Opinion

SAN FRANCISCO — Levi Strauss & Co. said Monday it will close six U.S. plants and lay off 3,600 employees, or 22 percent of its work force, as the long-slumping company looks overseas to produce blue jeans that became a piece of Americana. -more-

SOUTH LAKE TAHOE – A family has criticized a judge’s sentence for a man accused of a 2000 hit-and-run accident that killed a 66-year-old woman here. -more-

It’s Tuesday and I shouldn’t be here. I have research to do and income taxes to file. Instead, I’m eating popcorn in a movie theater and it’s not even noon. That would be fine if this were an arts theater with a limited run of a documentary. Instead, I’m watching “Death to Smoochy,” a movie that even Roger Ebert panned. I can still make something of this day if I leave now. -more-

Though Anne Brower was often overshadowed by her husband David, Berkeley will be honoring the woman who was a worthy environmentalist in her own right by dedicating a path in her name on Stevenson Avenue on Saturday. -more-

SAN FRANCISCO— In an effort to save the threatened red-legged frog, a group of environmentalists has sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. -more-

SAN RAFAEL — The patriarch of a 13-child family, and three of the four women he lived with, pleaded innocent Tuesday to charges they let one young child starve to death and severely neglected the other 12 children. -more-