Local Leads: 5/7/09

News you need to know

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

METRO IN THE RETAIL BUSINESS
Drop off dry cleaning. Buy pink tulips for a sweetheart. And yes, maybe even pick up a cooked chicken for dinner, at a Metro station, on the way home from work.  These might be among some options for Washington area subway riders as early as this fall. The Metro board is taking up the retail-in-stations issue again later this month. Unlike three years ago, agency staff are asking for authorization to solicit proposals that would allow food and beverages to be among items sold inside a dozen Metrorail stations. (Washington Post)

NEW POWER LINES COMING...
In the next week or so, work crews will start building Fauquier's portion of a contentious 500,000-volt transmission line. The line, which should be operating by June 2011, will serve northern Virginia homes and businesses. Dominion Virginia Power's 65-mile line will link substations in Frederick and Loudoun counties. Besides Fauquier, Frederick and Loudoun, the line will cut through, Warren, Rappahannock, Culpeper and Prince William counties. (Fauquier Times-Democrat)

MONTGOMERY COUNTY OFFICER FACES PERJURY INVESTIGATION
A Montgomery County police officer faces a perjury investigation after she testified in April that she found a man arrested for driving under the influence behind the wheel of a parked car. A recording from a security camera showed he was in the back seat, lying down, with his feet out the open passenger side door when she approached him.  "We are aware of the allegation and will be conducting an investigation," Montgomery County Police spokeswoman Lucille Baur said Wednesday. (Gazette
 
POSTAGE RATES GOING UP
Get ready for the cost of sending some mail to increase next week. Some postage rates are set to rise Monday, as the U.S. Postal Service tries to offset increasing costs. The cost of a first-class mail stamp will rise 2 cents to 44 cents. (Stafford Sun)

UMD GREEN SPACE GOING AWAY
The University of Maryland aspires to be one of the "greenest" institutions of higher education in the country and plans to celebrate Friday its designation as an arboretum and "tree campus." But some students and professors say the administration is missing the forest for the trees by planning to bulldoze almost 9 acres of woods on the sprawling 1,400-acre campus to make way for maintenance sheds, a mail-handling depot and a parking lot for the university's buses and trucks. "The university says they're going to become carbon neutral by 2050, but they make a decision to cut down 9 acres of forest on the campus," said Davey Rogner, a senior from Silver Spring who's majoring in environmental restoration. (Baltimore Sun)

DANGEROUS BIKE PATH??
Town of Chevy Chase officials are questioning the safety of a proposed bike path that would allow cyclists to use an alternate route to the Capital Crescent Trail's tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue. They argue that the path along 47th Street and Willow Lane would shift more bikers to the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue, Willow Lane and Bethesda Avenue without creating any additional on-street safety improvements at Wisconsin Avenue. (Gazette)

BYLINE STRIKE AT THE SUN
More than 50 Baltimore Sun reporters and photographers are withholding their bylines in Thursday’s issue to protest recent layoffs at the newspaper. The byline strike will last one day. Last week, the newspaper cut 61 jobs, or close to one-third of the newsroom. The Baltimore Sun now employs 158 newsroom staff, compared with 420 in 1999 when Chicago’s Tribune Co. acquired the Sun. (Washington Business Journal)

KINDLE IN THE CLASSROOM...
Amazon.com Inc. is widely expected to unveil a new Kindle electronic book device with a larger screen Wednesday, which would be geared for textbooks, magazines and newspapers and possibly shake up the economics of multiple industries at once. (AP/ The Capital)  

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