Local Leads: 8/3/11

News you need to know

The following stories have been hand-selected by the Assignment Desk at News4:

HELP ROCKET
Frederick News Post: " Meet Rocket. He's 2 years old and already 12 feet tall. He has a big bluish-purple tongue and loves bamboo. He loves people, too, and is quite photogenic. Young giraffe Rocket is the newest addition to Catoctin Wildlife Preserve and Zoo just south of Thurmont. He is on loan to the zoo until Nov. 1.  Although the zoo has already built Rocket a new home, he cannot stay without a heating system for the winter. The renovations will cost $60,000, and the zoo is reaching out to the public and local businesses for help."

EDIBLE SCHOOLYARD
Herald-Mail: "A Hagerstown couple proposed planting an “edible” schoolyard at Bester Elementary School during a Washington County Board of Education meeting Tuesday. “We want to make Bester something special,” Gordon Bartels told the board during its meeting at the central office off Commonwealth Avenue in Hagerstown. Bartels said he and his wife, Janet, were sad to learn that parents in the Bester school district would be given the option to send their children to other county schools. The school choice option is the result of Bester students’ reading and math assessment test results in recent years."

PIGEON POOP
Washington Examiner:  "Virginia officials have cited Metro for having a "serious" health violation: too much pigeon poop. The state's Department of Labor and Industry issued citations to the transit agency for a problem with pigeons -- and their droppings -- at Metro's Four Mile Run bus garage in Arlington in April. The problem was supposed to be fixed by May 21, but the case remains open, records show. "Pigeons were roosting in the ceiling on ledges, air ducts and any horizontal space available to them," one of the citations reads."

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