"Mud" has the feel of a classic, although it's perhaps not enthralling enough to be one. The third and most elaborate feature to date from writer-director Jeff Nichols seems to have been adapted from a novel that doesn't exist -- something by James Lee Burke, perhaps, or Cormac McCarthy, or some other specialist in frequently violent tales about the challenges to masculinity and the forging of new identities that face rural people who belong to a sprawling modern world -- who might be hanging out in a supermarket parking lot one moment and falling into a creek full of deadly cottonmouths the next.

Once upon a time there was no drug-related crime in the United States.

It sounds like the plot out of a movie. A favorite in a national dog show competition meets an untimely death and now accusations of poison and foul play are flying around.

For the first 10 years of this century, the boys volleyball landscape was startlingly consistent.

Being not only a gym rat but the coach's son, Brandon Haagsma spent a lot of  time around Valley Christian's boys basketball championship teams growing up:  2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007.

Working to get a meal is something dogs were born to do.

“To the person who stated that negative comments about President Obama shouldn’t be printed in the Vent. Apparently you have forgotten how Democrats, far left liberals, and the liberal press treated President Bush. He was the butt of rude and demeaning jokes by so-called comedians, called lots of horrible names by the press, and verbally attacked by liberal talk show hosts. He, too, deserved respect just because he was the President of the United States. It is no wonder young people today have a problem respecting authority. Look at the examples set for them.”

So the President released his list of executive orders and suggested legislation last week — nothing surprising there, given the President’s previous comments. None of them will stop a madman from killing. Even the President recognizes that. But they might diminish the amount of carnage the madman can inflict. And if we’re lucky, might even prevent him from carrying out his murders.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The difference between owning a ferret in Hawaii and one in Pennsylvania can be up to three years in jail — and hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.