Darts and laurels: 45 pounds of surprise

Laurels to the serendipity that sometimes drops evidence into law enforcement's lap. UPS delivered a large box to the wrong home in a Bringle Ferry Road mobile home park Tuesday, and a woman who was expecting to find a computer inside opened a 45-pound stash of marijuana instead. She wisely turned it over to the Salisbury Police Department, which was happy to keep $35,000 worth of marijuana off the street. The shipment came from a Texas border town, so it's a safe assumption that the drugs came from or through Mexico. It didn't take a bit of detective work to stop this shipment, luckily. Catching the people responsible for the shipment, however, will be another story.

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Dart to noroviruses, the bane of cruise ships, conventions and other places where people are confined together. More than 400 people fell ill on a recent cruise out of Charleston, and tests pointed to norovirus, the same illness that in recent weeks has hit 150 people at a YMCA conference in Raleigh, 80 at a Durham retirement community, and 150 more in Jackson County. Its symptoms are all too familiar — diarrhea and vomiting — but the name is not. The Centers for Disease Control says "norovirus" was recently approved as the official genus name for a group of related viruses that were previously called "Norwalk-like viruses." They all cause acute gastroenteritis. Norwalk is a Ohio town where gastroenteritis hit a school heavily in 1968 — not the kind of thing a town wants to be remembered for. "Salisbury steak" is sounding better.

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Laurels to the law firm of Wallace & Graham for leading the way in renewable energy by installing a solar electric system on one of its rooftops at 525 N. Main St. The firm will sell power to Duke Energy, quite an irony considering the firm's history of representing Duke Energy retirees who developed cancer and took the company to court. All the more reason to pursue solar energy, according to attorney Mona Lisa Wallace. "It will help rid this country of occupational diseases at fossil fuel plants and nuclear plants," she said at an unveiling ceremony Wednesday. Let's hope so.