Boston

Harvard Law School appoints first female dean

Harvard Law School on Thursday named Elena Kagan, a scholar and former aide in the Clinton White House, as the first female dean in the prestigious school’s 186-year history.

Kagan, 42, who has taught at Harvard since 1999, held several jobs in the Clinton administration, including deputy director of the Domestic Policy Council from 1997 to 1999. In 1999, she was nominated to serve on the U.S. Appeals Court for Washington, D.C., but the Senate did not act on the nomination and it expired when Congress adjourned in 2000.

Kagan replaces Robert C. Clark, who will retire in June after 14 years at the nation’s oldest continuously operating law school.

Harvard Law did not admit women until the early 1950s, one of the last law schools to do so.

Moscow

Russia boosts space funding

Russia pledged extra money Thursday for building the only spacecraft to service the International Space Station after U.S. shuttle flights were grounded after the Columbia disaster.

Russia previously said it could not fund such construction on its own. The Cabinet’s decision to release $38 million ahead of schedule appeared to reflect growing doubts that the United States will provide extra assistance.

Aerospace Agency Director Yuri Koptev said the alternative to building more spacecraft was leaving the station temporarily unoccupied, which was dangerous because the station could drift out of its proscribed orbit.

Maryland

Airport concourse evacuated

Two concourses at Baltimore-Washington International Airport were evacuated for about an hour Thursday after a woman set off a metal detector and refused to be screened again.

Instead, she walked away, and screeners didn’t catch her, said federal Transportation Security Administration spokeswoman Heather Rosenker.

Authorities closed the checkpoint and the two concourses it serves, she said. Three flights were delayed while passengers unloaded and went through security checkpoints a second time.

North Dakota

State Senate rejects repeal of cohabitation crime law

The state Senate has voted to keep a 113-year-old law that makes it a crime for unmarried couples to live together.

A proposal to repeal the anti-cohabitation law, which says a man and woman may not live together “openly and notoriously” as if they were married, was defeated 26-21 on Tuesday.

The offense is listed among other sex crimes, including rape and incest. Violations carry a maximum 30 days in jail and a $1,000 fine.

“It stands as a reminder that there is right, and there is wrong,” said Sen. John Andrist, a Republican.