CAMPUS BRIEF Students to read Dr. Seuss to local children
Students will volunteer at schools in the surrounding community to read Dr. Seuss books to children today.
To celebrate Dr. Seuss day, the Community Service Center and Read Across America are teaming up to bring volunteers to read to children and promote reading, according to the Community Service Center's Web site.
This day will celebrate Dr. Seuss' 104th birthday; according to his official Web site, he was born March 2, 1904. Seuss' books are known for their witty rhymes and wise themes, which are helpful in developing an interest in reading in children and promoting literacy, according to the Community Service Center's Web site.
People can donate Dr. Seuss books in Mary Graydon Center 273. Interested students should e-mail volunteer@american.edu.
-RACHEL TRAINER
METRO BRIEF Kangaroo Kids to jump rope their way to Cape Town
Fifteen members of the Kangaroo Kids, a precision jump rope team from Howard County, Md., qualified to represent the United States at the 2008 World Rope Skipping Championship this summer in Cape Town, South Africa, The Washington Post reported Sunday.
The competition, which enthusiasts consider the Olympics of jump rope, will include participants from the Americas, Europe, Asia and Australia, according to The Post.
The jumpers perform alone, in pairs or in groups with at least one rope in events ranging from speed and power contests to three- and four-person double Dutch - a variant of the sport involving at least one jumper and two people turning the ropes, The Post reported.
Judges will decide how well each team performs single-rope free style routines and on its abilities to do "double unders" and "triple unders," which involve two or three turns of the rope in between each jump, according to The Post.
-CHRISTOPHER COTTRELL
NATIONAL BRIEF Navy warship built from World Trade Center steel christened
Thousands of onlookers, including friends and relatives of people who died in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, gathered in Louisiana Saturday for the christening of a new Navy warship made partly out of scrap metal recycled from New York's World Trade Center buildings, according to The Associated Press.
The vessel's bow stern - the foremost part of a ship's hull on the waterline - contains 7.5 tons of steel salvaged from Ground Zero. It also bears a shield with two bars to represent the twin towers and a banner that reads "Never Forget," the AP reported.
Dorothy England, wife of deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, broke a champagne bottle across the USS New York's hull with the traditional salute, "May God bless this ship and all who sail on her," according to the AP.
The Navy typically reserves state names for its nuclear submarines, but made an exception for the commemorative name under pressure from former New York Gov. George Pataki, the AP reported.
-C.C.
INTERNATIONAL BRIEF Italian judges prosecute for wayward grabbing
Italy's highest appeals court ruled that it is a criminal offense for men to touch their genitals in public, the Guardian, a British newspaper, reported Wednesday.
The third penal division of Rome's high court emphasized that the new law applied not only to absentminded crotch-scratching, but also to a common Italian superstition in which men will briefly fondle themselves to ward off bad luck - similar to knocking on wood, according to the Guardian.
The ruling stemmed from the judicial appeal of an unnamed workman in the town of Como, near Milan, who was convicted of "indecent behavior" in May 2006 for "ostentatiously touching his genitals through his clothing," the Guardian reported.
Despite the defense lawyer's pleas that his client was merely trying to adjust his overalls, the judges charged the man 1,200 euro in fines, according to the Guardian.
The judges deemed the man's actions "contrary to public decency" and warned other males against engaging in similarly "offensive" behavior, the Guardian reported.
-C.C.
