6A / NEWS / TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 2010 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
INTERNATIONAL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Archeologist Eilat Mazar, center in red, who is leading the excavation of newly discovered fortifications outside the Old City walls, talks to journalists in Jerusalem Monday. Mazar says ancient fortifications newly excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of the Bible's King Solomon and offer evidence for the accuracy of the biblical narrative.
Ancient walls found in Jerusalem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
If dating is correct, finding would support Bible story
JERUSALEM — An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era.
If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.
That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.
While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history — including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar — others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there
was no strong government to speak of in that era.
Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we
mentioned in the Book of Kings.
The fortifications, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard (70-meter) long section of an ancient wall, are located just outside the present-day walls of
have from First Temple days in Israel."
"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction."
"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.
Based on what she believes to be the age of the fortifications and their location, she suggested it was built by Solomon, David's son, and
EILAT MAZAR Archaeologist
Jerusalem's Old City, next to the holy compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary.
Archaeologists have excavated the fortifications in the past, in the 1860s and most recently in the 1980s.
According to the Old Testament, it was Solomon who built the first Jewish Temple.
But Mazar claimed her dig was the first complete excavation and the first to turn up strong evidence for the wall's age: a large number of pottery shards, which archaeologists often use to figure out the age of findings.
Student sues school
LEGAL
Lawsuit alleges school officials spied on students with webcams
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PHILADELPHIA - A student who accuses his suburban Philadelphia school district in a lawsuit of spying on students via their school-issued webcams will ask district officials not to remove any potential evidence from student computers, his lawyer said Monday.
Lawyers for the Lower Merion School District are due in federal court on the issue Monday afternoon, on an emergency petition from student Blake Robbins of Penn Valley.
Lower Merion officials confirmed last week they had activated the webcams to try to find 42 missing laptops, without the knowledge or permission of students and their families. Both the FBI and local authorities are investigating whether the district broke any wiretap, computer-use or other laws.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a brief in support of the student Monday, arguing that
the photo amounts to an illegal search.
"That school officials' warrantless, non-consensual use of a camera, embedded in students' laptops, inside the home is a search cannot be doubted," the ACLU wrote in a brief filed Monday morning.
Students at the district's two high schools have taken to tapping over the webcam and microphone, even as
Robbins sued last week, alleging that Harrison High School officials took a photo of him inside his
told reporters that an official mistook a piece of candy for a pill and thought he was selling drugs.
In the wake of the outcry over the alleged spying, school district officials have said they have abandoned the practice of remotely activating the webcams. Still, the Robbinses' lawyer does not want the district to remove any information or programs from the 2,300 laptops issued to students
School officials confirmed that they activated the webcams on the laptops without knowledge or permission of students or their families.
home. He learned of it when an assistant principal said she knew he was engaging in improper behavior at home, according to his potentially class-action lawsuit. Robbins and his family have
at its two high schools
While courts have held that students can be searched at school given "reasonable suspicion" of a crime — a more relaxed
standard than "probable cause," designed to ensure school safety — the lower standard does not apply in the home, the ACLU argued in its brief.
NATIONAL
3 Florida students killed in accident on railroad bridge
ASSOCIATED PRESS
ORLANDO, Fla. — Middle school students still reeling from the deaths of two classmates earlier this school year were coping Monday with the loss of three more peers who were killed by a train that struck them as they crossed a railroad bridge.
The three teenage girls, along with a teenage boy, ignored "no trespassing" signs and walked out onto the railroad trestle Saturday evening in downtown Melbourne.
Fla., a city nearly 50 miles southeast of Orlando. Onlookers yelled for the teens to run or jump into the slow-moving water of Crane Creek 20 feet below as the train approached, but only the boy made it off the 200-foot span.
Commander Ron Bell of the Melbourne Police Department said Monday that police believe the teens were taking a shortcut. Bruce Dumas, who was fishing along the creek banks below the trestle when the accident happened, said the teens had been joking around and
taking pictures before the train barreled toward them.
The teenage girls were classmates at Southwest Middle School in Palm Bay, Fla., which has had its share of tragedies this school year. Another student at the school of more than 1,300 seventh- eighth- and ninth-graders recently committed suicide, and another pupil was electrocuted last year while putting up an antenna for a ham radio. The antenna fell on power lines, also killing two family members.
HPV Fact #19:
In a study of female college students about 60% of them were found to be infected with HPV by the end of 3 years.
HPV Fact #6:
For most, HPV clears on its own. But for some women, cervical cancer can develop.
Visit your campus health center.
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