Due to issues with locals, I am unable to upload a pdf, so we go with the text version.

🗞️Hooterville Gazette🗞️
By Sam Drucker, Editor
Volume LXIV, Edition CCLXIV
Monday, September 21, 2026
10¢ · Hooterville & Pixley · Est. 1965

🇨🇳Bessent Floats AI Incident Alerts With China🇨🇳

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told counterparts in China that Washington wants a shared alert when an artificial-intelligence system goes badly wrong. The proposal came in talks this week ahead of a planned visit by President Xi Jinping and a summit with President Donald Trump. Both sides called the meetings positive. Reuters reported China's trade machinery arriving with Xi; Yahoo confirmed the visit is set for this week.

Bessent's idea is a notice between governments, not a treaty. If a model fails in a way that spills across a border, the other capital would hear it from an official desk instead of a rumor. The wires did not print a start date or a list of systems that would be covered. Sam copied the names as spelled and left the missing pieces missing.

Around the pickle barrel the talk ran to feed prices and whether a machine in some far office could still change a Saturday plan. Mayor Stoner had already heard a version on the party line and wanted the printed one to compare.

Mayor Stoner read the clipping twice and said, That'll keep the party line buzzing till supper.

📺White House Strips CNN From the Television Pool📺

The White House stripped CNN of its television pool assignment as President Donald Trump widened a partial ban on news desks. CNN reported the pool cut. Yahoo carried an image the president posted showing banned outlets as trash bags. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise told ABC he did not know why the president did it.

A pool slot is how cameras from one network stand in for the rest. Losing it means CNN's crew is no longer the shared eye in the room. The wires did not say whether the ban is permanent. Sam kept the claim that showed up in more than one dispatch and did not guess at motives the packet left out.

On the porch the question was how far off a thing has to be before it still changes Saturday plans. Fred Ziffel allowed that Hooterville does not vote in every capital, but it does read.

Fred Ziffel shook a head at the counter and said, I don't claim to run the world, but I heard that.

🦣Mammoth Ivory Carvings Followed the Tusk Grain🦣

New research says the lines on 18,000-year-old female figurines carved from mammoth ivory followed growth patterns already visible in the tusks. Stephen Beech of SWNS reported the study. The carvers did not invent every swirl; they read the ivory and cut along what was there.

That is a small kindness of craft, if a body wants to call it that. Sam kept the age, the material, and the claim, and he did not dress them in extra ribbon. The valley gets plenty of weather and worry; it can use a paragraph that leaves the room lighter.

A couple of regulars read it twice, not because it was complicated, but because they wanted to remember it. Selma Plout called that a fair use of a newspaper.

Selma Plout said, I like a story where somebody did right by the material they had.

🎂Pixley Wedding Cake Baked a Day Too Soon🎂

Sarah Hotchkiss Trendell got the Saturday wrong for a Pixley wedding, and the news traveled the party line faster than a correction. Kate's kitchen at the Shady Rest Hotel baked the cake a day early and served it as a rehearsal supper so the sugar would not go to waste. Hank Kimball, out on his county rounds, offered advice that sounded official and was not, which is how a lot of local expertise arrives in this valley.

Lisa Douglas kept trying to put the invitations back the way they started. Mr. Haney kept finding new ways to be useful that were not, strictly speaking, useful. Billie Jo Bradley carried plates and counted heads. Neighbors gathered the way they do when a small job has become a public entertainment.

Sam walked over from the store when the party line started using the hotel as a dateline. He found no injuries, no sheriff, and no reason to call it anything but a mix-up that got settled before the cows needed milking. Homer Voss, a traveling musician, happened through, said one neighborly thing, and did not stay for the fixing. By the time the light went long, the plates were stacked and pride was the only thing still limping.

Lisa Douglas said, Next time we try it slower, and maybe with fewer helpers. Mr. Haney said, I was helping. Sam wrote it down as local news, because it was.

🤔Trump Plans an Arch That Hosts Drones and Snipers🤔

President Donald Trump said a planned triumphal arch in Washington would double as a military complex able to host drones and snipers. PBS carried the remark. WUSA9 and Yahoo put the height at about 250 feet. A retired major general later told NPR he questioned the plan. Sam printed the president's words first and the doubt second.

The arch has been talked about as a monument. The new line is that it would also serve as a perch. The packet did not name a builder or a date when steel would go up. Sam laid the clipping beside the ledger and trimmed only the repeated dateline.

By the stove a couple of regulars tried to decide if this was the sort of news that lasts a week or a season. The Monroe Brothers said a clipping that sits on the board overnight is already doing its job.

Well I never, said the Monroes. And here I thought Tuesday was quiet.

⚖️First Woman Justice Took the High Court Seat⚖️

Forty-five years ago today Sandra Day O'Connor was sworn in as the first woman on the Supreme Court. The Senate confirmed her 99 to 0, with one Montana senator absent. That senator later sent her a copy of A River Runs Through It by way of apology. Good News Network marked the anniversary on its calendar page. Sam took the names and the vote and left the rest of the calendar alone.

A unanimous vote is a rare notice in this valley, and a first seat on that bench is rarer still. He kept the place as the wire gave it, because a good turn deserves the same care as a bad one.

Talk at the counter ran to who we know that would have done the same, and who we hope would. Eb Dawson said the Gazette ought to keep a corner for that sort of notice.

Eb Dawson smiled and said, That's the sort of news a town can use.

🏢Refugee Office Turned Into a Deportation Shop🏢

The Washington Post reported that the administration turned a refugee bureau into a deportation operation budgeted at about 410 million dollars. The Guardian wrote of secret deportation deals. France 24 described people sent to Cameroon waiting to see what comes next.

A refugee office is supposed to settle people in. The new description is an office that sends them out. Sam kept the figure as printed and did not invent a moral the wires had not supplied. If a later edition has to correct the number, it will not be because this one guessed.

Sam watched the usual traffic, a list, a stamp, a neighbor with an opinion, and kept the item where latecomers could see it. Bobbie Jo Bradley stopped long enough to read it through once.

Bobbie Jo Bradley tapped the notice and said, A body has to keep up, even when the news is far off.

👩🏻‍⚖️Haiti Sends Eighteen Moise Suspects to US Court👩🏻‍⚖️

Authorities in Haiti handed over eighteen suspects accused in the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise to federal officers in the United States. The prisoners were flown across the Caribbean to face charges in an American courtroom. BBC and NPR both carried the extradition. Miami prosecutors say the group includes key plotters. Investigators have said the plan involved hired foreign contractors and work that took place partly on American soil. Haitian police have taken about thirty more people into custody while they keep looking into the raid on the president's residence.

Extradition is a paper trail between two countries, not a speech. Sam copied the count and the destination as the packet spelled them. Federal judges in Miami will manage the proceedings for the defendants now in custody.

Oliver Wendell Douglas came by the store for a pad of yellow legal paper. Extradition agreements are how a conspiracy charge crosses water, Oliver said, adjusting his eyeglasses.

That's the news from Hooterville, where the livin' is simple, the coffee is hot, and we still believe a good handshake and a straight word can solve most any problem.
— Sam Drucker, Editor