Marines change course, will take Jesus dolls.
A 12-inch talking Jesus doll may find its way to needy children this Christmas after the U.S. Marines' Toys for Tots Christmas toy drive reversed course in mid-November and decided to accept the dolls. The Toys for Tots Foundation had initially declined a donation of 4,000 Jesus...

Barbie shamelessly takes to the mall.
Byline: Matt Cooper The Register-Guard So what's on Barbie's mind these days? The November election? Holes in the ozone? Stephen Hawking's recent reversal on subatomic theory? Nope - she's looking for just the right pair of floral-design pumps. The latest iteration...

Reality bites: why He-Man, Care Bears, and Miami Vice are making a comeback.
FOR THREE DAYS EACH JUNE, NEW York's cavernous Jacob Javits Convention Center becomes ground zero for an annual confab known as the Licensing Show, in which several hundred food, film, and toy companies convene in an orgy of T-shirts, dolls, trinkets, and practically anything else that can be licensed,...

Play unmasks secrets of child abuse.
Byline: MARK BAKER The Register-Guard COTTAGE GROVE - If you make a bad promise you should break it. Those words are not only song lyrics in a play, but a message to children who have been subjected to child abuse. A three-day run...

Hip, haute Potrero Hill.
Heady times come to this San Francisco neighborhood "San Francisco's old industrial neighborhood is popping," says brewer James Renfrew. He's right. The dotcoms and multimedia companies that so mightily boosted its fortunes over the last two years may be wobbly now. But Potrero Hill is still on...

Children's deaths touch town.
Byline: JAIME LYN REA The Register-Guard WALDPORT - Waldport is a close-knit community of 2,000 residents who know each other by sight if not by name. When people walk down the street at night, they say they feel safe. But that all changed...

Back to the Branches.
Branch consolidation probably seemed like a good idea at the time: With the nation wired for telephones and ATM kiosks and two-way cable and the Internet, who needed to actually go to a bank office any more? Let's shut down all those superfluous branches, eliminate all those extra bodies...

TOY STORY.
Lockheed Martin has found a way to cash in on Christmas Parents shopping for last-minute gifts for the air-minded youngster may find themselves helping to solve Lockheed Martin's financial problems: the company has moved to assert its property rights over the names and images of its products....

Coppelia.
When Terrence S. Orr assumed the artistic directorship of Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre last fall, he inherited 1997-98 programming selected by his predecessor, Patricia Wilde. In December he gently tinkered with the first act of PBT's Nutcracker but remained true to George Balanchine's choreography. Midway through this season, the former American...

Toy Maker Mattel Rescues Games Company Purple Moon.
Toy manufacturer Mattel Inc has stepped in to rescue Purple Moon, the computer games company targeting pre-teen girls which closed its doors last month (CI No 3,603). Mattel plans to incorporate the Purple Moon web site and CD-ROMs into its Mattel Media unit. Purple Moon, founded in 1996 by...