UPenn drops charges against student
The University of Pennsylvania decided Thursday to drop the charges filed against a student who had posted photographs of two fellow students having sex against a dormitory window online, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
The student, identified only as a junior in engineering, had originally been charged with sexual harassment and misuse of electronic resources. Several other students apparently also took photographs of the couple, but they were not identified. The pictures appeared on personal Penn Web sites, e-mails and collegehumor.com
The faces of the students in the photographs were not clearly visible, but other students eventually figured out who they were, and one of the students filed a sexual harassment complaint with the university against the student who had posted the pictures on his personal Web site.
The incident occurred in late September, but Penn did not complete its investigation into the matter until the end of November. The university condemned the student's actions and recommended that a full apology be made even though the charges were dropped. The student has yet to apologize.
- KELLY KERR
1,000 death row prisoner executed
The 1,000th death row prisoner was executed Friday since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977, according to The Washington Post.
Kenneth Lee Boyd, who had been on death row since 1998, was executed by lethal injection at 2:15 a.m. at Central Prison in Raleigh, N.C. Approximately 150 death penalty protestors had gathered outside the prison to rally against capital punishment.
The Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that capital punishment could be reinstated in the U.S. after a decade-long suspension. The first person to be executed after capital punishment resumed was executed by a firing squad in Utah the following year, according to The Washington Post.
Boyd had gunned down his wife and father-in-law 17 years earlier while one of his sons was trapped under his mother's body and another son wrestled Boyd for the .357 Magnum pistol. Boyd himself went outside, called 911, confessed, and then continued shooting.
His lawyers' pleas for clemency were denied and the Supreme Court and North Carolina governor Mike Easley chose not to intervene. Boyd, a Vietnam veteran, never denied the murders, but said he resented becoming a number. He said he had expected to get life in prison for the murders of his wife and father-in-law.
Hours later, the 1001st death row inmate was executed in South Carolina, according to The Washington Post.
- KELLY KERR
Two-year-old brings crack to daycare
A Philadelphia toddler was removed from his home Friday after the 2-year-old brought crack cocaine to his daycare center, according to the Associated Press.
The boy handed his teacher two packets of crack, and upon searching the toddler, the teacher found nine more packets in his jacket pockets. He told police he had taken the packets off a table in his home, but it wasn't clear how much he understood.
The toddler's mother was taken in by police for questioning when she arrived to pick him up at the daycare. She could be charged with child endangerment, according to Philadelphia police. The woman's 5-year-old daughter was also removed from the home and both children were placed with child services.
When police searched the home, they discovered a pound of marijuana and an additional small amount of crack.
- KELLY KERR
Man tries to scale White House fence
Secret Service agents captured a man scaling the White House fence Sunday afternoon, according to the Associated Press.
Shawn A. Cox, who was previously known to the Secret Service, is from Arkansas but officials gave no further detail.
Officials do not know why Cox scaled the fence, and he did not have a weapon. President Bush was at the White House at the time.
Cox will be at the U.S. Distrcit Court on Monday to face charges of unlawful entry.
- RYAN GRANNAN-DOLL
Mass. school to change its name
Jokes about The Governor Dummer Academy in Byfield, Mass. will no longer be funny. The school will change its name to The Governor's Academy soon, according to the Associated Press.
The school's board of trustees voted to drop the word "Dummer" from its name, starting its new name only July 1, 2006.
"The board of trustees believes the long-term interests of the Academy are best served by implementation of this change in the school name," board president Dan Morgan said in a statement.
Some are unhappy with the change, including Michael Smith, a 1954 alumnus, said the AP.
"Why give money to a school that has no respect for history?" Smith said.
- RYAN GRANNAN-DOLL
