The jury selection for the trial of Joshua Komisarjevsky an alleged accomplice in the 2007 Connecticut home invasion that resulted in the murder of 17-year-old Hayley Petit has been scheduled to begin on March 16, CNN reported Friday. Petit would have matriculated with the Class of 2011. The death penalty trial will begin Sept. 19, since jury selection could take several months, according to CNN. The New Haven Supreme Court sentenced Steven Hayes to death in December after he was convicted of 16 charges, including the murders of mother Jennifer Hawke-Petit, Hayley Petit and younger sister Michaela Petit. Hayes and Komisarjevsky were also accused of molesting one of the daughters and setting the Petit house on fire after leaving the two girls tied to a bed, CNN reported.
The Los Angeles Community College District wasted "tens of millions of dollars" by constructing defective buildings and starting unaffordable building projects as part of an effort to rebuild and revamp campuses, the Los Angeles Times reported after an 18-month investigation. The $5.7 billion program passed by voters in 2001 aimed to reduce classroom crowding, upgrade seismic protection and offer updated technology resources. At schools like LA City College, however, planning projects costing millions of dollars were abandoned when administrators decided to make changes or encountered a lack of funds. District Official Larry Eisenberg said in an interview with the LA Times that the management was to blame for large amounts of wasted money and the inability to effectively monitor careless contractors. The project which has permitted the construction of unsafe structures and faulty lighting systems and allocated hundreds of thousands of dollars to aerial photography is funded by taxpayers in the district, home to the largest two-year college system in California. Repaying the debt on the costly projects will likely last into the 2050s, according to the LA Times.
Individuals who pursue education above college degree-level may have a decreased risk for high blood pressure, according to a study led by Brown University community health professor Eric Loucks, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported Sunday. The investigation, part of the Framingham Offspring Study, monitored nearly 4,000 people in Framingham, Mass., over the course of 30 years, beginning in 1971. The study found that subjects with 17 or more years of schooling exhibited lower average blood pressure regardless of age, gender, weight or smoking and drinking habits. Framingham residents with between 13 and 16 years of education also had lower blood pressure than those with 12 or fewer years of formal education. Because the composition of Framingham at the start of the study was largely white, the findings may not reflect trends across other races, The Chronicle reported.
