Contract

Quarterback Tony Romo signed a six-year, $108-million contract extension with the Dallas Cowboys on Friday. That means the 32-year-old quarterback -- who turns 33 next month -- with only one playoff victory for “America's Team” could be the Cowboys' gun-slinging starter under contract until 2019. “I think it's just exciting more than anything that you know you're going to be here the rest of [your] career,” Romo said in a video interview on the Cowboys' official website . Romo's new deal includes $55 million in guaranteed money.

New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez has already admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs from 2001 to 2003. But now A-Rod is said to be one of several people who received PEDs from a now-closed Florida clinic as recently as last year, according to a report Tuesday by the Miami New Times. A spokesman for Rodriguez has denied the report. Writers from around Tribune Co. discuss whether the Yankees should try to find a way to void the slugger's hefty contract and if such an attempt would be successful.

The Dodgers have four players under contract for 2012 and they will make about $33.75 million. They are: Ted Lilly: $12 million Juan Uribe: $8 million Matt Guerrier: $4.75 Chad Billingsley: $9 million Total: $33.75 million

Although "tea party" activists and other conservatives claim kinship with the founding fathers and the Spirit of '76, their emerging strategy for the November elections has more in common with the Spirit of '94 -- the year Republicans ended 40 years of Democratic dominance on Capitol Hill. Conservative strategists centered the 1994 Republican campaign on a "Contract with America." This year, GOP leaders in the House have pledged to issue their own, updated version of that agenda, which is widely credited with having helped Republicans focus their message and win a historic victory.

The Tennessee Titans are pulling out the stops to get Peyton Manning. Titans owner Bud Adams has offered the star quarterback a "contract for life," to come to Tennessee, hoping to lure him with a front-office position with the team once his playing days are through, according to a Houston TV station. Adams told KHOU Channel 11 on Wednesday he's not concerned about Manning's arm strength after his multiple neck surgeries that sidelined him for all of last season. "I'm only concerned how strong it is in September, when he starts the regular season," Adams said, adding that much as he likes second-year quarterback Jake Locker -- whom the Titans drafted eighth overall last year -- the franchise had to "go for it" with Manning.

The grocery workers union and Southern California's three leading supermarkets agreed to extend their main labor contract through the end of the month. The contract previously had been set to expire Sunday night. Labor and grocery officials declined to comment Friday on the specific issues being negotiated, saying only that the discussions included employee wages, healthcare benefits and pensions. A spokeswoman for Ralphs said both sides also agreed to meet several more times over the next few weeks to continue negotiating.

Scott Podsednik is facing a Thursday deadline to decide whether to exercise his half of a mutual option that would keep him with the Dodgers for another season. The Dodgers on Tuesday exercised their part of the $2-million option. Podsednik, who was acquired from the Kansas City Royals in late July, replaced Manny Ramirez as the Dodgers' starting left fielder in the second half of the season. Podsednik's arrival cleared the way for the Dodgers to let Ramirez go to the Chicago White Sox on a waiver claim.

Question: When is a contract not worth the paper it's printed on? Answer: When it contains weasel words so broad in scope that one party is free to change whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Janet Bandur and her husband, Darrell, discovered this after Wells Fargo contacted them recently to say that their home equity line of credit was being closed because "it is no longer compatible with today's systems. " The Bandurs were told they had one year to pay off the roughly $87,000 they had outstanding on the account.

The International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, which represents more than 38,000 behind-the-scenes workers in the film and television industries, has ratified a new three-year contract with Hollywood producers. Fourteen Hollywood locals, which represent IATSE members in professions such as camera operator, set decorator and grip, unanimously approved the new contract, which provides for a 2% annual wage increase and a 20% raise in employer contributions to the union health plan.

When California corrections officials found what they described as alarming defects in half of the GPS monitors worn by sex offenders and other parolees statewide, they moved immediately to break the contract with the company that supplied them.  A Sacramento judge said their concerns justified refusing to give the company more work, but he also ruled the state should not have given its existing work to a firm without competitive bidding....