1. Humboldt State reopened Founders Hall and Van Maitre hall after a bomb scare that lasted most of the afternoon. University spokesperson Jarad Petroske said shortly after the reopening that he still had no information about the source of the bomb threat, but that UPD officers had conducted a thorough sweep and found nothing.

2. The Eureka Police Department has forwarded the results of its investigation into a horrific child death earlier this month to the District Attorney’s office for possible criminal charging, according to a press release. On March 6, Caiden Archie Cathey, age 20 months, fell into Humboldt Bay from the Bonnie Gool dock while strapped into his stroller. The child was in the care of his father at the time.

EPD Detective Seargent Patrick O’Neill, who led the investigation, could not immediately be reached for comment. However, his press release noted that the investigation is ongoing, and that anyone with any information is urged to call him at 268-5261.

3. Local businessman and conservative politico Chris Crawford died over the weekend, very shortly after he had been diagnosed with liver cancer. He was respectfully remembered today on Web sites both friendly and unfriendly to his politics. Bob Morse, a colleague in the local tech industry, posted his own fond rememberence.

4. Cedar Reuben, an associate of local mill owner George Schmidbauer, takes issue with today’s T-S  story on log exports . (Scroll down for Reuben’s comment.) He asks the question we asked this morning , but more cogently: Given that raw logs bypass our local mills, could this thing be a net negative on our economy? From Reuben’s way of seeing, the cut goes deep:

Just as importantly, what happens when local mills can’t compete with the prices the Chinese are willing to pay (which are currently 20% higher than the value of the milled  lumber)? They’ll be forced to shut down and lay off their workers. And once a mill is shut down for an extended period of time, it’s not coming back. The capital investment is just too huge.

In other words, once we lose our ability to add value to the raw lumber, all we can do is ship raw lumber.