Hannah Kearney, a 2004 graduate of Hanover High School, won the first United States gold medal at the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver on Saturday, The Union Leader reported Sunday. Kearney earned a score of 26.63 in the women's moguls event to beat out the defending gold medalist, Canadian Jenn Heil, who posted a score of 25.69. Kearney was previously a part of the independent ski team Ford Sayre Ski Club, based in Norwich, Vt. At Hanover High, she was co-captain of the soccer team during her senior year, helping her team win the 2002 state soccer title and participating on the spring track team.
The House Business and Labor Committee in the Utah House of Representatives approved a proposed amendment to Utah's constitution on Friday that would ban affirmative action programs, The Salt Lake Tribune reported. The Committee voted along party lines, with several Democrats objecting to the lack of community input and specific evidence included in the bill. The proposal will now go to the full state House, where the Republicans hold a 53-seat majority out of 75 seats. The bill needs 50 votes to move on to the state Senate, which is controlled by a 21-seat Republican majority out of 29 senators, and it would then need to pass a voter referendum in November. Senate president Michael Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, said that the main problem the bill will address is the quota system used in university admissions that favors women and minorities.
Nearly two dozen new medical schools have recently been established or have been proposed in the United States, representing what could be an up to 18 percent increase to the 131 medical schools already operating in the United States, The New York Times reported Monday. The rise includes independent schools such as The Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton, Pa., and new medical schools within established universities like Quinnipiac University in Hamden, Conn. Existing schools are also expanding enrollment, sometimes creating satellite campuses, The Times reported. The increase is a response to the growing demand for medical professionals in light of potential increases in insured patients because of health care reform, an aging baby-boom generation and the imminent retirement of approximately one-third of practicing doctors, according to The Times.
