INDEPENDENCE, Kansas -- Even as the ink dries on contracts to buy two struggling convenience-store and gasoline-wholesale chains, Florida billionaire Jeff Greene is finding additional places to invest his money, most notably in discussions to buy into the Tampa Bay hockey team and elsewhere in convenience stores.

"The wholesale basis is on a very low margin," Greene, who purchased the bankrupt Crescent Oil and Appalachian Oil (Appco) chains this summer from Titan Holdings Corp., Texas, told The Miami Herald.

OAK BROOK, Ill. -- Once again, CSP Daily News is offering this update on many of the new-store groundbreakings, raze and rebuilds, openings, reopenings, rebrandings, closures and sales announced around the country by chains small, medium and large, and which have not otherwise been reported on a day-to-day basis. Especially on the independent operator level, this recurring feature provides a regular snapshot of the constantly changing retail marketplace that includes such outlets as convenience stores, gas stations, truckstops, travel centers and related locations.

PALOS VERDES, Calif. -- That hint of swagger and his mischievous grin were as evident on Ted Turner last week as they were almost 30 years ago when he announced the start of the world's first and decidedly most influential cable news channel. Atlanta-based Cable News Network, or simply CNN, would go on to global reach and herald in a fledgling Information Age. Almost as an afterthought, Turner would win the America's Cup yacht race, invent the Goodwill Games, own a World Series Championship baseball team, financially jump start the United Nations and purchase enough land to restore vast chunks of the United States to its pre-land-grab days.