Sorry to have been away. But now The Star's daily blog of the news is back.

It's raining. That's always news for us. And it could make for a soggy St. Patrick's Day parade in Ventura tomorrow (and for those building the floats today).

One of the stories we're chasing for tomorrow's Star is the sudden disappearance of the Anacapa Bread Co. Our food reporter checked in with them Monday and all was well at the combined cafe and bakery. And then, poof, the door's locked, and equipment, counters and ovens are gone. It's particularly hard on the dozens of local restaurants that relied on the Bread Co. for their daily bread. We're trying to figure out today who were regular clients and what they're going to do.

Looking ahead a bit, it's going to be another good Sunday paper, so block out some reading time.

Tom Kisken has a wonderful story on our local spelling bee, which will be held Monday night. Tom interviewed three local spellers and tracked their path to the local bee ... and they hope on to Washington D.C. It's a great read on who these kids are and why they do this. Tom also put together, with help of our New Medic editor Anthony Plascenia, a video of the spellers that will be up online.

And Sunday we'll also give the first of two days of coverage of the third anniversay of the Iraq War. Stephanie Hoops is interviewing local folks on both sides of the issue for a Sunday story and Zeke Barlow has a Monday story on the Ventura County men and women who earned a Purple Heart in Iraq.

And then there's the NCAA tournament. We're doing all that work today with every TV in the office showing basketball games. And with all of us checking our brackets. Once again this year, my wife is doing better than I am. At least I picked more than half of Thursday's games correctly. Barely.