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Digest

Grab lunch with 7 authors at the library

By TIMES WIRES
Published January 23, 2007

The Friends of the Clearwater Public Library is hosting "Lunch with an Author" at 11:30 a.m. Friday at the Harborview Center, at the western end of Cleveland Street in downtown Clearwater. The lunch includes seven guests: Tim Dorsey (Hurricane Punch), Fawn Germer (Hard Won Wisdom), Kathy Carmichael (Chasing Charlie), Jeff Klinkenberg (Seasons of Real Florida), Kim Llewellyn (The Quest for the Holy Veil), Lary Crews (The Baby Boomer Writer) and photographer Patrick Foley. The cost is $20. For reservations, send checks to Friends of the Library, 100 N Osceola Ave., Clearwater 33755. Call Rita Garvey at 446-3845 or Rosalie Murray at 531-0667.

Wild night at Hess ends in arrest

Life has a way of coming full circle. Consider this case, as recounted by Largo police: Early Saturday, a guy beats on a public phone at the Hess gas station at 13987 Walsingham Road. The clerk asks him to stop and the man leaves. He soon returns with a baseball bat and attacks a car in the parking lot - the clerk's car. Then he drives away, but his car runs out of gas. A good Samaritan helps the guy push the car off the road and drives him to Hess, where he tries to fill a gas can. The clerk recognizes him and calls police. Dispatched at 3:28 a.m., officers come to the gas station and arrest Kyle Charles Chiappone, 20, of St. Petersburg. Inside the car he was driving police said they found 53 grams - or nearly 2 ounces - of marijuana and $2,450 in cash. Chiappone, who was bailed out of jail, said Monday he was innocent. "I didn't have nothing to do with none of that," he said. "It's misidentity. ... The vehicle I was in wasn't even mine."

DUI checkpoints yield 28 arrests

Authorities arrested 28 people at two sobriety checkpoints over the weekend in mid Pinellas County. A total of 387 vehicles were stopped, resulting in eight DUI arrests, 11 drug possession charges and 29 seatbelt violations. Police and Pinellas County deputies conducted the first checkpoint Friday night on Missouri Avenue in Largo and the second early Saturday on U.S. 19 in Pinellas Park. In 2005, Pinellas had 1,631 alcohol-related crashes, resulting in 1,162 injuries and 39 fatalities. "At the checkpoints, we stress that driving under the influence is not a victimless crime," sheriff's Sgt. Jim Bordner said.

Get tips to start your own business

Learn the "Ten Steps to Starting Your Own Business" at a free seminar presented by members of the Pinellas County Chapter of SCORE at 7 p.m. Wednesday at the Tarpon Springs Library, 138 E Lemon St. Materials and handouts are provided and registrations are requested. Sign up at the library or call (727) 943-4922.

[Last modified January 23, 2007, 07:02:29]