Philadelphia Tribune - Index

Philadelphia Tribune - Sunday, September 07 2008 - Index

Sunday, September 7, 2008 • Page 3-A
Palin switched colleges several times in 6 years
Nicholas K. Geranios
SPOKANE, Wash. —
Republican vice presidential
candidate Sarah Palin seems
to have switched colleges multiple
times in six years,
including two stints at the
University of Idaho before
graduating from there in
1987.
Federal privacy laws prohibit
the schools from disclosing
her grades, and none of the
schools contacted by The
Associated Press could say
why she transferred. There
was no indication any were
contacted as part of the background
investigation of Palin
by presidential candidate
John McCain’s campaign.
“Our office was not contact-
Larry Miller
Tribune Staff Writer
In a case that caused outrage
nd controversy, a young
outh Philadelphia man was
anded the maximum sentence
or the road rage killing of a
ocal teen, who was too slow in
moving his bike out of the way.
On Friday, Charles Meyers,
19, was sentenced to 26 to 52
ears in prison for the slaying
f Tykeem Law, which occurred
n July 14, 2007, in the 900
lock of Federal Street.
Meyers was recently convictd
of third-degree murder.
During his trial, Meyers contended
that he thought Law
had a gun and acted in selfdefense
when he fatally shot
the teen.
However, Law was unarmed.
Several witnesses, including
a veteran police officer who saw
the entire incident and pursued
Meyers after he attempted
to flee, testified that Law was
standing in front of Meyers’ car
with his hands empty and in
an upright position when he
was shot.
“Meyers inched his car for-
SAN ANTONIO — Disgraced
sprinter Marion Jones was
released Friday from federal
prison after completing most of
her six-month sentence for
lying about her steroid use.
Jones left a halfway house in
San Antonio around 8 a.m.,
said LaTanya Robinson, a
community corrections manager
for the federal Bureau of
Prisons. Jones, who has a
house in Austin, will remain
n probation.
Jones’ attorney did not
mmediately respond to a call
r e-mail from The Associated
ress requesting comment.
The sprinter admitted last
ctober that she used a
esigner steroid known as “the
lear” from September 2000 to
uly 2001. The drug was
inked to the Bay Area
ed by anyone,” said Tania
Thompson, spokeswoman for
the University of Idaho in
Moscow.
Palin, the governor of
Alaska, was born in Idaho.
Her family moved when she
was only a few months old to
Alaska, where she was raised.
According to a biography —
“Sarah” by Kaylene Johnson
— Palin and three friends
went to the University of
Hawaii at Hilo after graduation
from high school in
Alaska in 1982. But they left
after a few weeks because of
the constant rain there, the
book said.
The registrar at Hawaii-Hilo
has no record that she ever
enrolled, school officials said
Thursday.
Obama: McCain speech short on issues
Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill.
greets employees after speaking at Schott Glass in Duryea, Pa.,
on Friday. — AP PHOTO/CHRIS CARLSON
Teen gets 26 to 52 years
for road rage murder
Charles Meyers
ward to where Law was standing
near the passenger side
with his hands in a shrugging
gesture. His hands were
empty,” said Assistant District
Attorney Gonen Haklay during
his opening statements.
Meyers’ defense attorney,
Daniel Conner, contends that
the fatal shooting of Tykeem
Law was an act of self-defense
and in his opening statement
told the jury that his client
Former sprinter released from prison
Laboratory Co-Operative, the
lab that became the center of a
steroids scandal that touched
numerous professional athletes,
including baseball star
Barry Bonds.
Her admission of drug use in
2007 came after years of
denials.
In 2004, she sued the
founder of BALCO for defamation
after he said she used
steroids. The lawsuit was settled
the following year, long
before she told the truth in a
federal courtroom.
Jones gave back the three
gold medals and two bronze
medals she won at the 2000
Olympics in Sydney before the
International Olympic
Committee officially wiped her
name from the record books in
December. — (AP)
This undated photo provided by the Heath family shows Alaska
Gov. Sarah Palin in her dorm room at the University of Idaho.
— AP PHOTO/HEATH FAMILY
Palin, then known as Sarah
Louise Heath, and a friend
then traveled to Honolulu and
Philip Elliott
DURYEA, Pa. — Democrat
Barack Obama called
Republican rival John
McCain’s acceptance speech
the final piece of an out-oftouch
convention that focused
on its nominee’s biography
instead of the struggles of the
middle class.
“If you watched the
Republican National
Convention over the last three
days, you wouldn’t know that
we have the highest unemployment
in five years
because they didn’t say a
thing about what is going on
with the middle class,” Obama
told workers at a specialty
glass factory.
“They spent a lot of time
talking about John McCain’s
biography, which we all
honor,” the Illinois senator
said. “They talked about me a
lot, in less than respectful
terms. What they didn’t talk
about is you and what you’re
seeing in your lives and what
you’re going through, or what
your friends or your neighbors
believed he was being threatened
by the 14-year-old Law,
and responded by firing a .22
caliber bullet into the teen’s
chest.
“My client has maintained
from the day he was arrested
that he operated in self
defense,” Conner said. “Tykeem
Law was wearing a black Tshirt,
put his hand underneath
it and it was at that point that
my client pulled out a gun and
fired.”
Meyers said he felt that Law
was threatening him.
“I thought it was a gun, I was
scared and that’s what happened,”
Meyers told the jury.
According to Conner, Law
pretended on previous occasions
that he had a gun when
he didn’t. Conner left out the
fact that because of Meyer’s
previous arrest record he was
not permitted to possess a
firearm.
Assistant District Attorney
Gonen Haklay said that at the
moment Law was gunned
down, he not only didn’t have a
firearm, but also twice raised
his empty hands up in a shrugging
gesture.
Marion Jones
enrolled at Hawaii Pacific
University, a private, nonsectarian
school. She attended
are going through.”
Obama pointed out that the
nation’s unemployment rate
zoomed to a five-year high of
6.1 percent in August, according
to a government jobs
report issued Friday.
“We’ve now lost 605,000
jobs since the beginning of
this year,” Obama said. “We’ve
had eight consecutive months
of job losses.”
Obama seized on the new
jobs report as part of his
strategy to tie McCain to
President Bush’s stewardship
of the economy and to connect
with voters who fear their jobs
will disappear. There is no
shortage of such voters in
Rust Belt Pennsylvania.
In accepting the Republican
presidential nomination,
McCain spoke at length about
his biography, his love of
country and his principles for
governing.
Obama mocked McCain’s
campaign manager Rick Davis
for saying the election would
be decided more by voters’
views about the candidates
than about issues.
only as a freshman during the
fall of 1982, school spokeswoman
Crystale Lopez said.
She was in the business
administration program as a
full-time student, Lopez said
Thursday.
“We’re trying to track down
someone who knew her,”
Lopez added.
From Hawaii Pacific, Palin
transferred to North Idaho
College, a two-year school in
Coeur d’Alene, about 30 miles
east of Spokane. She attended
the college as a general studies
major for two semesters, in spring
1983 and fall 1983, spokeswoman
Stacy Hudson said.
“We were not able to track
down club affiliations or anything,”
Hudson said.
The school identified one of
“Personalities? I mean, I’ve
got a pretty good personality.
But that’s not why I’m running
for president,” Obama
said to laughter.
In two days of campaigning
in Pennsylvania, Obama has
been reaching out to middleclass
and working class voters
who preferred Hillary Rodham
Clinton to him during the
Pennsylvania primary.
“I have to say to you: I’m not
perfect, but the one thing people
can’t deny is that for my
entire public life, I’ve been
fighting for folks like you,
ordinary, middle-class families
and working families,
helping them getting ahead,”
Obama said, borrowing a
theme that helped Clinton win
in these rural, largely white
areas.
Obama later greeted workers
and patrons at The
Avenue Diner in Wyoming, Pa.
Asked by reporters his reaction
to McCain’s acceptance
speech, Obama replied, “Still
haven’t heard, after three
days, what they’re going to do
for the economy.” — (AP)
her professors but he did not
remember her, Hudson said.
Prior to her selection by
McCain, the North Idaho
College Alumni Association
notified Palin in June she
would be the recipient of its
2008-2009 Distinguished
Alumni of the Year Award.
From North Idaho College,
Palin transferred 70 miles
south to the University of
Idaho, the state’s flagship
institution. She majored in
journalism with an emphasis
in broadcast news. She
attended Idaho, whose mascot
is the Vandals, from fall 1984
to spring 1985.
She then returned to
Alaska to attend Matanuska-
Susitna College in Palmer in
fall 1985. – (AP)
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