Campus brief Package hours changed to suit students' needs
AU's Housing and Dining Programs amended the package hours in Anderson and Centennial halls to suit students' needs, according to Bonnie Crouch, guest and public relations coordinator for Housing and Dining.
Housing and Dining added an additional two hours when residents can collect their packages under the amended schedule, she said.
Crouch said the hours seem to have been extremely successful on many levels.
"I think the 3 to 5 [p.m.] hours have definitely helped," Crouch said. "I think it really helped along the lines of showing the students that we do care and that we listen to what you say."
Alex Manzanares, a sophomore in the Kogod School of Business, said he approved of the updated package lines.
"Housing and Dining made a generous move to reallocate their resources to benefit the needs of the AU student body," he said.
Housing and Dining schedules two people at the front desk from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekdays, according to Crouch. With the new system, there is one person at the front desk and one person in the package room. Therefore, the change would not affect building security because there would be at least one person at the front desk at all times, Crouch said.
-JEN CALANTONE
Metro brief Prince George's County serial rapist met victims online
An unidentified man recently linked to six rapes arranged sexual liaisons with his victims online, Prince George's County Police Department announced Thursday.
The most recent incident occurred Tuesday night in the stairwell of an apartment building in Suitland. The victim told police the attacker fled in an unknown direction after the assault, according to a press statement on the Department's Web site.
In the six known attacks, which began in August, the women arrived for a date with a man they had met on dating sites, including Craigslist, only to be assaulted by a masked attacker brandishing a handgun. Many of the victims, all adults, were attacked in isolated or dark places, including apartment stairwells, police said.
Police officials linked the rapes after re-interviewing victims and witnesses, the press release stated.
The Department is urging women to use caution when soliciting sex online.
"Stranger rapes are uncommon in the county, and all of these were stranger rapes," Maj. Dan Dusseau, commander of Prince George's County Police's criminal investigations division, said in the press release.
-PATRICIO CHILE
National brief Nader to run as third-party contender
Ralph Nader announced yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that he will run for president as a "third-party" candidate under a familiar pledge to "shift the power from the few to the many," The Associated Press reported.
Nader condemned lobbyist powers in Washington, saying all three current frontrunners had succumbed to pressures from big business.
Democrats criticized Nader's bids for the presidency in 2000 as a Green Party candidate and in 2004 as an independent. They claimed he siphoned votes away from George W. Bush's opponents in both races. Nader maintains the Democrats are solely responsible for losing to Bush, the AP reported.
-CHRISTOPHER COTTRELL
International brief Before rise to power, Hitler drew Disney characters
A Norwegian museum director claimed to have uncovered cartoons of Walt Disney characters drawn by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War, the Telegraph, a British newspaper, reported Saturday.
William Hakvaag told the paper he discovered the three colored drawings hidden behind a painting signed "A. Hitler," which he purchased at an auction in Germany.
While Hakvaag's claim could not be confirmed as of Saturday, the director said handwriting analyses of the painting's signature were similar to other records of Hitler's writing.
"I am 100 percent sure that these are drawings by Hitler," Hakvaag told the Telegraph. "If one wanted to make a forgery, one would never hide it in the back of a picture where it might never be discovered."
The Nazi leader was known to have possessed a copy of the 1937 Disney film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" and to have viewed it in his private cinema, according to the Telegraph. Two of the drawings depicted the movie characters Bashful and Doc, while the third showed a version of the title character in the 1940 film "Pinocchio."
-C.C.
