Mark Briggs, our Web site editor, and Aaron Ritchey, our news programmer, may have come up with a way to return movie times to page 2 of SoundLife Monday through Thursday.

We dropped the movie times for area theaters because we wanted more space for articles and because several theater chains made it hard to get the data from them.

But when readers complained Briggs, Ritchey, Norma Martin (our features editor) and Mary Anderson (the calendars editor) began trying to find a way to restore the listings.

The potential solution arose when we started looking at movie listings we get for our Web site through a different service.

It may take a few weeks, but we think that Aaron can capture the HTML data on theaters and showtimes that we publish on the Web, and convert that to text that can be published in the newspaper.

We'll keep you posted.

• A program intended to increase the density of residential development around the Tacoma Mall may have done its job all too well, neighbors and some city officals say. Now they're trying to figure out what to do about it.

• The police can't do the job alone. So a dedicated bunch of activists in neighborhoods around Tacoma are adding their weight to the city's crime-fighting efforts as part of the State Streets program's community patrols.

• The senior prom should be extra special this year at Thomas Jefferson High. Thanks to the good fortune of classmate Danielle Bennett, the seniors will be enjoying a free concert by the All American Rejects, among other things.

In a column about race and politics (here) columnist Leonard Pitts said that, in the West Virginia primary, Hillary Clinton beat Barack Obama "like a red-headed stepchild," attributing the phrase to his father.

Here's what Ralph H. Holland, a TNT reader, said in an e-mail to Pitts:

Dear Mr. Pitts,

I started to read your article as printed in todays (May 26, 2008) Tacoma News Tribune and was at first startled and then flabbergasted at your totally insulting and insensitive use of the phrase " beaten like a red-headed stepchild" !! As a former, now gray and balding, red-headed stepchild it is a insult akin to those which you would find offensive, let alone find uttered in "polite" company.

You should be both ashamed and apologetic to use such a phrase in this age of tolerance.

As a matter of course, and to attune yourself to the insensitivity of this phrase, I would suggest that you read about the Bataan "Death March" of WW II and the treatment of American POW's with red hair.

I would like to assume that your apology will appear in a forthcoming column and look forward to the same.

Leonard Pitts later responded to Mr. Holland, saying:

Please accept my apologies. I had no idea the expression scraped such a raw place. I stand enlightened and I won't use it again.
Yours Truly,
Leonard Pitts, Jr.

• Is this the start of a trend. American Airlines is going to start charging passengers for every bag they check. How they will deal with the mass of carry-on luggage that's sure to follow the move remains to be seen.

• The Department of Veterans Affairs opposes portions of Sen. Patty Murray's proposal to improve services for women veterans. But Murray seems to think there's hope for an accomodation.

• Cristopher Claeys has always been a bit ahead of the curve. He started reading at 19 months of age, for example. Now he's 14 and headed for college at the University of Washington at Tacoma.

• The fire that destroyed Fife's Fabulous Firwood Roadhouse was intentionally set, according to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

• A political action committee has filed suit in federal court to keep the public from knowing who's funding a campaign to defeat Initiative 1000, an assisted suicide measure.

• The 91st Division Prairie is the source of a lot of the noise we occasionally hear from Fort Lewis. The artillery impact area is also a sanctuary for a number of rare plants and animals.

I'm the designated scribe for our daily critique this week. Monday mornings, editors look through the weekend papers for highlights, screw ups and missed opportunities.

Everyone liked Sunday's centerpiece story on where the most auto crashes occur in Tacoma. Reporter Ian Dempsky did a nice job of breathing life into dry statistics by asking readers to talk about their nightmare intersections. Check out the interactive map.

Another fun story: Soren Anderson's profile of Parkland pipe organ builder Paul Fritts. You've gotta see photographer Peter Haley's online gallery.

Among the top local stories in Thursday's News Tribune:

• The United States Golf Association has agreed to pay Pierce County $2.5 million to lease Chambers Bay Golf Course for the 2015 U.S. Open. The county also will get a share of proceeds from the sale of hospitality packages, merchandise and food and beverages under the contract.

• It's been a long journey for members of First United Methodist Church of Tacoma. First Methodist sold its church for a hospital expansion project, and met in another congregation’s building for 19 months.

• The owners of two pit bulls that severely mauled a woman in her Gig Harbor-area home last year pleaded guilty Thursday to reduced charges. Zachary Martin, 20, and his mother, Shellie Wilson, 46, were sentenced to four years probation, two years of suspended jail time and 30 days on electronic home monitoring.

• The number of bicycle commuters in the South Sound remains small, but growing. And as folks search for ways to minimize the bite of higher gasoline prices, the idea of pedaling to the shop or office looks more and more appealing to some.

• Because many psychologically wounded servicemen and women can't or won't obtain mental health care through the military, a group of state mental health care providers is stepping up to help bridge the gap.

• Long-time third-party (or is that fourth-party?) candidate Ralph Nader brought his presidential campaign to the area Wednesday. And he didn't have anything good to say about his three main rivals.

• Wayne Fricke, the new president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association, didn’t have a burning desire to become an attorney when he first enrolled in law school. But the profession grew on him, so much so that he is regarded as one of the region's most sought-after criminal defense attorneys.

• A Gig Harbor police sergeant who specialized in drug investigations is now looking at the criminal justice system from the other side. He's accused of lying in reports that helped land at least two men behind bars.

• Father Tom Suss packed up his personal possessions from his office at McNeil Island prison this week. He resigned rather than attempt to deal with the religious conflict caused by new state rules on inmates who claim to belong to multiple faiths.

•Puyallup triathlete Gary Tucci qualified for the 2008 Ironman World Championship in a most unusual way – by buying a spot in the competition with a $55,100 bid on eBay.

• Clover Park parents aren't universally happy with the school board's choice for superintendent. And they planned on showing up at Monday night's board meeting to make their sentiments known.

If your paper looked like mine this morning, the colors didn't exactly match up, causing the pictures and graphics to have a blurry look.

In fact, the color plates were out of register.

As you probably know, we create color in the paper by laying four layers of ink - red, blue, yellow and black - over one another. Each color is printed with a separate plate.

When we printed today's paper, the plates weren't lined up properly. The problem was the plate "bender," which prepares the flat plates for the rounded cylinders of the press.

Here's the note we received this morning from our production manager, Robin Semegen: "We had a failure on one of our plate benders last night. It was bending plates out of square. It was not noticable till they went to mount plates on the press at starter time. They had to remake 30 to 35 plates causing us to be late. And worse is the fact we are out of register on many of our copies we did produce."

So in addition to having some out of register papers, some may have been delivered late.

Robin tells me the problem has not been completely corrected, but adds: "We will just do a better job of monitoring so we catch it and correct it sooner than we did last night. Should be cleared up by Thursday."

Sorry for the problems. Thanks for your patience.

We all got a kick out of today's Non Sequitur comic in SoundLife. Maybe a little too close for comfort.

In my opinion one of the great things about the print edition is the comics page. You can view comics online - here's Non Sequitur, for instance. But it's just not the same. On the other hand, some papers are having success with animated Flash cartoons. Check out what Newsday's Pulitzer-prize winning political cartoonist Walt Handelsman is doing.

I spent much of the past two days filling in for a reporter as the Reader Representative. I thought I'd share highlights from some of the more interesting calls and e-mails from TNT readers:

* A reader named Michelle says she got "a whopping $371" economic stimulus payment from the feds, and cautions that the media need to be careful to make sure the public understands individuals get up to $600. The way some media reports shorthand the issue, it makes it sound like everyone gets $600, she says. Good reminder, Michelle.

* A Vietnam vet complained that he hadn't heard whether we plan to cover a golf event on Friday for nearly 450 wounded and amputees from Iraq who are getting treatment at the American Lake Veterans Hospital. It sounds like quite a special event, and we do plan to cover it.

* Bill wants to know why Tacoma's reservoirs are so low. We're working on a story about that - and the relation to the incredibly deep snowpack. The story should run early next week.

* Bernadine wants to know if a message she got in an e-mail is true: Does Barack Obama really want to salute "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing" instead of the National Anthem because he feels the anthem conveys "a war-like message"? Answer: No. This is an urban legend debunked by snopes.com and factcheck.com, both of which determined that it was a satirical column written by an Arizona writer that's now being circulated as true.

* I helped a handful of readers find stories that were buried deep within our vast Web site. Said a reader named Loretta: "This is wonderful. I couldn't live without the TNT."

Among the top local stories in Wednesday's News Tribune:

• DaVita, which employs more than 850 people in downtown Tacoma, is running out of space for its growing business. Where it will find the space it needs is Tacoma's latest economic conundrum.

• Lakewood has plans to change the identity and reputation of its notorious Ponders neighborhood, known to many as a nexus of drugs, prostitution and violent crime.

• At a time of year when many people are planting flowers or doing their spring cleaning, dediated skiiers are still on the slopes, thanks to last winter's incredible snowfall.

• If you're trying to sell your house, the latest news from the Multiple Listing Service won't leave you feeling terribly optimistic.

• Puyallup is voting on whether to renew Sound Transit's lease on a downtown parking garage. It's a controversial issue in downtown Puyallup, where some feel the garage is hurting the community's identity.

The newsroom rode a roller coaster of emotions this week -- high that we could usher a colleague into a well-earned retirement, low that we were saying goodbye to a consummate newsman and cornerstone of The News Tribune.

Rob Tucker worked here nearly 30 years as a reporter, city editor, editorial writer, sports editor, business editor and consumer columnist. (Not all at the same time, although he would have tried if we asked.)

I said it at his retirement party, and I'll say it again now: It's hard to think of anyone who better personifies the values of teamwork than Rob. When asked to provide his 10 biggest stories at the TNT, Rob largely submitted things that he worked on with other reporters: the Sheriff Janovich scandal, Mount St. Helens eruption, Atlas Foundry explosion, to name a few.

In 2003 when I arrived as Rob's suburban team leader, he had been working as the Puyallup Valley reporter for eight years and was probably ready for a change. When I asked him what he wanted to do, he didn't try to set himself up for a career move; instead he said: "I'll do whatever you need me to do."

Rob worked three more years in East Pierce County and his final two covering Lakewood, Fircrest, Steilacoom and DuPont.

The new Lakewood reporter is Brent Champaco, who has covered University Place and Gig Harbor for more than three years.

Our managing editor described Rob Tucker as a "gentleman journalist." Others at his sendoff said they will remember him for his encouraging ways (he only ever got angry at his computer) and deep experience covering floods, storms and local history. One reporter gave this metaphor: Some people are books, but Rob is a whole bookshelf.

Rob's last day was Wednesday. I miss him already.

• OK, it may not solve all your problems, but those federal economic stimulus payments are starting to arrive. Many local folks, reporter Scott Fontaine discovers, are planning to do just what the government wants – spend the money fast.

• There's no sign yet of the person or persons unknown who vandalized the long fir on the Chambers Bay golf course. But an arborist believes the tree can be preserved.

• Waiting for your test results can be agonizing when you suspect you may have cancer. Now a joint screening clinic being set up in Tacoma should dramatically cut the waiting time for possible breast cancer patients.

A couple of readers posted comments on the story about the attempt to chop down the only tree at Chambers Bay Golf Course. They wonder why we put it on the front page.

Lots of factors go into deciding what to put on the front page. The list includes - but isn't limited to - such categories as breaking news, impact, how many people it affects, a heartwarming tale, an appalling tale, local news and food groups (meaning, we try not to put three state government stories on the front page, or three military stories or three of any type of similar content).

But there's another category that I'd call the "Oh my gosh!" category. As in, "Oh my gosh, did you hear that someone tried to cut down the only tree at Chambers Bay?!"

That was the reaction throughout the newsroom yesterday as word of the vandalism spread. It's also the top story on our Web story today (in terms of page views), so that's often an indication that we picked a good one.