Sprint to join rivals in cutting termination fees

Following its rivals, Sprint Nextel Corp. will soon begin trimming the fees customers face for canceling their cell phone service early.

Chief Executive Dan Hesse said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press that Sprint could start lowering the early termination fees as soon as December, once the company updates its billing software. The fee of $200 or more is charged to wireless subscribers who end their service before their two-year contract ends.

The new policy would reduce the fee slightly for each month a subscriber stays with the plan. Competitors AT&T Inc., Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA already prorate their fees.

A …

Cut allowances plan

Allowances for councillors may be cut back in North Somerset.

The move, which could affect some councillors responsible forChurchill, Sandford and Winscombe, will be discussed at the nextexecutive meeting of North Somerset …

Angels Go Extra Innings to Sweep Pirates

ANAHEIM, Calif. - For the second time in three days, the Los Angeles Angels beat the Pittsburgh Pirates in extra innings with a "ground-run double" that wasn't.

Erick Aybar singled home the winning run in the 10th and Jose Molina drove in two runs, leading the Angels to a 4-3 victory on Sunday and a three-game sweep that kept them eight games ahead of the pack in the AL West.

"Every guy in here has the ability to step up and get the job done, and as we've seen lately, everybody's been contributing to all the wins," second baseman Howie Kendrick said. "That's one great thing about our organization. Even the guys who aren't everyday players, when they get spot starts they …

Obituaries in the news

Carol Cole

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ Carol Cole, an actress and Natalie Cole's sister, has died. She was 64.

Natalie Cole's publicist, Maureen O'Connor, says Carol Cole died Monday, the same day Natalie received a kidney transplant.

The singer was by her older sister's side when she learned that a donor organ had become available.

Carol Cole, who went by the nickname Cookie, appeared on her father's "The Nat King Cole Show" on television in the 1950s and went on to appear on TV and in movies in the 1960s and '70s. Her credits include "Sanford and Son" and the 1974 movie "The Taking of Pelham One Two Three."

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Mingo airport site shows the possibilities: ; Surface mines can help us diversify Southern W.Va.

VARNEY - The dedication of the Mingo County Air TransportationPark in southern West Virginia this past week is a prime example ofthe value of our surface mine lands in the effort to diversify theeconomy of the Appalachian coalfields.

The 900-acre site was donated to the Mingo County RedevelopmentAuthority earlier this year, with owners Alpha Natural Resourcesproviding not only the land but completing the basic sitedevelopment, moving millions of tons of earth and rock.

This work was completed by the company at no cost to thetaxpayers, saving them millions of dollars.

When construction is completed on the project, the people ofsouthern West Virginia will have a …

R&D UPDATE

Adding Peanuts to the Pump

Move over, soybeans and com: Peanuts may be elbowing their way into the biodiesel fuel market. Agricultural Research Service (ARS; www.ars.usda. gov) scientists are searching for economically feasible peanut varieties for that very purpose.

Agronomist Wilson Faircloth at the ARS National Peanut Research Laboratory in Dawson, GA, and Daniel Geller, a collaborative engineer at the Univ. of Georgia (Athens; www.uga. edu), are testing a peanut called Georganic. It's not up to commercial edible standards for peanuts, but is high in oil and has low production costs.

Georganic - or similar varieties - will likely be the future of peanut biodiesel …

Clooney, Zellweger Whistle-Stop

"Leatherheads" wasn't filmed here, and one of its characters _ played by Renee Zellweger _ spends part of the new movie disparaging the place, flung way atop the U.S. map as it is.

But Zellweger and her co-star, George Clooney, stopped by to thank the folks here anyway for the city's role in the football comedy, part of a promotional whistle-stop tour Monday that included Maysville, Ky., near Clooney's hometown.

At the Depot, an old train station in downtown Duluth, the stars arrived aboard a train _ how else do you arrive via whistle-stop tour? _ wearing period clothes reflecting the movie's 1920s setting.

Clooney, who also directed …