Gas Prices Rise for 34th Consecutive Day

Gas Prices

The average price of a gallon of self-serve regular gasoline in San Diego County rose Tuesday for the 34th consecutive day, increasing 1.8 cents overnight to $4.334 -- the highest amount since July 24, 2008.

The average price is 24.7 cents more than one week ago, 58.1 cents higher than a month ago and 56.1 cents greater than a year ago, according to figures from the AAA and Oil Price Information Service.

Analysts have credited rising oil prices to fears of shortages because of elevated tensions in the Middle East over Iran's nuclear program and speculation by investors, along with reduced supply due to the closure of some California refineries for maintenance and a major fire at the Cherry Point refinery near Blaine, Wash., that will cause its closure for at least three weeks.

Crude oil costs account for two-thirds to three-quarters of the price of a gallon of gasoline, according to Tupper Hull of the Western States Petroleum Association, a trade association representing oil companies in six western states.

Manhunt in El Cajon

A manhunt was under way Tuesday for a gunman who wounded three people in El Cajon, including a 7-year-old girl who suffered a slight injury when she was hit by a bullet meant for someone else, police said.

Officers responding to reports of gunfire rushed to the area of Graves and East Madison avenues around 7:30 p.m. yesterday and found the three victims -- the girl and the two men who apparently were targeted. All three were suffering from non-life threatening gunshot wounds, said El Cajon Police Department Lt. Mike Moulton.

One of the wounded men was found in the 100 block of East Madison Avenue and the second, in the 400 block of Ballantyne Street, Moulton said. Both had been shot near the intersection of Graves and East Madison, then ran off, he said.

The girl was found in the 500 block of Graves Avenue, Moulton said.

Beth Kell, a nurse who lives nearby and ran to the scene after some six shots rang out, told U-T San Diego that the child was with her mother and the woman's boyfriend and had been getting in or out of a car when she was hit in the back.

The girl, who was unrelated to the intended victims, was taken to a hospital and admitted overnight for observation, Moulton said, adding: "It was not a serious wound."

The El Cajon Police Department reported on its website that it is seeking a black or Hispanic man who is 5 feet 10, 170 pounds, possibly wearing a black hoodie and considered armed and dangerous.

Undersea Research

Scientific instruments could be embedded in thousands of miles of communications cables running across the Pacific Ocean floor in the future, bringing researchers new data on undersea earthquakes and tsunamis, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography announced Monday.

Scripps is in the early stages of negotiations with the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the commercial telecommunications company TE SubCom on the idea.

The seismometers, pressure gauges and temperature sensors could relay data regarding temblors, tsunamis and various undersea forces, according to Scripps officials, who said later instruments could measure ocean water temperatures.

The instrucments could be deployed first on 12,950 miles of cable to be laid between Los Angeles, Auckland, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia, according to John Orcutt, of the Cecil H. and Ida M. Green Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at Scripps.

"More than 70 percent of the world is water and we need to understand much more of it," Orcutt said. "If this project expands to other oceans it could change the face of oceanography."

Scripps envisions taht once deployed, the data generated by the instruments would be available to scientists around the world.

-City News Service