Fall From Gracie: New York City gets...

Fall From Gracie: New York City gets a new mayor this week, and Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence, will get a new look. Joyce Dinkins, wife of Mayor-elect David Dinkins, has some changes in mind for the stately home when the city’s new First Couple displaces its longtime bachelor occupant, outgoing Mayor Ed Koch. Among the changes: Mayoral chef Chris Nicolelsis will switch from a third-floor apartment to the basement, thereby making it possible for him to reach his apartment without passing through the family quarters.

News Cat: One of the most popular TV broadcasters in San Augustine, Tex., is a four-footed co-anchor named Ventilator. The coffee-and-cream-colored cat sometimes climbs all over the copy that Sam Malone reads as he delivers the evening news on cable TV. “He does it to get attention,” Malone said of his cat. “If I’m trying to type, he’ll lay right across the typewriter.” Sometimes, while on the air, Ventilator crawls on Malone’s shoulders and nuzzles the 68-year-old newsman’s hair.

Invade Michigan?: When Panamanian Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega was still on the run, wags in Michigan joked that maybe U. S. troops should invade the state’s Upper Peninsula and check for him in the town of Palmer. That’s the home of Sarah York, the 12-year-old who made headlines when she visited Panama at Noriega’s personal invitation twice within the last 14 months. The Yorks have been in seclusion since the U. S. invasion, except for an interview with the Detroit News. “Anything they (U.S. officials) could say about him might be lies,” Sarah York told the newspaper. Pauline and Mitchell York back their daughter. “We have told Sarah to speak the truth and stand tall, to tell what she has seen and the rest of the world can go to hell,” the mother said.

The Best Dirt: It isn’t gossip. At least not in Illinois, where earth is serious business. That’s why something called Drummer Silty clay loam has beat out Cisne silt loam, 2-to-1, in a hotly contested election to pick Illinois’ official state soil. The Illinois Soil Classifiers Assn. decided that the state needed an official soil.