Today is the first day of the Capital Fringe Festival: biggest unjuried festival of self-produced theater in the region.

The Capital Fringe Festival takes Northwest Washington by storm, the National Symphony Orchestra tunes up at Wolf Trap, and Odd Birds nest at the Artists' Gallery in Columbia.

Steely art, almost normal theater and another slice of Greek cinema.

Alexandria gets all gooey, Shakespeare Theatre Company goes to Venice and the USS Cyclops remains AWOL.

In the bowels of the main library at the University of Virginia, a handful of students hit the books throughout the summer -- with more than 80,000 rare volumes and manuscripts. As part of the University's Rare Book School, they learn to read books in a whole new way.

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray used the festivities at yesterday's Palisades Parade in Northwest D.C. to call attention to the District's fight for "full independence."