They have the phones anyway. Now Durham Public Schools students can use them to provide tips to school safety administrators. Text-A-Tip lets students send anonymous tips online, via smartphone, or by sending a text message to “CRIMES” (274637) with the keyword DPSTIP from any mobile phone.

“In a school setting, it’s often imperative that information be conveyed to authorities quickly,” Superintendent Eric Becoats said in a release today. “And with Text-A-Tip, students will know that it is safe for them to do the right thing without ever disclosing their identity.”

Text-A-Tip allows school authorities and students to have a two-way dialogue that is completely secure and anonymous, the release says. Students should report any safety-related information, including bullying, suicide prevention, sexting, drug use or information about crimes that are being planned in the community or in schools.

More than 800 schools and law enforcement agencies throughout the country use Text-A-Tip, which allows text message providers to remain anonymous by encrypting the text messages, assigning them a unique ID, and routing them through secure servers, protecting the personal details of the information provider.

City Councilman Steve Schewel is inviting Durham residents to run the American Tobacco Trail with him.

"Let's take the trail back by running it together," he said, in a notice published through the Partners Against Crime email lists.

Schewel said he plans to run five miles on the ATT for four Tuesdays in a row, starting Aug. 28. He's starting at the trailhead at Blackwell Street and Lakewood Avenue, going 2.5 miles south, turning around and coming back.

That section includes the area where several runners have been attacked this summer.

Schewel invites anyone who'd like to go along – running or walking, as far as one likes – to meet him at the trailhead:

Aug. 28, 6:30 p.m.
Sept. 4, 5 p.m.
Sept. 11, 6:30 p.m
Sept. 18, 6 p.m.
 

Tuesday's assault of a jogger brought to 24 the number of criminal instances on the American Tobacco Trail since Jan. 1, 2011. Six have occurred since May 17, two robberies and four simple assaults. (See http://bit.ly/SSHhA9.)

Police have made arrests in one of the robberies and two of the assaults, and ask anyone with information to call CrimeStoppers at 919-683-1200.

"There are people who know who did this," Police Chief Jose L. Lopez said at a Wednesday press conference.

Here are the Durham Police Department's lists of incidents on the ATT, one from Jan. 1, 2011 and the other from Jan. 1, 2012.

Documents:

Olympic medalists Abby Johnston and Nick McCrory will throw out ceremonial first pitches at Thursday’s Durham Bulls game against the Norfolk Tides. The Duke student-athletes will also sign autographs for fans on the concourse during the game.
 
Johnston, 22, won a silver medal in London in the women’s synchronized 3-meter springboard diving competition along with partner Kelci Bryant.
 
McCrory, 20, of Chapel Hill, brought home the bronze in the men’s synchronized 10-meter platform diving final along with his partner David Boudia. The junior collected the Duke diving program’s first national title on the platform at the 2010 NCAA Championships.
 
Game time Thursday is 7:05 pm and ceremonial first pitches are scheduled for 6:45 pm. Tickets for all Bulls regular season home games and the 2012 Gildan Triple-A National Championship Game are available at durhambulls.com, at 919.956.BULL, or at the DBAP ticket office.
 

Choreographer/dancer Chuck Davis (right) is going to Zimbabwe this summer to audition dancers for performing in the U.S. He's got to cut his trip short, though, he said the other day.

That's because his African American Dance Ensemble has been invited to perform at the Democrats' convention in Charlotte next month.

It's quite an honor, Davis said, and he's understandably excited, and he said he doesn't regret having to come back from Africa early.

"I've been to Zimbabwe," Davis said. "I've never performed for the Democratic National Convention."
 

The McCrorys are one nice family. Mom Ana asked my name last night before I could offer it. Nick passed his Olympic medal around for anyone who wanted to hold or touch it. "This is awesome," he said. "But it's just a medal. What I'll remember is the performance I was able to do in the Olympics final. ... That's what I'll remember."

Look for a story by sports editor E.W. Warnock coming Sunday in The Chapel Hill  News. You can see more photos from Nick's arrival home in Chapel Hill last night here, as well as photos of all the Duke Olympians return to RDU by staff photographer Takaaki Iwabu here.

Here is an early look at Bob Wilson's column in Sunday's Durham News. Tell us whether you agree or disagree with Bob at editor@newsobserver.com.

By Bob Wilson

Cheap alcohol and mini-marts are one and indivisible, as those who live in Durham’s troubled north-east central quadrant will attest. These quick-stop vendors of malt liquor are in effect legal shot houses, and they are perennial thorns in the side of city planners, the police and community reformers.

Yet mini-marts needn’t be such a fret. With modest effort and good will from owners and community activists alike, mini-marts can be part of the solution.

Now, no one reasonably expects these small stores to stop selling malt liquors and “alcopops,” amped-up concoctions such as wine coolers. Both are legal products, no matter the dismal social pathology fed by their easy availability.

Minister Paul Scott has waged a campaign against cheap brew in North East Central Durham for decadeds, arguing that big-name brewers skillfully exploit low-income blacks and Hispanics.

Scott’s right. You need only peruse advertising for, say, Colt 45 malt liquor to get a fix on its intended audience. Sometimes black celebrities – Billy Dee Williams and Snoop Dogg come to mind – hawk malt liquors, lending them an aura of glamor well removed from reality.

Reader Donna Bickford, who wrote us a guest column after correspondent Amanda Keener's recent stories on human trafficking, emailed us today that the Polaris Project has upgraded North Carolina from Tier 2 to Tier 1 status among the 50 states based on legislation to combat the problem.

There are an estimated 18,000 to 20,000 trafficking victims -- essentially modern-day slaves -- in the United States, and North Carolina is among the top 10 states where trafficking has been reported, according to agencies that work on the problem.

The Washington-based Polaris Project began tracking anti-trafficking laws in 2007 when only 28 states had anti-trafficking criminal statutes. As of July 31, the number of states with anti-trafficking criminal statutes, including the District of Columbia, has grown to 48 with sex trafficking offenses and 50 with labor trafficking offenses.

As of July 31, 2012, 21 states are now rated in Tier 1, up from 11 states in 2011. Tier 1 states have passed "significant laws" against trafficking. Twenty-eight states (55 percent ) passed new laws to fight human trafficking in the past year, according to the Polaris Project.

It's not quite singing the blues, but the St. Joseph's Historic Foundation needs $50,000 by Sept. 3 to help stage its annual Bull Durham Blues Festival.

Bull's Eye couldn't reach anyone at the Foundation's Hayti Heritage Center for comment, but the Center has announced it started a Kickstarter campaign to raise money. As of noon, five contributors had pledged a total of $175.

According to a statement on the festival's Kickstarter web site (http://kck.st/OyGW4n), "with a strained economy (it) is no easy feat" to pay for a festival costing $250,000 or more.

The Hayti Center is further fiscally challenged by having to pay back almost $190,000 in misappropriated grant money from the Golden Leaf Foundation.

St. Joseph's, which operates the Hayti Center at the former St. Joseph's A.M.E. Church on Fayetteville Street, receives an annual grant from the city, along with the Carolina Theatre, Durham Arts Council and Lyon Park Community Center. For 2012-13, the subsidy is $292,000.

The 2012 Blues Festival is scheduled Sept. 7-8 at Durham Athletic Park. Headliners are Marcia Ball on Friday and the Bobby Blue Bland on Saturday.

The Hayti Center and its St. Joseph's Historic Foundation have staged the Bull Durham Blues Festival each fall since 1988.

Here's a look at today's local headlines:

SCHOOL TRAJECTORY: For the first time, Durham Public Schools has no low-performing schools, meaning schools that failed to meet growth and have less than half their students workon grade level. Correspondent Matt Goad has the details.

STATE INVESTIGATES HOWERTON: The state Board of Election is investigating allegations that County Commissioner Brenda Howerton double billed expenses. Howerton says no money was misused. Correspondent Virginia Bridges has the details.

INCLUSIVE ART SHOW: Each month, Debbie Meyer, art lover, animal lover, emaciated mule rescuer, brings us a story about the arts in Durham. This month, she has two, starting with today's piece on "Love/Hate, Private/Public, Inside/Outside, Gay/Straight,' a new show at Durham Arts Place Upstairs gallery opening just in time fo the annual Carolina Theatre's NCGL Film Festival.

Carl Kenney rides the bus. Harry Lynch shoots the bears and Bill Kalkhof says the City Council did right Monday night when it approved that $5M incentive deal for the proposed downtown hotel.

What's on your mind? Tell us at editor@newsobserver.com, and thanks for reading,

Mark