| The C-J's Sunday College Basketball Notebook
The 6-foot-8 Stewart played 21 minutes in UK's 93-52 loss at Vanderbilt last week, more than he'd played in the previous 11 games combined. Five times during that 11-game span, Stewart didn't play at all. But coach Billy Gillispie said Stewart is improving in practice, and though Stewart had as many turnovers (three) as points in the Vandy game, Gillispie said the freshman "played all right." Stewart tied his career high with six rebounds against the Commodores. "He's just growing up a little bit, becoming a guy that's in the February month of his freshman year," Gillispie said. "He's understanding how important it is to be in the right spot and playing from those spots and competing all the time." Much to the chagrin of some UK fans -- who like Stewart's athleticism and see him as a potential contributor -- that doesn't mean Gillispie is making any promises about Stewart's playing time.
Moffitt House got up and went
If you think you saw an old, two-story house moving along a Hallandale Beach road Sunday morning, you weren't hallucinating. It was actually the 90,000-pound, 102-year-old Moffitt House. Local historians say it is Broward County's second-oldest standing residence after the Stranahan House in Fort Lauderdale. Developers moved all 2,450 square feet of the historic home, made of sturdy Dade County pine, from its original location at 134 S. Dixie Hwy. to a few blocks south next to another historic home, the 84-year-old Curci House at 324 SW Second Ave. The hourlong feat was accomplished by Brownie Moving and Heavy Hauling, based in Fort Pierce. ''It went very smoothly,'' said developer Richard Shan, 45, noting the event had been planned for about a year.
LOCAL VOICES: Emergency workers involved with rescues at Union ...
"The night of the tornado, I carried my wife and my son to my neighbor's house because they had a basement. And I went straight to Union. I saw the UPS truck on its side, so I got out and walked with my flashlight. We started searching rooms and making sure no one was in there. Everyone was helping out. As a police officer, you become cynical about human nature. And it was good to see the good side of people. At one point, when the next storm front was headed our way, I thought about safety. I used to not be afraid of storms, but now I am because you can't get away from them. They're so random." - Jackson police Sgt. Phillip Whitman, 17 years with the department .
IT Updated: Smart Wireless Checkout the Key to Faster Shopping
Every consumer has stood in a long line to check out at their favorite store and wondered why the store has 20 checkout lanes and only three open. Self-checkout lines have helped alleviate the hassle of long lines to some extent, but the shopping cart still has to be unloaded and your items scanned before paying. Grocery store chain Stop & Shop, which has 389 locations in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maine, New Hampshire, New York, and New Jersey, has been running a trial of a new checkout service since October that could make standing in checkout lines a thing of the past. The system, called Modiv Shopper from Modiv Media, is a small device that is issued to shoppers from a kiosk in the store after they swipe their loyalty cards. The gadget sits on the cart and as items are added it automatically tallies the cart contents up.
Catalytic converters targeted by North County thieves
The loss is just one in a recent rash in thefts of the costly anti-smog devices that police say are sold to scrap metal recyclers for cash.The rash of thefts began in early January, and since then, more than a dozen catalytic converters have been stolen from vehicles in North County, police said. All of the thefts target late-model Toyota trucks and sport utility vehicles, they said."They pick those because they sit higher off the ground," making it easier for thieves to crawl underneath and remove the converter, which is attached inside the exhaust pipe, Escondido police Lt. Bob Benton said.The converters are stolen for the small amounts of precious metals they contain, including platinum, rhodium and palladium, and can fetch up to $100 at scrap metal yards, authorities said.The thefts do not cause serious damage to the vehicles, but can cost victims up to $3,500 in repairs, said Jennifer Baray, assistant service manager at Toyota of Escondido.Like pilfered copper pipes and wiring, police began seeing catalytic converter thefts when the price of the metals increased, authorities said."There's always some hot valuable that's being stolen because of its scrap value," said Fiona Everett, crime analyst for the Carlsbad Police Department.Frank Scafidi, spokesman for the National Insurance Crime Bureau, said there are no hard statistics on the frequency of the crime, which has grown into a nationwide problem."We started getting reports of these things early last year.
Coastal Post Online
The OSU researchers say the region has not yet fully recovered from last year's historic hypoxia.
(NEWPORT, Ore. ) - A team of Oregon State University scientists monitoring near-shore ocean conditions off Oregon says that oxygen levels in the lower water column have plummeted, thrusting the region into a hypoxic event for the sixth consecutive year.
Hypoxia can lead to significant marine die-offs, the researchers say, depending on the severity, duration and location of the low-oxygen zone.
Although conditions this summer have not yet duplicated the severity of the historic hypoxic event of 2006, the outlook for the remainder of the summer and early fall is uncertain.
Measurements taken by the OSU scientists in late June mirrored those of last year, but a shift to a southerly wind pattern in mid-July pushed the mass of low-oxygen water away from the shoreline.
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