Dormitory

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.

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.

A small plane that had just tried to land at an airport crashed into a mental hospital dormitory Friday, killing both persons in the plane, setting the building afire and injuring three patients, authorities said. The single-engine Piper Cherokee clipped the dormitory at Central State Hospital and showered a porch with burning fuel before crashing in the backyard, witnesses said. The plane had aborted its landing at Pineville Municipal Airport, stalled and crashed, state police 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.

Our oldest son has lived in a dormitory at UCLA for the past two years and our middle son is moving into a dormitory at UCLA next month. I know that the security system there is excellent, but I didn't realize that the system is unusual. I assumed, naively, that all college dormitories employed similar security measures. I've never heard a student complaint regarding the card entry access system; the students accept it as a fact of life. My son was an access monitor for one year and the multiday training for the position was excellent, covering any crisis that the student may be called upon to handle.

Fire swept through the lobby of a two-story dormitory at Chowan College on Friday, forcing many residents to jump 20 feet to safety and injuring at least eight students, authorities said. The cause of the fire was under investigation, but police Officer Bryant Cooke said: "We're thinking arson."

Selwyn Brown, a University of Miami defensive back, was arrested Saturday night and charged with kidnaping and sexually assaulting an 18-year-old woman in a campus dormitory. Brown, 21, of St. Petersburg, Fla., was charged with two counts of sexual battery involving rape and one count of kidnaping, according to Lucy Fitts, a Metro-Dade Police spokeswoman. She refused to say whether the woman, who had been in the dormitory with a male friend, was a student.

The victim of an alleged gang rape in an Oklahoma athletic dormitory told a court she came to believe suspended Oklahoma football player Nigel Clay was one of her assailants after going over details with prosecutors. Clay, Bernard Hall and Glen Bell, Sooner teammates, are accused of first-degree rape in the alleged attack at the dormitory on Jan. 21. Hall and Clay also are accused of two additional charges each of furnishing liquor to a minor. The 20-year-old Oklahoma City victim spent seven hours on the witness stand for the second day of a preliminary hearing, which will determine whether the suspended players should be tried in Cleveland County District Court.

A former Camarillo State Hospital employee has been sentenced to five years in prison for setting a fire that caused an estimated $1.3 million in damages to a dormitory at the hospital last December. The employee, Susan Ann Bouchard, 35, a psychiatric technician, was found guilty of one count of arson by a Ventura Superior Court jury July 30 as the result of a fire that was set in a two-story employee dormitory where she lived, according to court records.

The Berkeley Chamber of Commerce said that the City Council should be held responsible for this month's riot on Telegraph Avenue. In a blunt statement, the chamber blamed the council's "confrontational" attitude toward UC Berkeley's growth plans, which include construction of a dormitory in People's Park, for precipitating the violence. The outbreak, in which 28 stores were looted or damaged and 20 people were hurt, followed a demonstration to commemorate the 20-year-old struggle over People's Park, a piece of university-owned land near Telegraph Avenue.

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.

University of Central Arkansas police say two people are dead and one wounded in a shooting on the campus in Conway, about 30 miles north of Little Rock. UCA police spokeswoman Lt. Rhonda Swindle said the shots were fired at night near Arkansas Hall, a dormitory primarily for male freshmen. She could not say whether the victims, all male, were students. One died at the scene and another at an area hospital. The condition of the third victim wasn't available. One suspect is in custody and three others are being sought.

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.

Officials of a Catholic liberal arts college shut it down and told students to leave campus after threatening messages were found scrawled in the bathroom of a freshman dorm. The messages were found twice this month at St. Xavier University's Regina Hall, including one that read, "Be prepared to die on 4/14," President Judith Dwyer said in a statement. Officials indefinitely closed down campuses in Chicago and suburban Orland Park and canceled all classes for the school's 5,700 students.

A Wake County Superior Court judge today sentenced former North Carolina State quarterback Percy Moorman to 26 years in prison for breaking into a co-ed's dormitory room last year and raping her. Judge James H. Pou Bailey sentenced Moorman to 12 years for rape, 12 years for another sexual offense and 2 years for breaking and entering. Bailey then ordered that the sentences run concurrently, saying Moorman faces a maximum possible stay in prison of 12 years.

University of Central Arkansas police say two people are dead and one wounded in a shooting on the campus in Conway, about 30 miles north of Little Rock. UCA police spokeswoman Lt. Rhonda Swindle said the shots were fired at night near Arkansas Hall, a dormitory primarily for male freshmen. She could not say whether the victims, all male, were students. One died at the scene and another at an area hospital. The condition of the third victim wasn't available. One suspect is in custody and three others are being sought.

Cal State Northridge police officers conducted room-by-room searches of a dormitory this week after receiving reports of a gunman. No gunman was found. Campus police spokeswoman Christina Villalobos said that the first of several calls came into the dispatch center at 11:27 p.m. Tuesday. The callers said a man with a gun was seen running into one of the buildings in University Park Apartments, which houses about 2,000 students. Villalobos says officers arrived within three minutes and called the Los Angeles Police Department for backup The search was called off about 2 a.m.

For the fourth time this year, a Los Angeles County jail inmate has been slain in custody, this time beaten to death in a dormitory at the North County Correctional Facility in Castaic, officials said Monday. The toll is the most for any year this decade and comes more than two years after a string of homicides prompted a call for reforms in the way the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department operates what is the nation's largest jail system.