The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:
TORAIN IN FOR PORTIS
Jim Bamburg remembers his first conversation with Ryan Torain's mother. Back then, Torain was a gangly but fast teenager at Shawnee Mission Northwest High School, outside Kansas City, Kan. And Raedell Shinn was a protective mother, worried about her son's welfare. "She asked a lot of questions," said Bamburg, the school's head football coach. "She was just worried about him getting hurt. I remember her saying she'd rather he played basketball or baseball. I told her football could be dangerous, but I thought Ryan would be okay." Shinn was reluctant - "It's such a rough game," she still says today - but she allowed Torain to join the team. Sure enough, Torain would eventually get hurt - often, it turned out. Foot, knee, elbow, knee again. His body always recovered. His career, however, was slower to bounce back. Torain, 24, will finally get his opportunity Sunday when the Washington Redskins face the Green Bay Packers.
(WASHINGTON POST)
GOING PINK FOR BREAST CANCER MONTH
It started when we heard from an area spa promoting a new line of pink hair extensions available through October, which is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. The pink strands cost $10 each, with proceeds going to breast cancer research. We wanted one.
After all, it's for a good cause. So, we headed to Xsalonce salon in Pasadena, which has sold the extensions in pale pink, dark pink and hot pink since mid-September. The salon on Fort Smallwood Road has gone all out with "Save the ta-tas" T-shirts and pink ribbon jewelry. The goal is to donate at least $3,500 to Anne Arundel Medical Center in Parole, said stylist Angey PoggioliPoggioli, whose business, Angey's Tangles, is based at Xsalonce. "We've probably done at least a hundred (extensions)," said Poggioli, who has nine hot pink streaks bonded into her long, curly blonde locks.
(HOMETOWNANNAPOLIS.COM)
THIEVES STEAL GIANT EYEBALL
Someone poked the Science Museum of Virginia in the eye. At least that's how Richard Conti, the museum's director, feels.
Just 12 hours after Conti's staff turned the iconic Grand Kugel outside the museum into a giant eyeball, someone stole its cover.
On Saturday about 1:30 a.m., thieves cut away a fabric cover resembling a large eyeball that tightly wrapped the 8½-foot diameter, 29-ton ball, Conti said. The globe gyrates on a thin film of water. The eyeball decoration, valued at $4,000, promoted a "Goose Bumps! The Science of Fear" exhibit at the museum in conjunction with Halloween. "We thought it would be kind of cool to turn the Kugel into an eyeball," he said. "We have mummies and sea monsters in the Imax, and it was just kind of a fun way to get attention that something new and different is going on here." Turning the Kugel into an eyeball "is pretty striking," he added.But someone decided to spoil the fun before it really got started.
(RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH)
UNDERGROUND METRO STATION AT DULLES
Fairfax County officials are still backing an underground Metrorail station at Washington Dulles International Airport, but say costs must come down for the project to remain viable. Last month, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority released a preliminary cost estimate of $3.83 billion for final engineering and construction of the six new Metro stations, about $1.2 billion higher than previous estimates. Building the airport station above ground would reduce the price tag by about $640 million, saving $103 million from Fairfax County's share and reducing the burden on Dulles Toll Road users by about $480 million, said Rick Stevens, the county's liaison to the rail project. The Airports Authority is using bonds backed by toll road revenues to fund the bulk of the Phase 2 construction.
(FAIRFAX TIMES)
