Culinary School San Francisco

Looking like a pack of walking marshmallows in their tall white chef's toques, 80 sixth-graders from White Hill School in Fairfax filled the bistro at the California Culinary Academy on Thursday morning.

The 11- and 12-year-old kids plus 20 parents were bused to San Francisco for an unusually tasty field trip. Their mission: eat and rate four nutritious school lunches prepared by soon-to-graduate chefs in the academy's banquet and catering class taught by San Anselmo resident Beth Casey.

It was Casey's idea to put her 16 neophyte caterers through their paces by having them critiqued by youngsters. She called the event "Students Teaching Students," because it seemed a perfect opportunity for two disparate .

Taser use:

Have been deployed twice since being issued in September 2007. One case involved a suspect being shocked and, in the other, one fired prong missed the subject, who was later detained after a foot chase.

A Lewiston officer, assisting Auburn in another incident, also fired a Taser at an armed and barricaded man and, while one prong did not hit its target, the suspect surrendered after the Taser was deployed.

Auburn officers have displayed Tasers four times to subjects without having to deploy them, according to Deputy Chief Jason Moen.

Officers are required to attend a six-hour training class and show proficiency with the Taser before being allowed to carry it. Officers attend a refresher class annually and must show proficiency annually.

"In the initial classes, 98 percent of our officers took 'the ride' from the Taser though we did not require it," Moen wrote in an e-mail message to the Sun Journal.

Authorities unsure how tiger got out

Police and San Francisco Zoo officials said Wednesday that they had not determined how a Siberian tiger managed to escape her enclosure and then go on a deadly Christmas Day attack. The tiger, pictured here in December 2006, killed a 17-year-old boy identified Wednesday as Carlos Sousa Jr. of San Jose. .