Steel thieves lose half their booty by not securing their load
In Vancouver, Washington this week, police were investigating the theft of about 40,000 pounds of steel from an industrial warehouse.
Police said that the suspects entered the warehouse with a large flatbed truck and loaded it with five coils of rolled stainless steel,weighing close to 40,000 pounds. Police were able to recover two of the coils, however, after a local business owner saw two people trying to pull them from a ditch.
Detectives think that the coils were not properly secured after the theft and rolled off the truck into a ditch, which was when the suspects were spotted.
Police asked anyone with information about the missing three steel coils or the people involved in the crime to call Det. Jim Watson at the Vancouver County Sherriff's Department.
Kansas City mayor dedicated to ridding streets of steel plates
In Kansas City, a proposed ordinance would address the biggest complaint of the city's drivers: "those blasted metal plates," according to Mayor Mark Funkhouser.
There are currently a total of 275 steel plates on the streets of Kansas City, making for a very bumpy ride for commuters. A local told press this week, "I can tell you nothing in this city's driving experience is more annoying than these steel plates."
The proposed ordinance would require nearly all of the plates to be removed within 30 days of being placed, also requiring utilities to pay a $25 application fee plus $10 per day for every steel plate they put down. It would also ban any steel plates from being installed between December 1 and March 1 and require them to be embedded into the pavement so that the street surface remains smooth.
Utility companies have put up some opposition to the proposed ordinance, saying that 30 days is not enough time to remove the plates, but the Mayor is committed to getting the steel plates off the streets of his city.
Kendrick Blackwood with the Mayor's office summed up Funkhouser's problem with the plates. "The bottom line is he goes to other towns, he looks around, they have water, they have services. They don't have near the plates we have here."
Pittsburgh museum honors city's birthday with steel mill art exhibit
In celebration of the 250th anniversary of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the original "Steel City," Pittsburgh's Frick Art & Historical Center will feature a number of exhibits, including steel industry-related art by painter Craig McPherson.
The exhibition, "Steel: Pittsburgh Drawings by Craig McPhereson", which consists of more than 30 paintings and drawings of the giant steel mills that once shaped the landscape of the city, will open Friday evening.
The exhibition's three rooms will address mill exteriors, mill interiors, and the cultural impact of the Industrial Age on the region. The Edgar Thomson Plant and Clariton Coke Works are the main mills featured in the artwork.
An art reviewer, Mary Thomas of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, describes the exhibition, "Frequently, McPherson's huge factory complexes appear capable of vanishing within the flowing gaseous matter and steam they exude, a representation that for some will seem a romantic allusion to their gradual fade into history, for others a chilling reminder of the period during which the mills began to shut down."
McPherson's work will be on display at the Frick through March 8. For more information, visit www.TheFrickPittsburgh.org.
AK Steel makes Fortune magazine's Most Admired Companies list
Flat rolled steelmaker AK Steel Holding has been named on Fortune magazine's 2008 list of America's Most Admired Companies.
AK ranked first in the metals industry in both the quality of products and services and use of corporate assets categories, and the company ranked fifth in Fortune's overall metal industry standings.
The company, whose stock reached an all-time high of $54.99 on February 27 during daily trading, was one of only 11 Ohio companies to make the prestigious list, which Fortune says is the "definitive report card on corporate reputations."
James Wainscott, AK's chairman, president and chief executive, told press, "It is gratifying to be recognized for those attributes that we hold as significant to our business."
The complete Most Admired list will be available in Fortune's March 17 issue as well as online at www.CNNMoney.com.