Article: Take one sun-kissed town that looks askance at outsiders. Add a billionaire out-of-towner named Wendy McCaw who buys the local paper and starts giving orders. Inside the Santa Barbara news-press mess.

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In December 2000, five prisoners were spirited out of Santa Barbara against their will. One institution stepped up to cover their story: the Santa Barbara News-Press.

The newspaper dubbed them "the Santa Barbara Five." They were meerkats. The Santa Barbara Zoo had loaned the mammals--"members of the mongoose family with a taste for crunchy scorpions," the News-Press explained--to a Texas roadside attraction. The business faltered, and its holdings were scattered. Eventually the paper got to wondering what had happened to those furry creatures with the round, wide eyes. In August 2002, the newspaper sent its city editor, Andy Rose, ...

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