Laura Ling, left and Euna Lee, shown upon arriving in the United States after North Korean captivity, are posting some of their thoughts about being home.Expressions of gratitude and snippets of life returning to normal from recently freed journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling are being posted on a Web site.
The two women were detained at the North Korean border on March 17 while reporting on the trafficking of women and children along the border between China and North Korea. North Korea tried and convicted both women for entering the country illegally, and they were sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Former President Bill Clinton made an unprecedented trip to North Korea to meet face to face with the country’s leader, Kim Jong Il, a negotiated the women’s release after they had been held for more than four months.
Ling, a reporter for Current TV who grew up in Carmichael, wrote in a posting today that she was touched by the support back home.
“While in detention in North Korea, isolated and scared, one of the things that gave me strength and sustained my faith was hearing about the groundswell of support for Euna and me,” Ling wrote. “You were a part of this incredible movement, and for that I will be forever thankful.”
Through the letters she received, Ling learned about vigils, the LauraAndEuna.com Web site and other grassroots efforts to bring the women home.
“I am deeply humbled,” she wrote.
Since being released earlier this month, Lee writes, she has been re-aquainting herself with her 4-year-old daughter, Hana, and husband, Michael Saldate.
“What have I done . . . hmmm . . . let’s see. I made scrambled eggs with Hana, I walked around the neighborhood with Michael and Hana after dinner, I combed Hana’s hair and dressed her for school, I danced and jumped with Hana, I went to a cafe and had a very happy time with Michael, listening to his life and shared mine, I went to church and was able to sing unto the Lord.”
Lee said her daughter is nervous about “mommy going to work again.”
Ling’s husband, Iain Clayton, wrote:
“What an unbelievable few days. It is hard to put into words the joy and relief I felt seeing Laura and Euna walk off that plane. To hold Laura after 140 days and to see Euna’s joy at being reunited with Hana were priceless.”
And Ling’s sister, Lisa, who spearheaded a worldwide campaign for the pair’s release, wrote:
“Getting my little sister back was the greatest gift I have ever received. I don’t believe this would have been possible without the help and support from all of you. I am so deeply humbled by how many people came together to help us. I wish there was a way to thank each and every one of you. Know that your efforts have inspired me so much and WILL NEVER be forgotten. As difficult as this ordeal has been, I have met and been moved by so many. Thank you.”
The complete entries can be found at http://www.lauraandeuna.com/.

R.E. GraswichR.E. Graswich, former Bee reporter and a co-anchor on KFBK radio, has been named to the position of special assistant to Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson.
The announcement today in a press release quotes Johnson as saying that Graswich brings a wealth of knowledge about the city.
“He loves Sacramento, has a deep appreciation for our city’s history and knows how great Sacramento can become in the years ahead,” Johnson said.
Johnson’s spokesman, Steve Maviglio, said Graswich’s salary will be $80,000. The special assistant job is a full-time staff position.
Graswich spent 35 years at The Bee before leaving the newspaper two years ago. Since then, he has been a co-anchor on the KFBK afternoon news, written a column for Sacramento Magazine and produced commentaries for KOVR CBS 13 television.
Graswich said the special assistant job is a great opportunity. He called Johnson, whom he reported on when the mayor was a high school and college basketball player, the most dynamic and visionary Sacramento leader he has seen in three decades.
“I can’t wait to get started,” Graswich said.

Sacramento Regional Transit officials say they now believe they can balance this year’s budget without cutting hours of nightly light rail service.
Instead of stopping trains each night at 9 p.m., the agency, facing a $2.4 million budget deficit, will transfer money from a reserve account and make other internal cost-saving moves. The reserve account finances payouts for worker compensation claims and other claims against RT. Officials said an analysis showed the agency had enough money in that account this year to make the transfer.
Officials in July said they seriously considered ending light rail service hours earlier each night and cutting bus route, including eliminating some bus runs before 6 a.m. and after 8 p.m.
That proposal drew strong opposition from riders.
Previously approved fare hikes and bus cuts are set for Sept. 1. The base fee for a bus or light rail ride will increase from $2.25 to $2.50.

Oakland Athletics’ Landon Powell (35) heads to third base as base coach Mike Gallego (4) prepares two greet him after he hit a two-run home run during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Baltimore Orioles, Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2009, in Baltimore.Landon Powell homered in Oakland’s four-run fourth inning, and the Athletics beat the Baltimore Orioles 6-3 on Wednesday to win a third straight series for the first time since April 2008.

The federal official tasked with helping California solve its water problems said this morning the Obama administration is committed to treating the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as an “ecosystem of national significance.”
In a meeting with The Bee’s editorial board, Deputy Interior Secretary David J. Hayes said the Delta’s problems were neglected under the Bush administration and vowed that would change. He said the estuary, the largest on the west coast of the Americas, deserves the same national attention that has been given to restoring the Everglades and Cheseapeake Bay.
“The Delta … has been sort of the heartbeat of the environment for California,” said Hayes. “It’s under enormous stress. It needs to be restored. We are committed to raising its profile nationally.”
Hayes is in Sacramento today for a joint meeting with California Water Resources Director Lester Snow to address the state’s water problems, which hinge on the Delta. The public meeting runs from 1 to 5 p.m. at the Capitol Plaza Holiday Inn, 300 J St.
Hayes has been assigned by the Obama administration as the federal government’s liaison for California water problems. The Department of Interior oversees the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which operates federal reservoirs in California as well as a major pump and canal system that diverts water from the Delta, primarily to serve San Joaquin Valley farms.
Yet Hayes said Interior isn’t ready to commit to a proposed canal that would divert a portion of the Sacramento River out of the Delta and directly into the pumping systems. A joint state-federal program called the Bay-Delta Conservation Plan is studying the canal. The Schwarzenegger administration has already asserted its intention to start building the canal by 2011.
“In all candor, it is really premature to be getting behind something like that,” Hayes said. “We could find out that solution is not any better than the status quo.”

Investigators and police gather Tuesday at the shooting scene at the Richmond San Rafael Bridge in Richmond. Authorities say someone fired a shotgun at a toll booth near a heavily traveled bridge north of San Francisco, killing a toll collector and one other person.Police are on the lookout for the man suspected of shooting two people Tuesday night on the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge.
Police suspect Nathaniel Burris, 46, shot and killed a female toll collector and a man who was sitting in a parked vehicle at the toll plaza around 6 p.m. Tuesday.
“We believe the suspect’s family is from Sacramento and he is heading that way,” said Sgt. Bisa French, Richmond Police Department spokeswoman. “We believe his mother lives in Sacramento.”
Sacramento Police Department Spokesman Sgt. Norm Leong said they were “actively following up on those leads.”
The suspect was driving a white 2005 Ford van with California license plate No. 8U40504, according to an official with the California Highway Patrol. The van had the name “Western Eagle Shuttle” on the side of the van.
The toll collector was a 51-year-old Richmond woman.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office said the woman was Deborah Ross, who had worked as a Caltrans toll collector for eight years. Capitol flags will be flown at half-staff in her honor, a statement said.
Officers found Ross’ body inside a toll booth, and investigators have been searching for clues amid shattered glass. Patrol Sgt. Trent Cross described the scene as “horrific.”
The patrol was working with Richmond police and other agencies to find the gunman.
The bridge over the northern portion of San Francisco Bay connects Marin County with Richmond and other East Bay suburbs.

After telling his four young children that their mom was in heaven and wouldn’t be coming home, Don Lara fielded a question for which he could never have prepared.
“Is Mama going to watch us grow up?” asked the couple’s 5-year-old daughter Kelley.
The answer breaks Don Lara’s heart over and over.
Sacramento County Sheriff’s Sgt. Kelley Lynne Allen Lara, 43, died Thursday after authorities say an erratic driver caused her to swerve, lose control of her Toyota MR2 and crash into a big rig on Interstate 80 as she headed to her shift at Sacramento International Airport.
Her husband, also a sergeant in the Sheriff’s Department, has told their children - 7-year-old Zack and 5-year-old triplets Nick, Kelley and Kyle - that their mother’s spirit will be with them always. But he knows that’s not enough.
“She’s in our hearts and she’s in our minds, but there’s going to be that void,” Don Lara said Monday. “I can do everything I can as a dad, but … I know I can’t fill that void.”
Kelley Lara grew up in Southern California before moving to Fair Oaks at a young age. She graduated from Del Campo High School and earned bachelor of arts and master’s degrees at California State University, Sacramento, according to Don Lara.
After serving six years with the CSUS police force, Kelley Lara joined the Sheriff’s Department in 1994. A career in law enforcement was a lifelong dream of hers, shaped largely by her father, Ron Allen, a former Costa Mesa police officer and employee for the Commission on Peace Officer Standards and Training.
In the Lara home, a framed picture of Kelley Lara at her academy graduation sits next to a photo of her as a young girl, dressed like a cop, with her father’s utility belt.
“She loved the profession, was very proud of the profession - and very proud of her dad,” Don Lara said.
Kelley Lara was a recruit training officer at the sheriff’s academy when the two met. A large man with a commanding presence, Don Lara said he was intimidated by his future wife - a deputy he described as professional, direct and assertive. But there was “so much more” to Kelley Lara beyond the tough exterior, her husband said.
“You look in those eyes and you look at that smile, and there’s your answer right there,” he said.
Kelley Lara is survived by her husband, her children, her parents, Ron and Diane Allen, her sister, Tracey, and her stepdaughters, 17-year-old Lindsay and 16-year-old Amy.

On Folsom Cordova Unified School District’s first day of school Monday, H1N1 was already present. A physician confirmed that a female ninth-grader at Vista del Lago High School had a mild case of H1N1, and was advised to stay home for 10 days, said Mary Ann Delleney, the district’s health programs manager. The student has a sibling in elementary school, who did not show symptoms of H1N1 and was not advised to stay home.
Delleney said that Folsom Cordova Unified has developed plans to detect a severe outbreak in its early stages. The school district has been monitoring student attendance closely, as a sudden increase in sick students could an outbreak. Because of the lag time between symptom onset and diagnosis, all students that exhibit symptoms of H1N1 will be immediately treated.
The district has also developed a system for communicating H1N1 cases to parents. At 5 p.m. Monday, all the district’s parents received an automated call as well as an e-mail alerting them that a student had been diagnosed with H1N1.
However, Delleney said that when it comes to containing a potential outbreak, schools won’t be able to do much besides quickly letting parents know about it.
“The school district is not a health agency … We only have nine full-time nurses for 19,000 students,” Delleney said. “We’re not a hospital.”

A federal judge in Sacramento has tossed out a lawsuit that a Livermore publisher filed against the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department for banning the distribution of his magazine in the Main Jail.
U.S. District Court Judge Frank C. Damrell Jr. ruled that the sheriff department’s policy of not allowing unsolicited bulk mail to be distributed to inmates, are “reasonably related to legitimate penological interests.”
Ray Hrdlicka, publisher of Crime, Justice & America, had argued that the ban violated his First Amendment right to reach his readers when he filed the suit in February 2008.
According to a ruling on Aug. 3, Damrell agreed with sheriff officials’ argument that an increase in unsolicited bulk mail would cause additional administration, staffing and security issues for the jail.
Damrell also said jail regulations that allow for the distribution of the magazine to inmates when it is properly addressed and mailed to those who voluntarily request it allows for the publisher’s First Amendment right to be exercised.
In a 2008 interview with The Bee, Hrdlicka said since he started his magazine in 2002, he has distributed more than 1 million copies in jails in California, Oregon, Washington state, Arizona and Maryland.
— Chelsea Phua

Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, announced that he will be suing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger over his line item budget vetos on Friday, August 7, 2009.Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, filed suit Monday in San Francisco Superior Court to block nearly $500 million in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s July line-item budget vetoes.
Steinberg asked the court to prevent Schwarzenegger and state Controller John Chiang from imposing cuts to programs ranging from Healthy Families to the Department of Parks and Recreation. Chiang, a Democrat, is named in the suit as a formality because he is responsible as controller for carrying out Schwarzenegger’s vetoes.
The Republican governor, in signing the vetoes, said he was forced to cut a wide range of programs because the Assembly sent him a budget revision last month that was out of balance and lacked a reserve.
Democrats have since argued that because lawmakers approved a budget revision filled with cuts - rather than a plan that appropriates new money - the governor does not have the same line-item veto authority that applies to regular budget acts.
Steinberg’s suit alleges that Schwarzenegger exceeded his executive line-item veto authority and exercised “authority that belongs solely to the Legislature” under the state constitution.
“The governor absolutely has the authority to veto appropriations,” responded Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear. “The real question is, why are Democrats focused on fruitless legal battles that dig the state back into a deficit?”