News Briefs

Pull ‘em up

The lawmakers of Florida managed to pass a bill that will make students in the state pull up their “droopy” pants. This could mean that students would face a suspension if they refuse. The bill still needs to pass the state’s House of Representatives. Many other U.S. cities have already passed similar measures to stop what some teenagers see as fashionable. They wear their pants halfway down so that their underwear or bare butt is exposed. Critics of the bill think that it is overkill. They feel that regulating this fashion trend should be the responsibility of schools and parents. The senator that proposed that law has become the “butt of jokes,” but he said that the fashion statement was “made popular by rap artists after first appearing among prison inmates as a signal they were looking for sex.” He wants to let people know about the fad’s origin.

Airport to test hydrogen engines

The Orlando International Airport in Florida has announced that it will be testing four shuttle vans that have engines modified to operate using hydrogen as fuel. The vans are manufactured by Ford, but will not feature any fuel cells. Hydrogen usage in combustion engines is much less efficient when compared to fuel cells. One of the shuttle drivers said that the fans are very quiet and don’t shake like the diesel engines. They also don’t have the “diesel smell” associated with them. The goal of the Orlando project is to get average people acquainted with hydrogen buses and how they perform when they are in use nonstop. The hydrogen will be supplied by a hydrogen fueling station in Orlando, where the fuel is produced on-site. It is made by converting natural gas to hydrogen. The station said that the buses have about a 12 percent cleaner carbon footprint because of how the hydrogen is produced.

Wireless auction comes to an end

The U.S. government auction of the wireless airwaves came to a close on Tuesday. It raised $19.59 billion, but the winners have not been announced yet. Many analysts think that Verizon Wireless is most likely the winner of the auction. The highest bid on the “C” block of the spectrum was $4.74 billion. The C block spectrum has a stipulation that it must be accessible by any wireless device or software application. The winners should be announced in the next couple of days. The 700-megahertz spectrum that is currently used for television broadcasts will be returned to the government when the switch from analog to digital television signals transpires early in 2009.