US tightens student aid payments to ITT
US tightens student aid payments to ITT
WASHINGTON
Education officials are placing new limits on federal student aid administered by struggling for-profit college chain ITT Educational Services.
The move comes after the government found ITT was failing to comply with previous orders to improve its financial controls.
ITT has not produced proper and timely accounting for the federal grants and loans it distributes to students since at least 2009, the Department of Education says in a letter sent to ITT on Monday. As a result, the letter says, ITT now will be allowed to pay out federal education funds to students only after they have attended classes and been certified as eligible by a school representative.
Libya rejects UN power-sharing plan
BENGHAZI, Libya
Libya’s internationally recognized government on Monday rejected a U.N. proposal for a power-sharing arrangement with rival Islamist-led authorities that was intended to bring peace to the north African nation.
The internationally recognized parliament will not sign the agreement to form a unity government because the U.N. refused to exclude amendments added by the Islamist authorities without its consent, government spokesman Farraj Abu Hashem told The Associated Press.
Court upholds NY, Conn. gun laws
NEW YORK
Gun-control laws passed in New York and Connecticut to ban possession of semi-automatic weapons and large-capacity magazines after the 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School were mostly upheld Monday by a federal appeals-court decision that a gun group vowed to appeal.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan found core parts of the laws did not violate the Second Amendment because there was a substantial relationship between bans on assault weapons and large-capacity magazines and the “important – indeed, compelling – state interest in controlling crime.”
Contractor convicted in building collapse
PHILADELPHIA
A cut-rate demolition contractor was found guilty of manslaughter Monday, more than two years after a towering wall fell on a busy thrift store, killing six people.
A jury convicted Griffin Campbell of six counts of involuntary manslaughter, rejecting the third-degree murder charges sought by prosecutors who said Campbell ignored warnings of an imminent collapse.
Campbell described himself as a scapegoat for the architect overseeing the demolition of a seedy downtown block, and in his testimony last week called the collapse “an accident.”
However, prosecutors said he controlled the worksite and lied about how the demolition was being done. Their experts said he caused the unsupported wall to fall on the adjacent thrift store by cutting corners on the job in June 2013.
Alaska ‘slave auction’ event to be renamed
ANCHORAGE, Alaska
Organizers of an annual Alaska charity event said Monday they will stop calling it a “slavery auction” after the NAACP complained.
The event in the town of Sitka involves people bidding in an auction on volunteers’ time, with the winning bidders putting the volunteers to work doing odd jobs, such as mowing lawns or cleaning gutters. It’s part of Sitka’s Alaska Day festivities, which commemorate the state’s transfer of ownership from Russia to the U.S.
Associated Press