.

“The California Constitution properly must be interpreted to guarantee this basic civil right to all Californians, whether gay or heterosexual, and to same-sex couples as well as to opposite-sex couples,” the court said in a 121-page decision.

Outside the courthouse, gay-marriage supporters cried and cheered as the news spread.

Lori Drew of suburban St. Louis, who allegedly helped create a MySpace account in the name of someone who didn’t exist to convince Megan Meier she was chatting with a fictional 16-year-old boy named Josh Evans, was charged with conspiracy and fraudulently gaining access to someone else’s computer.

Megan hanged herself at home in October 2006, allegedly after receiving a dozen or more cruel messages, including one stating the world would be better off without her.

Salvador Hernandez, assistant agent in charge of the Los Angeles FBI office, called the case heart-rending.

“The Internet is a world unto itself. People must know how far they can go before they must stop. They exploited a young girl’s weaknesses,” Hernandez said. “Whether the defendant could have foreseen the results, she’s responsible for her actions.”

The experts said the world must reverse the decline since the 1980s in international support for agriculture in the developing world. Although it’s important to look at short-term fixes, such as more humanitarian aid and a re-examination of trade and biofuels policies, in the long run the world will need scientific advances in agriculture, especially for Africa, they said.

Josette Sheeran, executive director of the U.N. World Food Program, told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that the impact of the food crisis is “one of the most pressing global issues of our time.”

“Some say there are only seven meals between civilization and potential anarchy. At the seventh meal lost, people are reduced to fending for their survival, and the survival of their children, fraying the very moorings of society,” she said.

Some of the causes of the jump in world food prices are expected to continue: the trend in large countries such as China for people to eat more meat and dairy products, thus requiring more feed for livestock; higher oil prices; and more grain used for biofuels.

Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne cited dramatic declines in sea ice over the past three decades and projections of continued losses. This means that the polar bear is a species likely to be in danger of extinction in the near future, he said.

But Kempthorne cautioned it would be “wholly inappropriate” to use the protection of the bear to reduce greenhouse gases or to broadly address climate change.

The Endangered Species Act “is not the right tool to set U.S. climate policy,” said Kempthorne, reflecting President Bush’s view.

The secretary cited conclusions by department scientists that sea-ice loss will likely result in two-thirds of the polar bears disappearing by mid-century. The bear population across the Arctic from Alaska to Greenland has doubled from about 12,000 to 25,000 since 1960, but he noted that scientists now predict a significant population decline.

“The political atmosphere ... is the worst since Watergate and far more toxic than the fall of 2006 when we lost 30 seats,” Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia wrote the leadership in a bluntly worded memo.

“Clearly, I think we’ve got to do a better job” going into the November elections, said the Republican leader, Rep. John Boehner, one day after Democrat Travis Childers won a Mississippi congressional victory. That seat had been in Republican hands since the 1994 landslide that swept the GOP into power.

Several lawmakers and aides said a change was possible but far from certain at the National Republican Congressional Committee, where Oklahoma Rep. Tom Cole is chairman. Party leaders also said they were on the verge of distributing a campaign season manifesto to their rank and file setting out conservative positions on taxes and other issues.

Davis, a former campaign committee chairman who is retiring at the end of this year, noted that polls show Americans overwhelmingly believe the country is headed down the wrong track, President Bush is unpopular, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee enjoyed a cash advantage of $44 million to $7 million as of March 31.

“People come in and say, I had a black and white tuxedo cat before, so that’s what I want,” says Jim Monsma of the Washington Animal Rescue League in Washington, D.C. “But cats are not all the same. They have widely divergent personalities.”

That’s why the shelter is now using the Feline-ality program, developed by behaviorist Dr. Emily Weiss of the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Part of the ASPCA’s Meet Your Match program, which also includes Canine-ality for dogs, the program assesses a variety of behaviors in individual cats. It rates the animals on confidence and sociability, which Weiss’ research has shown are independent of each other.

The program then tallies those assessments to place the cat into nine personality categories, which can be matched with a family’s situation and desires. It’s not unlike a magazine quiz to find out “Which kind of cat are you?”

Jun Parreno, the boy’s father, told The Vancouver Sun the mix-up occurred Monday as he, his wife and two grandparents of the child, J.M., were scrambling between their arrival in Canada and a connecting flight to Winnipeg on Air Canada.

Running late after having to unpack and repack all their luggage, “we had 10 minutes before boarding,” said Parreno, who was emigrating with his family from the Philippines. “We were running for the gate.”

He said he thought his son was with the three other adults, who were running to the gate ahead of him, and they thought the little boy was with him.

Instead, in a scenario similar to the movie “Home Alone,” the toddler was wandering alone between a security checkpoint and the flight gates, said Angela Mah, an Air Canada representative.

Retired Justice Sandra Day O’Connor made public her family’s private battle with the mind-destroying illness Wednesday as she urged Congress to speed research in hopes of slowing a coming epidemic.

“Our nation is certainly ready to get deadly serious about this deadly disease,” she told the Senate Special Committee on Aging.

She has a personal stake: “My beloved husband, John, suffers from Alzheimer’s,” she said, her voice briefly wobbling. “He’s not in very good shape at present.”

Her story resonated with senator after senator who told of mothers and fathers crippled and then killed by Alzheimer’s inexorable march — and with a crowd of about 300 onlookers, many wearing purple Alzheimer’s Association sashes, who applauded the calls for aid in a Senate hearing room where such emotion is rare.

A middle school teacher in Clinton pleads guilty to three counts of criminal sexual conduct with a minor, accused of having sex with at least five boys.

A high school cheerleading coach in Ware Shoals is accused of giving beer to two of her cheerleaders and having sex with a male student who was old enough to consent.

These are three criminal cases brought against educators last year alone — incidents state officials hope to pre-empt with a new program aimed at teaching anyone who works in a school how to prevent, recognize and react to child sexual abuse.

“Most children will never tell,” said Anne Lee, president and CEO of the nonprofit group that developed the training. “One in 10 children will tell, and 43 percent of those that do tell will tell a teacher.”

Columbia-area districts are seeing far fewer teachers leaving the classroom this year than were eligible for retirement.

This is a welcome reprieve for district officials, who could have been looking at replacing as many as 500 teachers, or roughly 7 percent of the teaching work force. Instead, many teachers chose not to retire or to continue — in some way — as working retirees.

District officials from seven of the eight Columbia-area districts reported 243 teachers have decided to retire this year.

The largest impact is in Richland 1, where about 111 of its 1,700 teachers are retiring.

Trustees OK’d the release of $696,566 from an emergency spending account to resolve appeals from 615 employees who believed they met criteria to qualify for extra pay. The vote Tuesday night was unanimous.

Coles proposed a “pay for results” program a year ago if students produced better scores on tests and other measures. The seven-member board OK’d the idea as an experiment and signed off on committing $1 million to underwrite it.

Coles’ staff produced a report this week that put the figure at just over $2.7 million.

“It far exceeded our expectations,” Coles said Wednesday. “I think that’s good news.”