The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority Board of Directors is considering a new design for its next order of Metrorail cars.

The proposed design for the new cars, referred to as the 7000 series, will be the first major exterior redesign since the system first opened in 1976.

Chants and cheers filled Bender Arena yesterday as Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama took the stage at a campaign rally to call for change and receive support from a key political family.

During the rally, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., announced he was endorsing Obama.

Members of the AU community who are planning to attend President Neil Kerwin’s inauguration ceremony or the combined Inauguration Celebration and Founders’ Day Ball will need to obtain tickets to get into either event.

The inauguration ceremony, scheduled for 11 a.

The Office of Campus Life will conduct a survey to determine the academic, social and sexual effects of drugs and alcohol on students, according to Associate Dean of Students Sara Waldron.

Lowering student Metro fares and improving campus safety were the main topics discussed at a District of Columbia Metropolitan University Student Alliance meeting Saturday

Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., will officially announce his endorsement of Democratic presidential candidate and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama at a campaign rally at AU today.

The rally, which will be held in Bender Arena, is scheduled to begin at 12:15 p.m. Doors will open at 10:30 a.m., according to a press advisory released by the Obama campaign.

The rally is completely free and open to the public, according to Heidi Davis, media and communications director of the AU chapter of Students for Barack Obama.

Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, will also appear at the rally.

The Office of Housing and Dining and the Office of Auxiliary Services hired a consultant to improve on-campus dining services, according to Executive Director of Housing and Dining Chris Moody.

“We have a good opportunity to take a fresh look at our dining services,” Moody said.

fight injustices in the world than they may think, Mike Haack, a graduate student in the School of International Service, said at an activism workshop Saturday.

“Solidarity Into Action: Workshops on Effective Student Activism,” brought students together to discuss the influence of activism, according to the event program.

Proposed closures of 23 District schools would affect at least one DC Reads program - the one at Bruce Monroe Elementary in Northwest, according to Robin Adams, assistant director of the Community Service Center.

Even if some of the schools shut down, the program would continue to serve the needs of children in the District.

AU students and faculty have voiced criticism or attempted to explain the current debate over race and gender caused by the presidential campaigns of Sens. Barack Obama, D-Ill., and Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y.

Clinton’s recent remarks on the contributions that the Rev.

The Undergraduate Senate referred a smoking ban bill and an elections reform bill back to committees and passed a bill on senator absences at its meeting Sunday afternoon.

The smoking bill, called “A Bill to Protect the Health of the AU Community,” would call on the university to amend the AU Student Handbook to include a ban on smoking within 25 feet of the entrances and exits to all buildings and residences on campus.

Tomas Delgado, a driver in Madrid, Spain, who killed a cyclist in 2004, is suing the victim’s family for 20,000 euros for damages to his car from the impact of the body, the Spanish newspaper El Pais reported Friday.

Delgado claimed the 17-year-old boy’s body and bicycle caused 14,000 euros worth of damage to the car, according to El Pais.

An elderly man has filed a lawsuit against the Blue Man Group, the Chicago Tribune reported Thursday, claiming the actors forced a camera into his mouth to project images of his throat to the audience.

James Srodon, 65, said when the “esophagus cam” entered his mouth, it was already covered in food, grime and bright blue paint from the trio’s faces.

The D.C. government is firing nine employees for visiting pornographic Web sites while at work, The Washington Post reported Thursday.

Each of the nine employees looked at pornography on the Internet an average of 19,000 times last year. Three of them looked more than 39,000 times, according to the results of a study of more than 10,000 government computers.

AU last weekend upgraded its e-mail system with a new spam-filtering program, according to a memo from the Office of Information Technology.

Every day, students will receive an e-mail from the university listing e-mails tagged as spam by the filtering program.