Dormitories

Odds are slim that the cast of "Jersey Shore" will ever enroll at USC. But if they could, TV's legendary sybarites would find that gym-tan-laundry is just the beginning at a new luxury apartment complex near campus. Nearly every detail at West 27th Place is upmarket, from the fountains, landscaping and custom outdoor light fixtures to the granite countertops and big-screen HD television sets in every unit. There are also televisions in the well-appointed gym, along with a professional-grade Sundazzler -- a walk-in tanning booth that resembles a science-fiction movie prop.

KANO, Nigeria - Unknown assailants killed at least 25 people at a polytechnic school in northeastern Nigeria, invading the campus dormitory and shooting their victims or cutting their throats, authorities said Tuesday. The attack at the Federal Polytechnic school in the town of Mubi in Adamawa state came as police press to curb violence attributed to the Islamic rebel militia Boko Haram, which is active across much of northern Nigeria. Police recently rounded up many suspected members of Boko Haram.

There's a dorm brewing at Cal Poly Pomona. Literally. University housing officials are pondering the student trend of brewing beer in tiny dormitory rooms. Call them micro-microbreweries. The issue foamed into an outrage after a housing coordinator told students the beer had to go. Then it fizzled out when university housing director Ali Rahmani met with the students and decided to let the practice continue--for now. "The jury is still out," he said.

Navy Corpsman Peter Ruggiero, who spent months living in the dust and dirt of Afghanistan, looked at his new barracks room and was impressed. "I feel like I've just checked into a Comfort Inn," said Ruggiero, 21. Marine Lance Cpl. Vincent Shafer, 19, wanted to be succinct in his description of his new digs, with the private bath, walk-in closet, microwave, refrigerator and space for a television and computer. Photos: New barracks "It's so, so … contemporary," he said.

The Sylmar earthquake gave it a jolt in 1971. Then the Northridge temblor left it reeling four years ago. And finally Monday morning, a demolition crew at Cal State Northridge delivered a knockout blow to the University Tower Apartments--the last of five quake-damaged buildings being razed to make way for new campus projects. About 40 people gathered in an adjacent parking lot to watch as a 6,000-pound steel ball repeatedly smashed into the seven-story dormitory.

A fire killed at least 28 people and injured 78 at a Moscow dormitory housing foreign students, the Emergency Situations Ministry said. The fire burned part of a five-story dormitory belonging to the Patrice Lumumba Friendship of Peoples University, the ministry said. Interfax news agency said the dead and injured included citizens of China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and several African countries. Injuries included burns and smoke inhalation, the ministry said.

As college students return to school this fall, they are bringing sophisticated wall decorations, area rugs and electronic gadgets to supply creature comforts to dormitory rooms otherwise characterized by their austerity. At design schools such as the Rhode Island School of Design, students are apt to make elaborate loft beds and to build in other pieces of furniture as part of school projects.

Several suspects have been identified as responsible for a fire that swept through a San Jose State dormitory, critically injuring two students and sending 19 others to hospitals, officials said. "The suspects university police are looking at are all San Jose students," university spokesman Dick Stanley said. Stanley said the suspects in Friday's fire, whose names he did not release, are believed to have moved a couch in front of a dormitory room and ignited it.

Five students and a firefighter were injured Wednesday when fire broke out in a 10-story dormitory at Eastern Michigan University, authorities said. Investigators were trying to determine the cause of the fire, but arson was suspected.

They weren't looking to make a political statement or to be pioneers of gender liberation. Each just wanted a familiar, decent roommate rather than a stranger after their original roommates left to study abroad. That's how Pitzer College sophomores Kayla Eland, female, and Lindon Pronto, male, began sharing a room this semester on Holden Hall's second floor. They are not a couple and neither is gay. They are just compatible roommates in a new, sometimes controversial, dormitory option known as gender-neutral housing that is gaining support at some colleges in California and across the nation.

Odds are slim that the cast of "Jersey Shore" will ever enroll at USC. But if they could, TV's legendary sybarites would find that gym-tan-laundry is just the beginning at a new luxury apartment complex near campus. Nearly every detail at West 27th Place is upmarket, from the fountains, landscaping and custom outdoor light fixtures to the granite countertops and big-screen HD television sets in every unit. There are also televisions in the well-appointed gym, along with a professional-grade Sundazzler -- a walk-in tanning booth that resembles a science-fiction movie prop.

They weren't looking to make a political statement or to be pioneers of gender liberation. Each just wanted a familiar, decent roommate rather than a stranger after their original roommates left to study abroad. That's how Pitzer College sophomores Kayla Eland, female, and Lindon Pronto, male, began sharing a room this semester on Holden Hall's second floor. They are not a couple and neither is gay. They are just compatible roommates in a new, sometimes controversial, dormitory option known as gender-neutral housing that is gaining support at some colleges in California and across the nation.

Authorities charged nine Michigan State football players with misdemeanor assault and conspiracy Wednesday as a result of a dormitory brawl last month that has left the team short-handed for its Jan. 2 bowl game. All nine players were charged with conspiracy to commit assault and battery, according to Ingham County prosecutor Stuart Dunnings III and campus Police Chief James Dunlap . Each was also charged with at least one count of assault or assault and battery. Coach Mark Dantonio has suspended 11 players, up from eight following the Nov. 22 incident.

Duck confit, pancetta-wrapped quail, butter-poached lobster tails, fried zucchini blossoms -- not exactly how most collegians are expecting to dine when they head back to their school dormitories this fall. But those are some of the dishes that may again delight the denizens of Norris Hall at Occidental College in Eagle Rock come this semester. Occidental junior Saul Sutcher is heading back to school with his '87 Volvo packed full of his cooking equipment and dishes. Without objection from the school administration, he'll again be setting up for Café Norris, preparing three-course gourmet meals served in the dormitory's common room most Saturday nights.

A dormitory burned down and 55 inmates were taken to hospitals after a riot touched off by fighting among Latino and African American prisoners shut down a 1,300-man unit of the California Institution for Men in Chino on Saturday. The riot erupted at 8:20 p.m. in the medium-security dormitory-style barracks of the Reception Center West and lasted until about midnight, according to corrections Lt. Mark Hargrove. Prisoners ripped pieces of metal from lockers, destroyed beds and broke off pipes to use as weapons.

The college sits on a crest in Rancho Palos Verdes with a multimillion-dollar view of the ocean. But it is a view that students living in the dorms don't see. Instead of being on campus, student housing is six miles away in San Pedro. Marymount College has tried to remedy that situation for nine years. But because of opposition from neighbors who say that moving student housing there would bring too much noise and traffic, no students yet live on campus.

USC officials on Tuesday began evacuating 150 students from a Downtown dormitory because of concerns that some of the masonry walls inside the historic 1914 building could fall and trap residents during another major earthquake. School officials said that the auditorium at Embassy Residential College, at 851 S. Grand Ave., has been closed since last month's earthquake because of structural damage, but that engineers had said apartments in the 10-story structure were safe for occupancy.

When freshmen arrived at Yale University this fall, they were greeted with an article in the Yale Daily News about places on campus to have sex: in the library stacks, in the stadium and atop Harkness Tower, the school's highest vantage point. For five Orthodox Jews, such thinking is a problem.

After a slightly longer hug than usual, Nathalie Anyakpor's father left her in a dorm room at UCLA this weekend, with the teenager admitting to feeling "totally weirded out" at being on her own for the first time in her young life. Then the pre-med student, 18, heard that her dad, Emmanuel Anyakpor, had pledged to call her every morning between 6 and 7. The Gardena grants administrator said he wanted to "keep [Nathalie] focused" on her studies. "Whaaat?" Nathalie yelped, reeling backward.

An explosion destroyed a three-story girls dormitory in central Turkey, killing at least 17 students, injuring 27 and setting off a frantic search for others trapped in the rubble. Rescuers working late into the night pulled out two survivors, leaving at least one girl unaccounted for. Officials said about 45 girls between the ages of 8 and 16 were staying at the dormitory as they attended Koran courses during the summer school break. A leaking pipe carrying liquefied petroleum gas is believed to have caused the predawn blast.