ANN ARBOR, Mich.

Obama warns colleges could lose aid if tuition keeps rising

President Barack Obama fired a warning at the nation’s colleges and universities on Friday, threatening to strip their federal aid if they “jack up tuition” every year and to give the money instead to schools showing restraint and value.

Obama can’t proceed, though, without the OK from Congress, where the reaction of Republican lawmakers ranged from muted to skeptical. Higher education leaders worried about the details , and one dismissed it as mere election-year “political theater.”

Average tuition and fees at public colleges rose 8.3 percent this year and, with room and board, now exceed $17,000 a year, according to the College Board.

SEATTLE

‘Barefoot Bandit’ gets 6 1/2 years for crime spree

A federal judge on Friday sentenced “Barefoot Bandit” Colton Harris-Moore, 20, to 6 1/2 years in prison for his infamous two-year, international crime spree of break-ins, and boat and plane thefts that ended in 2010.

Harris-Moore hopscotched his way across the United States, authorities said. He flew a plane stolen in northwestern Washington to the San Juan Islands, stole a pistol in British Columbia and took a plane from Idaho to Washington state, stole a boat in southwestern Washington to go to Oregon, and took a plane in Indiana and flew to the Bahamas, where was arrested. The 20-year-old earned his nickname because he committed several of the crimes without wearing shoes.

RALEIGH, N.C.

10-year-old cat gets first feline knee replacement

Because Cyrano weighs more than 20 pounds, amputating his cancer-weakened leg was out of the question. So the tubby tabby’s owners turned to doctors and engineers at North Carolina State University.

On Thursday, the 10-year-old cat from Upperville, Va., received what doctors believe is the first feline total knee replacement in the U.S. “This is the most complex implant that NC State has made… ,” said surgeon Denis Marcellin-Little, the veterinarian.

Cyrano – his full name is Mr. Cyrano L. Catte II – underwent treatment last year at Colorado State University for cancer in his left hind leg. The treatment left the leg nearly useless and extremely painful. Marcellin-Little and NCSU engineer Ola Harrysson are pioneers in a process that fuses a prosthetic limb with living bone.

— From news service reports

 

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