COLUMBIA — Vacant factory buildings blemish the roadsides of Route Z, Prathersville Road and Vandiver Drive, towering over parking lots that span concrete flats the size of several football fields. "For sale" signs — symbols of the manufacturing sector’s eight-year decline in Columbia and Boone County — mark the barren, industrial landscape. Boone County has lost 1,920 manufacturing jobs since ...

A man who answered a telephone number listed for a Chad Dickie on Thursday at first identified himself as Dickie, but when a reporter then identified himself and asked about Dickie’s involvement with National Promotions, the man said, “No, this is Fred, I’m sorry.”

By now Yolo County prosecutor Clint Parish ranks right up there with pepper-spray cop John Pike in terms of notoriety for noteworthy gaffs.Of course Pike was allegedly acting under orders when he used pepper spray against non-resisting students last November during the Occupy UC Davis protest.