Water Cooler Talk!

Starbucks
SEATTLE (AP) - Starbucks plans to close 600 stores in the U.S. in the next year and cut back the number of new stores it had planned to open.
The coffee purveyor says 70 percent of the stores set for closure had opened since the start of the 2006 fiscal year. The total includes 100 previously announced closings.
Starbucks says it will try to place workers from closed stores in remaining Starbucks.

Hall-Bonds Ball
NEW YORK (AP) - A piece of home-run king Barry Bonds' history is now the property of baseball's Hall of Fame.
The ball Bonds launched for his record 756th home run nearly a year ago arrived in Cooperstown, New York, Tuesday night, complete with an asterisk. The donation was finalized after a strange day of back-and-forth statements between its owner, fashion designer Marc Ecko, and the shrine.
A driver walked up the front steps of the Hall, handing over the ball and a letter from Ecko saying it was an unconditional donation.
The Hall earlier had said talks on the ball had broken down because Ecko wanted to loan it to the museum.
Ecko paid more than $750,000 dollars for the ball in an online auction. Following the results of an Internet poll, he had it branded with an asterisk, to reflect the steroid allegations surrounding Bonds.
Bonds called Ecko an "idiot" for branding the ball and said he would boycott the Hall if the ball was displayed.

STORE CRASH
NORWALK, Calif. (AP) - Talk about a beer run! Police in Norwalk, California, report a woman ran her car through the front window of a convenience store, then tried to buy a six-pack of Budweiser. According to authorities, 74-year-old Lynne Rice plowed about halfway through the store in her '88 Cadillac. The store owner tells the Long Beach Press-Telegram he doesn't know how she even managed to walk. Rice was taken to a hospital for a check-up and was arrested for investigation of driving under the influence. By the way, the cashier refused to sell her the brew.

SILLY TOWN NAME
NOWTHEN, Minn. (AP) - Now and then you come across a town with a really strange name, like Nowthen (now-then), Minnesota. Well, Nowthen's name is finally official. The community north of the Twin Cities has decided to incorporate as the city of Nowthen. Voters have taken the final step in the process by electing a mayor and four-member City Council. The town got it's name by mistake. During the 1890s, a community leader created a list of possible names for the post office and wrote, "Nowthen, one of these ought to do," leaving out the space between the words "now" and "then."

SAUSAGE ATTACK
DELAND, Fla. (AP) - Police have a beef with Gregory Allen Praeger. They charge he smacked his mother with a three-pound package of Polish sausage. Authorities in Deland, Florida, report the meat only grazed her head and she didn't require medical attention. His mother told police he had been drinking and arguing with her. Officers add Praeger confirms his mother's story in the case of assault with sausage. He was held on $500 bond.