Starting sometime in April, library books will be available at Contra Costa County BART stations via "ATM style lending machines." A new program called Library-a-Go-Go, along with the Contra Costa County Library, will allow BART riders to simply swipe a card, select a book, wait for said book choice to drop, and then return the book after the rider is finished reading their literary gem. The machines will "hold around 400 popular and best-selling......

On Friday night at around 11:30 p.m., the intersection of Leavenworth and O'Farrell played host to a shooting. It seems that shots were fired from one car into another, leaving two males seriously injured. No deaths, no arrests. Not to be outdone, Hyde and Turk set the stage for a stabbing on Sunday, 2:20 a.m. The victim was rushed to SFGH. Again: no death, no arrests.San Mateo saw its first homicide since 2006. A......

And the Bay Area dominates your reality TV scene YET AGAIN!!! Danville's own Evan O'Dorney, sponsored by the proud-as-punch Contra Costa Times, wins this year's spelling bee on the word "serrefine," which is not a brand of drinking water but rather, is a small set of forceps used for clamping blood vessels. O'Dorney is home-schooled (but affiliated with a local charter school, and takes classes at various local community colleges), came in fifth in the......

-Three old ladies about start hugging trees in Berkeley. -City to step up fight against graffiti. -Beyond Chron wants Matt to run. -There was a kidnapping attempt in Marin. -The Alameda Main Street ferry terminal has been reopened. -The iPhone might not be so iGreat. -Man found dead under BART train at Pittsburg/Bay Point station. -Tim Goodman puts on the cranky pants today. We love when he puts on the cranky pants. ...

Special single-issue Blotter today -- there's a bad situation brewing in the Bay Point. On Wednesday afternoon, one of the owners of the store "Pop Ya Collar" was arrested for shooting a woman he suspected of shoplifting shoes. To be more specific, when the owner realized he'd been robbed by a group of five people, he grabbed his gun, ran outside, and fired shots into the window of the getaway car the group was driving......

The only MacArthur we've ever encountered is the last BART stop to change from the Pittsburg/Bay Point and Richmond lines! Four folks in the Bay Area, though, have slightly different associations with the word, now that they've been awarded MacArthur genius grants of half a million dollars apiece. Three of our local winners are from Cal and one is from Stanford. From Cal, Lu Chen is a neuroscientist researching memory. Nicole King studies unicellular evolution, Michael Manga is a geophysicist studying Bay Area earthquakes, and from Stanford, Pehr Harbury is in drug bioengineering. The grant recipients can use the money for whatever they like. The other 21 winners this year include author Jonathan Lethem, an ergonomic violinmaker, a fisherman, a man who's been working to reduce auto emissions, and a rare book restorer. There was a hilarious article in the NY Times from a winner from last year, whose daughter takes great glee in defeating him at Candyland now ("I thought you were a genius, Daddy,"), and other Bay Area winners from last year (who included a local high school debate teacher) say they're all doing very well. ...