TODAY Post Secret Davis exhibit 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Griffin Lounge, Memorial Union Learn what secrets UC Davis students and staff are keeping at this awareness exhibit. Sponsored by Students Against Sexual Violence. Asian Pacific Culture Week kickoff 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The Quad Check out performances, a Bruce Lee look-alike contest and more!

While one would expect normal car thieves to target the stereo system or items from the glove compartment, the latest underbelly of vehicle theft stems from an item not within the car itself: catalytic converters. The converter is a device used to reduce the toxicity of emissions from an internal combustion engine. They were first widely introduced in the mid-’70s to comply with tightening Environmental Protection Agency regulations on auto exhaust. And now, largely due to trace amounts of precious metals within the converters – such as platinum, palladium or rhodium – thefts are on the rise. Sergeant Glenn Glasgow of the Davis Police Department said law enforcement officials often deal with the thefts in waves, with the latest rash occurring in January.

Your style has always been seen as acoustic folk rock. How is your newest album, The Con, different, and why did you make that change? We always saw ourselves as songwriters, so there wasn’t much emphasis on developing the band with instrumentation. With So Jealous and The Con, we had the chance to think a lot more about the instrumentation and worked a lot on it. We went so far as to put our own drums down and mapped out what we wanted our songs to sound like.… When we first started making music, we were 18, where you go into a studio and rattle something out.

080421_sp_column.CHeadline: Bred for competitionBy Michael Gehlken Zephyr the Destroyer and the UC Davis Division I athlete have much in common. Both train for months on end. Both have a strong supporting cast to push them to their limits. Both know what it’s like to have thousands of screaming fans cheer them on. There is just […]

The sun wasn’t the only thing shining on Woody Wilson Track on Picnic Day. After a successful overall performance at the rain-drenched event last year, the Aggies shined once again as hosts to the Woody Wilson Classic that featured 600-plus athletes. UC Davis turned in several standout performances Saturday. Junior Sirena Williams claimed the 100-meter hurdle event with a time of 13.96, breaking the school record that she set last week. At the Rafer Johnson/Jackie Joyner-Kersee Invitational hosted by UCLA last weekend, the Fresno, Calif. native earned a share of the Big West Conference Women’s Track Athlete of the Week award by setting a new school record time of 14.06. Her Saturday performance also broke the Woody Wilson record of 14.00 set by Donica Merriman in 2002.