Northwestern University School of Law Too good for Jerry Springer?

People

Students at the Northwestern University School of Law in Chicago are up in arms over news that schlock TV-show host Jerry Springer will be the school's commencement speaker. While students are circulating a petition, school administrators are busy pointing out that Springer was not always Mr. Sleaze.

"Mr. Springer is an alumnus who has held public office as a City Council member and mayor of Cincinnati," law school dean David Van Zandt told legal blog Above the Law. "We look forward to Mr. Springer's participation."

Osmonds Vegas-bound

Seems Las Vegas is no longer considered Mammon's city: How else could Donny and Marie Osmond, revered Champions of the Light, set up camp there? The famously white-toothed siblings will receive an undisclosed sum to perform a variety show at the Flamingo hotel-casino for eight months starting Sept. 9.

Worth a try

Anatomy of a truck?

They're proudly displayed by any self-respecting bull, but dangling big metal ones on the back end of a truck could be banned in Florida. Metal replicas of bull testicles have become trendy bumper ornaments in some parts of the Sunshine State, but state Sen. Carey Baker is campaigning to ban them. Baker acknowledged that Florida lawmakers have more pressing issues, including huge revenue shortfalls, but said the state needs to draw a line on what's obscene before more objectionable adornments appear.

When the brick falls

Forget what the calendar says. In West Danville, Vt., spring doesn't arrive until the cinder block falls through the ice on Joe's Pond. The 65-pound block, which is placed on a wooden pallet on the frozen surface of the pond and tied to an alarm clock on shore each winter in a $1-per-chance guessing game, plunged into the water at 5:25 p.m. Friday. Four people who guessed April 25 at 5:15 p.m. — the closest time — won $1,323 apiece in the annual Joe's Pond Ice Out Contest, according to organizer Dave Parker. The 20th annual contest drew 12,039 entries, many far from Vermont. The earliest-ever ice out date was April 16, in 1998 and 2006; the latest was May 6, in 1992.

Today in History

1865: The steamer Sultana exploded on the Mississippi River near Memphis, Tenn., killing more than 1,400 people, mostly freed Union prisoners of war.

1932: American poet Hart Crane, 32, drowned after jumping from a steamer into the Gulf of Mexico while en route to New York.

1973: Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray resigned after it was revealed that he had handed over bureau files on the Watergate burglary to the Nixon White House.

1978: Fifty-one construction workers plunged to their deaths when a scaffold inside a cooling tower at the Pleasants Power Station site in West Virginia fell 168 feet to the ground.

1998: A Pentagon panel said the remains of the Vietnam veteran in the Tomb of the Unknowns in Arlington National Cemetery should be exhumed to determine whether they belonged to Air Force 1st Lt. Michael J. Blassie, as his family believed. (The remains were later positively identified as Blassie's.)

Today's Birthdays

Actor Jack Klugman, 86. Actress Anouk Aimee, 76. Announcer Casey Kasem, 76. R&B singer Cuba Gooding, 64. Singer Ann Peebles, 61. Pop singer Sheena Easton, 49. Rock singer-musician Patrick Stump (Fall Out Boy), 24.

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