BIG TALKER TOP STORIES

Two local kayakers were found safely last night, hours after they were expected to arrive along the shores of Kure Beach. According to New Hanover County dispatch, police and fire crews assisted in searching for the two people who left Oak Island early Sunday. They were supposed to arrive at Kure Beach around 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon and were eventually located near Fort Fisher around 8:30 last night.

Brunswick County’s new state of the art Novant Medical Center officially opened this weekend. Two dozen or so patients were transferred from the old hospital around 7:30 Sunday morning. The new facility features 74acute care beds, 5 operating rooms and a 24hr emergency department. The hospital also includes lab services, physical therapy, speech therapy, cardiac rehabilitation and pulmonary rehab. The new hospital is located about 3 miles north of the old hospital on the southbound side of Highway 17 in Bolivia.

The locally filmed HBO series Eastbound and Down is filming on Wrightsville Beach today. Filming was scheduled to begin this morning around six o’clock and will continue through midnight in the area of the municipal parking lot on South Lumina Avenue. Other affected areas will include the parking lot across from the Oceanic, parking along the six and seven hundred block of Waynick Boulevard and the field just south of the visitor’s center which will operate as the company’s base camp.

The State Division of Marine Fisheries has lifted the three swimming advisories for beach areas in New Hanover County. The advisories were lifted because water testing showed that bacteria levels dropped below the state and EPA’s standards set for swimming and water play. Those locations included the access at the corner of Waynick Boulevard and Sunset Avenue in Wrightsville Beach; the public beach on Masonboro Sound at the end of Florida Avenue in Carolina Beach and the public beach access off Loggerhead Road at Fort Fisher State Park. An advisory against swimming was posted Thursday in Brunswick County, in an area by the Cape Fear River located at the swim beach adjacent to the Southport municipal pier in Southport. The swimming advisories affect water within two hundred feet of the posted sign.

A new energy efficient roof is being installed this week at Thalian Hall as part of a one million dollar federal grant the city has received. The new roof will cover the flat portion of the Thalian Hall/City Hall building, or about one-quarter of the building. The installation should be completed in September and is not expected to impact activities at the building. The grant funding will also be used to make improvements in several city facilities, including lighting, plumbing, new water heater controls and thermostats, as well as solar panels at the Fleet facility on River Road.

Over six hundred Cape Fear Community College students are expected to graduate later on tonight during a ceremony at the Schwartz Center Downtown. Students participating in the ceremony will include college transfers, technical and vocational students, and students earning their GED and Adult High School diplomas.

Detectives in New Hanover County have taken two young men into custody stemming from a residential break in that occurred at home on Sapling Circle last weekend, which is a neighborhood just off Gordon Road. Authorities say between fifteen and twenty thousand dollars worth of guns, ammo cases, jewelry, and a knife collection were stolen. Investigators closed in on the suspects this week at drug store on Market Street and took twenty one year old Jon Laurie and twenty three year old William Watson into custody. Investigators located five rifles, two ammo cases, stolen jewelry, and a stolen knife collection in the bed of their truck.  

Police on Wrightsville Beach are also looking for the suspect involved in a vehicle break in that occurred earlier this month. Authorities say credit cards stolen from the car were used for about seventeen hundred worth of charges at several locations here in Wilmington.

New Hanover County property owners should expect to receive their two thousand eleven property tax bills early next week.  Real estate taxes can be paid through January fifth of next year without interest penalty.

Ten colleges in the state have been listed in this year’s Fiske Guide to Higher Education. The list compiled by former New York Times education editor Edward Fiske, is a selective, subjective and systematic look at three hundred-plus colleges and universities in the U.S., Canada, and Great Britain. UNCW made the list again this year. Under the description for the local university, Fiske says the school is still overshadowed by Chapel Hill and the other biggies in the strong UNC system, but is making a name for itself. UNCW was also listed as being strong in marine biology and other sciences and Fiske says that even though you may not see the Seahawks in the NC Double A Final Four any time soon, you may be able to get to know your professors.

Despite the recent rain this week, the drought still goes. The U.S. Drought Monitor released its weekly report this morning, and has about ten point five percent of the state in an extremed Drought. That includes all of New Hanover, Pender and Onslow counties. Southern and central Brunswick and Columbus counties have been downgraded from Extreme Drought to Severe Drought. Tim Buckley, Chief Meteorologist at WWAY TV Three says that this year's rainfall totals are about thirteen inches below normal.

The debate on the redrawing of congressional and legislative districts will continue over the next several weeks. Republicans in the majority are in control of the process for the first time in a century. A new poll from the Center for Voter Education finds that seventy six percent of voters believe there is a conflict of interest when members of the General Assembly carve up legislative districts. The redistricting process has proven to be controversial and has often resulted in lawsuits. The districts are redrawn every ten years following the census. There will be public hearings on the issue at Brunswick and at Cape Fear Community Colleges on May 5th.

Finding the right college or university will become easier this year for thousands of high school and transfer students wishing to attend college in the state, thanks to a new, easy-to-search online database. The website NCcollegefinder.org information on all fifty four of the state’s accredited four-year colleges. The information covers more than two dozen criteria, including school size, location, tuition, acceptance rates, SAT scores and average grade point averages of incoming freshmen, student-faculty ratio and six-year graduation rates.

It is a busy week for the Republican Party here in the southeastern part of the state. On Thursday, well known UNCW conservative professor Doctor Mike Adams will speak in front of the New Hanover County GOP during a meeting a Jungle Rapids. Former Charlotte Mayor and two thousand eight Republican Gubernatorial candidate Pat McCrory will also be the keynote speaker at the Lincoln Reagan Day dinner in Pender County on Saturday.

The Wilmington Sharks baseball club is looking for up to 22 families this summer that have the room to host a college player that will be on the team. The Sharks begin there 15th season in the Coastal Plain League this May and need some help from the community. They are asking that families or individuals who have a room or two available and would like to have a Sharks’ baseball player stay with them throughout the summer contact the Sharks office at 343-5621.

Community Advertising:
 
 
The Pop Warner Bengal Midget Cheerleaders are having a fundraiser.
The money we are raising will be used for uniforms, competition fees, travel fees, etc..  
If you can please post or announce this in any free community advertisement/calendar announcements that you have, it would be really appreciated. We are looking forward to a huge successful fundraiser for our team!
 
"Thank You"  in advance for your help and participation in making this successful for them!
 
 
Bengal's Midget Cheerleading Quarter Auction
May 14, 2011  
Preview starts at 6:30 - Auction starts at 7:00 - 9:00
to be held at Northside Baptist Church Life Center
 2501 North College Road, Wilmington, NC 28405
 
 SOME of the auction vendors include: Avon, North Kerr Spalon, Jewels by Parklane, Pampered Chef, Lia Spohia, Southern Exposure Photography,Tastefully Simple, Butterfiles & Hazel Eyes etc...
 
including some local community donations from Wilmington Ice House, Scooters,
Mindy and Angie's, Monkey Joe's, Cape Fear Candy Bouquets
 
and much more....
 
Auction,Raffle,Concessions

 
Contact information:Kim Edmonds
kimorjoe@bellsouth.net
910-686-1488
 
 
A Quarter Auction is where you purchase an Auction paddle with your lucky #, you use quarters to bid on the items you like. an example ...If the value of the item is worth $25.00 you bid a quarter, if it is worth $50.00 you bid 2 quarters etc….the Auctioneer will let you know. Then once all bids are placed, a lucky # is drawn and someone who bid is a winner!

Hi, I would like for someone to look into the price gouging that is happening at the local gas stations. I passed several gas stations along Market St this morning and this afternoon and I noticed that several have jumped .10 cents twice in one day. I was sure that this type of thing is illegal (the changing of the prices). I am positive that most of these gas stations haven't paid this price that they are charging local residents. However, since it keeps being broadcast on our local television stations, I assume the service stations feel the need to keep up. This email will be sent to other radio and news stations in our Wilmington, NC area.

Parents across the state could soon have more choice and control in their children’s public education following the state Senate’s approval of legislation eliminating the one hundred-school cap on public charter schools. There already are ninety nine public charter schools in state. Some twenty thousand students are also on a waiting list to get into those schools. The measure also preserves a current requirement that a charter school’s student body represent the racial and ethnic makeup of its community. The bill now moves over to the State House.

If you had to stop and fill up over the last twenty four hours you definitely noticed a spike in prices at the pump. The cost of a gallon of gasoline increased by almost thirty cents overnight. Experts say the continued unrest in the Middle East is causing the price of crude oil to rise which eventually hits your wallet at the pump here at home. John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute predicts gas prices to be between three dollars fifty cents and three seventy five by Memorial Day weekend.

Customers of the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority will likely be seeing another increase in their rates this year. Members of the Authority held the first of two work sessions Wednesday night and told attendees they have a six million dollar debt payment that needs to be made this year. The board discussed several different options at the workshop with rate increases ranging anywhere from ten to fifteen percent. Another option would raise rates based on consumption. A public hearing on the proposed increases will be held on March ninth. The board will likely make their vote sometime in April.

As the price of oil continues to rise, so does the price of jet fuel and the cost for a person to travel by air. Earlier this week, U.S. airlines raised its prices by twenty to sixty dollars per round trip on higher end tickets. The fare increases are likely causing more shock for leisure travelers than business fliers, who already pay steep prices for last-minute flights. Some experts say if gas prices really do get to four or five dollars per gallon the entire U.S. could be dealing with huge price hikes on everything from the airline fares to food to heating.