FATAL SHOOTING: Two days after June Abe...

FATAL SHOOTING: Two days after June Abe filed for divorce, 49-year-old Carl Abe fatally shot her before turning the gun on himself at the family’s Moorpark home (B1). . . . The murder-suicide took place Wednesday morning while the couple’s three children watched television. . . . Tina Silhavy of the Ventura County Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence said such incidents have escalated in recent years. “Our future really rests on learning how to resolve our conflicts in peaceful ways,” she said.

OSCAR WATCH: The Academy Award nominations were unveiled Wednesday (E1). If Gini Swift had a vote for best director, she says she’d cast it for Steven Spielberg. . . . “I think he darn well deserves it,” said Swift, president of the Ojai Film Society. “That man is a genius.” . . . Spielberg’s Holocaust drama “Schindler’s List” received 12 Oscar nominations, including for best picture and best director. The movie maker has been shut out in his three previous directorial nominations.

EATING OUT: For better and worse, they are among the prime cultural destinations in Ventura County. . . . Three venues--the Ventura Concert Theatre in Ventura, Ottavio’s Dinner Theater in Camarillo and Wheeler Hot Springs near Ojai--serve food before performances. (Ventura Life, Page 30) . . . They all operate largely on the same premise: Eat and be entertained.

TRASH AWARDS: A state panel that oversees trash issues has recognized 144 California businesses, including five in Ventura County, for their waste-reduction programs. . . . International Coffee & Tea of Camarillo was recognized for reusing coffee grounds as fertilizer and other recycling efforts. “It’s a little bit unique,” Erin Spivack said of the company’s approach to recycling. . . . Other local honorees: Eco-Gardening and St. Bonaventure High School of Ventura, and St. John’s Regional Medical Center and Sole Survivor Corp. of Oxnard.