Digest

Dateline Florida

By TIMES WIRES
Published July 17, 2007

So in a way, if there's a bad hop at the Trop, we paid for it

Like the shiny new turf at Tropicana Field? Even notice it? It was paid for with public money. The $750,000 fake grass installed this year was part of the upgrades the Devil Rays made at the downtown St. Petersburg field. But the team didn't pay for it. Under a contract with the Rays, the city of St. Petersburg will pick up the costs. City Council members are expected to sign off on the deal, and $531,000 in other construction expenses, during a meeting Thursday. The money comes from the city's share of the baseball stadium's naming rights and ticket revenue.

Lightning finds a cabinet knob

They always say not to take a shower during a storm, but apparently even reaching for a glass out of your kitchen cabinet isn't safe. Jason Jones, 27, was in the kitchen of his Pensacola home about 5 p.m. Saturday. When he grabbed a metal knob on the cabinet, there was a flash of light and a boom, Jones told the Pensacola News Journal. "The next thing I remember is being slung backward against the refrigerator," he said. "It was like a funky, twingling feeling running all through my body." Jones spent five hours in a hospital emergency room Saturday and then rested most of Sunday.

[Last modified July 17, 2007, 00:24:37]