Duke University

DURHAM, N.C. -- The Duke University fraternity that threw a party mocking Asians has been suspended by its national office for "inappropriate and insensitive" behavior. Photos from a Feb. 1 party hosted by Kappa Sigma fraternity were posted on Facebook, showing partygoers dressed in Asian gowns and conical caps, some with chopsticks in their hair.  An invitation emailed to Duke students was addressed, "Herro Nice Duke Peopre!!" and closed with, "Chank You. " Mitchell B. Wilson, executive director of the national Kappa Sigma fraternity in Charlottesville, Va., said in a telephone interview Thursday that the Duke fraternity, known as the Eta Prime Chapter, had been ordered to cease all activities.

"Doctor Who" is celebrating 50 years on the air this year, new episodes begin airing Saturday and to top it all off, the good Doctor has just received a Peabody Award for 50 years of "evolving with technology and the times like nothing else in the known television universe. " The awards, announced Wednesday by the University of Georgia Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, are selected by a board of judges to highlight the best in electronic media. The honorees were announced at a ceremony on the University of Georgia campus, but the awards won't be handed out until a luncheon event in New York City on May 20. The Institutional Peabody to "Doctor Who" was just one of 39 honorees named this year.

Seven demonstrators protesting Duke University's financial holdings in South Africa were arrested Saturday and the shanties they erected on campus destroyed.

DURHAM, N.C. -- The Duke University fraternity that threw a party mocking Asians has been suspended by its national office for "inappropriate and insensitive" behavior. Photos from a Feb. 1 party hosted by Kappa Sigma fraternity were posted on Facebook, showing partygoers dressed in Asian gowns and conical caps, some with chopsticks in their hair.  An invitation emailed to Duke students was addressed, "Herro Nice Duke Peopre!!" and closed with, "Chank You. " Mitchell B. Wilson, executive director of the national Kappa Sigma fraternity in Charlottesville, Va., said in a telephone interview Thursday that the Duke fraternity, known as the Eta Prime Chapter, had been ordered to cease all activities.

A Texas couple known for making sizable donations to elite universities has promised Duke University $10 million to help improve teaching on campus. The gift from Robert and Anne Bass of Forth Worth is the largest donation Duke has ever received to bolster teaching. The Basses have a son who is an undergraduate at Duke and they are members of the Board of Trustees at Trinity College, Duke's arts and sciences undergraduate college.

Nannerl O. Keohane, a former president of Wellesley College, was inaugurated as the first female president of Duke University. Her inauguration, which included performances by the Duke Chorale and the Duke Wind Symphony, was attended by about 4,500 people. She was president of Wellesley College since 1981. Keohane succeeded President Emeritus H. Keith H. Brodie on July 1. Brodie had been president since 1985.

Long identified with tobacco and--since the movie "Bull Durham"--with minor league baseball, this city is moving to become a major jazz mecca with the drive to build the Thelonious Monk Institute of Jazz, affiliated with Duke University. "We've become one of the more talked-about places in jazz," said Paul H. Jeffrey, a saxophonist and longtime Monk associate now teaching at Duke.

A female kicker who tried out for the Duke University football team in the mid-1990s was awarded $2 million in punitive damages Thursday by a jury in Greensboro, N.C., which ruled that the school cut her from the team solely because of her gender, a federal violation. Heather Sue Mercer's contention that she was discriminated against was upheld by a jury after only two hours of deliberation.

Juanita M. Kreps, a Duke University economist and administrator who became the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of Commerce, died Monday in Durham, N.C., after a long illness, the school announced. She was 89. Kreps was the Commerce secretary from 1977 to 1979 during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. She directed the Commerce Department toward a more active role in promoting international trade and initiated a historic trade agreement between the United States and China in 1979.

After 12 years together and 10 albums (including the upcoming "Made Possible," due next week), the members of the piano trio the Bad Plus have always seemed like musicians with simply not enough to do. All jokes aside, the band's members, Ethan Iverson, Reid Anderson and Dave King have made time to work with a variety of collaborators over the years, which in addition to including such names such as Billy Hart and Joshua Redman also feature...

Amile Jefferson initially didn't have Duke on his short list of colleges to attend and almost signed early with another school. Likewise, the Blue Devils showed minimal interest in the highly coveted big man from Friends' Central School in Philadelphia. That all changed during Jefferson's senior season, when Duke suddenly decided to offer the 6-foot-7, 190-pound power forward a scholarship and Coach Mike Krzyzewski took over the recruiting process. "Once Coach K started recruiting me, I did not talk to an assistant coach," Jefferson said . "That definitely shows the coach wants you, and every conversation I had with him seemed genuine.

Reporting from Yadkinville, N.C. Loyd Bryant used to pump manure from his 8,640 hogs into a fetid lagoon, where it raised an unholy stink and released methane and ammonia into the air. The tons of manure excreted daily couldn't be used as fertilizer because of high nitrogen content. The solution to Bryant's hog waste problem was right under his nose - in the manure itself. Graphic: Power-generating hogs A new waste-processing system - essentially a small power plant - installed on his 154-acre farm uses bacteria to digest the waste and burns methane to produce electricity.

Juanita M. Kreps, a Duke University economist and administrator who became the first woman to serve as U.S. secretary of Commerce, died Monday in Durham, N.C., after a long illness, the school announced. She was 89. Kreps was the Commerce secretary from 1977 to 1979 during the presidency of Jimmy Carter. She directed the Commerce Department toward a more active role in promoting international trade and initiated a historic trade agreement between the United States and China in 1979.

Mary Garber obituary: The obituary of pioneering female sportswriter Mary Garber in Monday's California section indicated that Duke University was a member of the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1946. Duke competed in the Southern Conference before the ACC was formed in 1953. The obituary also said Garber reported on the Winston-Salem Red Sox in the 1940s. At that time, the city's minor league baseball team was the Cardinals.

"My book is puerile," Carol Mavor writes, "a depreciative term meaning merely boyish. But, for me, the merely blossoms as full, fulfilling, full-mouthed, full-hearted, fulgurant, and fulgent, without shame. Brought to its fullcome, my book boyishly strives to be betwixt and between not only boy and man, gay and straight, Mama's boy and father's spitting image (well, you know the list), but most decidedly novel and philosophy."

The president of Wellesley College was named Friday as the first woman president of Duke University, it was announced. Nannerl Overholser Keohane, 52, will be Duke's eighth president, succeeding Keith Brodie on July 1. Brodie is retiring.

greensboro, n.c. -- Three former Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape filed a federal lawsuit Friday against disgraced prosecutor Mike Nifong, the city of Durham and the police detectives who handled the investigation. The lawsuit calls the criminal case against Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty and David Evans "one of the most chilling episodes of premeditated police, prosecutorial and scientific misconduct in modern American history."

Duke University President Richard Brodhead apologized for not better supporting the lacrosse players falsely accused last year in a highly publicized scandal over an alleged rape. Brodhead, speaking at a forum at the university's law school, said he regretted Duke's "failure to reach out" in a "time of extraordinary peril" after a woman accused three players of raping her at a March 2006 party thrown by the team.