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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 19, 2015
FRED SQUILLANTE/ASSOCIATED PRESS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Pastor Grant Eckhart places ashes on Marilyn Elliott's forehead during drive-up Ash Wednesday at Advent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Upper Arlington, Ohio, on Wednesday. Clergy at Advent Evangelical Lutheran Church planned to apply ash to the foreheads of anyone who stopped in the parking lot of the church from 11 a.m. to 1 n.m. Wednesday. It's the first time the church has offered the drive-by service.
UPPER ARLINGTON, Ohio — Too busy to stop in for an Ash Wednesday service? Some churches are offering drive-by ashes.
Clergy at Advent Evangelical Lutheran Church in Upper Arlington, Ohio, applied ash to the foreheads of anyone who stopped in the parking lot of the church for two hours Wednesday.
Churches offer drive-by ashes on Ash Wednesday
It's the first time the church offered the drive-by service, said the
Rev. Aaron Layne. The congregation supported it, he told The Columbus Dispatch although some comments on Facebook criticized him for cheapening the observance that marks the beginning of Lent for Christians
Layne reasoned that it could be a first step back for some people who haven't been to church in years.
Other churches have also taken more informal approaches to Ash Wednesday. The "Ashes to Go" movement began in 2007 with ashes given to some 100 passers-by outside a coffeehouse in Missouri,
the Rev. Teresa K.M. Danieley of St. John's episcopal Church in St. Louis wrote on the "Ashes to Go" website.
The practice has since spread, and the website lists quick ash distribution services in more than 30 states and in several countries.
St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Ashtabula, Ohio, planned to offer a shelter at a downtown park Wednesday, The Star-Beacon in Ashtabula reported. Like Advent Evangelical Lutheran Church, the service would be a first for the northeast Ohio church.
Associated Press
Confession
Monday to Thursday- 4:30 P.M.
Saturday- 2:45 P.M.
Mass Times
Saturday- 8:30 A.M., 4:00 P.M.
Sunday- 8:30 A.M., 10:30 A.M., 5 P.M., 9 P.M.
Monday to Thursday- 5:15 P.M.
Priday- 12:10 P.M. (Danforth Chapel)
ST. LAWRENCE
CAMPUS CAMPUS CENTER
St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center | www.kucatholic.org *some restrictions apply*
with each other," Wagner said. "I know there have been instances, not just at KU, of students being able to transfer between schools and repeat offenders committing multiple offenses at one school and not being able to give the other school a heads up, and that's bringing a danger to campus. This is giving student affairs departments the ability
and jurisdiction to make that decision."
Another resolution that passed through rights and multicultural affairs is the condemning of Gov. Brownback's unilateral action against protecting LGBT state workers from discrimination based on sexual orientation or identity.
SENATE FROM PAGE 1A
Senior Emma Halling spoke on behalf of the resolution, stating she felt Brownback's actions would have a direct effect on the
"People who are considering coming to the University of Kansas think about the fundamental rights they're going to have in the state," Halling said. "I think we might lose out on a lot of really qualified job candidates or students who want to go somewhere they know they will have people protecting them."
University.
Edited by Callie Byrnes
Man with bodies buried in his yard gets life in prison
MICHAEL RUBINKAM
Geraldine Kerkowski and Connor Kerkowski's walk to the courtroom for the opening day of testimony in the murder trial of Hugo Selenski.
Associated Press
MARK MORAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — A jury on Wednesday spared the life of a man convicted of strangling a pharmacist and his girlfriend in 2002 and burying their bodies in his yard, granting a defense request to show mercy despite the brutal nature of the crimes.
Hugo Selenski, 41, was convicted last week on two counts of first-degree murder in the killings of Michael Kerkowski and Tammy Fassett during a robbery at the pharmacist's home. He showed no reaction to the jury's decision, which means he will serve life without parole. He will be formally sentenced next month.
The pharmacist had pleaded guilty to running an illegal prescription drug ring and was about to be sentenced when he and Fassett were reported missing in 2002. Authorities found their decomposing bodies about a year later, along with at least three other sets of human remains on Selenski's property near Wilkes-Barre.
Prosecutors argued Kerkowski was tortured, one of the aggravating circumstances they urged jurors to consider in deciding Selenski's fate.
Prosecutors had asked for a death sentence, saying Selenski and a co-conspirator brutally beat Kerkowski to compel him to reveal the location of tens of thousands of dollars he kept in his house and then used plastic flex ties to strangle him and Fassett.
Selenski's attorney, Edward "E.J." Rymsaa, begged the jury to spare his client's life, asking them to ignore "voices of vengeance and retribution."
The defense tried to cast Selenski as a good father, brother and uncle even behind bars, with family members testifying earlier Wednesday that he wrote frequently and gave life
"The defendant has repeatedly used fear and lies and pain and death in order to obtain frivolous, material things," Sam Sanguedolce, Luzerne County first assistant district attorney, told jurors in his closing argument Wednesday. "The defendant has earned his sentence."
Two of Selenski's daughters and four of his sisters spoke of their love for him, calling him an intelligent and caring man who's protective of his family - a portrait starkly at odds with the greedy, manipulative killer described in earlier trial testimony.
The two youngest sisters, both nursing students in their 20s, said he served as a father figure while briefly taking care of them more than a dozen years ago while their dad, now deceased, was ill.
Selenski has spent most of the last 20 years in prison, with convictions for a 1994 bank robbery, a 2003 home invasion and robbery, and now murder. In 2006, he beat two other homicide charges in the deaths of two suspected drug dealers whose charred remains were also found in his yard north of Wilkes-Barre.
The fifth body found on the property was never publicly identified.
Selenski, who escaped from the county lockup in 2003 using a rope fashioned from bed sheets, will now spend the rest of his days in a maximum security state prison.
"I wouldn't be who I am today without him," Katlyn Selenski, 22, said.
Even if the jury had sentenced him to die, Selenski would likely have spent decades on death row — and might never have received a lethal injection.
Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf recently declared a moratorium on the death penalty, called the current system of capital punishment "error prone, expensive and anything but infallible." Philadelphia's district attorney has filed a legal challenge to the moratorium.
MARK MORAN/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Hugo Selenski was convicted on two counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of pharmacist Michael Kerkowski and his girlfriend.
Pennsylvania has executed only three inmates since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, the last one in 1999. All three had voluntarily given up their appeals.
Letter in police mailboxes: Black officers belong in toilet
BRIDGEPORT, Conn. — A threatening letter that disparages black police officers has been found stuffed in mailboxes at a police department.
State police are investigating the unsigned letter, which is on Bridgeport Police Department letterhead and begins and ends with the term "white power"; city officials said Wednesday. Black officers said it was at least the third hate-filled message to circulate within the police department over the past year.
Associated Press
ASSOCIATED PRESS
The letter singles out black Officer Clive Higgins, who was acquitted last month of civil rights violation charges in the beating of a Hispanic suspect in the racially diverse city. A white officer and a Hispanic officer pleaded guilty and were sentenced to three months in jail.
The note says Higgins doesn't
Members of the Guardians said they believe the letter was written by someone within the police department because copies of it were found in mailboxes in an area not open to the public.
A minority officers' group, the Bridgeport Guardians, held a news conference Wednesday to discuss the letter. Higgins attended but declined to comment.
"You better watch your back. We know where you live," it said. "Your face was all over the newspaper. Remember you have no duty weapon to defend yourself."
The letter also said, "These Black Officers belong in the toilet," and it alleges Chief Joseph Gaudett Jr. and Assistant Chief James Nardozi don't want them", especially Higgins, in the department.
belong at the police department and threatens him.
Dimbo added, "This type of behavior affects a minority and spreads racism and hatred throughout the Bridgeport Police Department as well as the community." He said some officers were concerned about their safety.
"If it came from the outside, wed think, 'OK, people really don't like police'," said Detective Harold Dimbo, vice president of the Guardians. "But coming from inside, there are no words to be said."
The episode adds to a history of discrimination problems in the Bridgeport Police Department.
City spokesman Brett Broser said the city has zero-tolerance policies against racism and discrimination and that anyone found responsible for the letter faces swift discipline. He said Bridgeport, which has about 150,000 residents, has the most diverse police force in the state.
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