Indiana

Florida educator named president of university

Indiana University trustees voted Thursday to name former Florida universities chief Adam W. Herbert as the next president.

The unanimous vote made Herbert, 59, who is black, the first minority to oversee the system’s eight campuses and 98,000 students.

He replaces Myles Brand, who left in January to head the National Collegiate Athletic Assn.

Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway consistently had been mentioned in media reports as being a finalist for the Indiana post, though he denied interest. Hemenway told the Journal-World in April that he declined an invitation to become a candidate for the Indiana presidency when a search firm contacted him early in the year.

Washington, D.C.

Ridge again wants to revise terror alert system

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge acknowledged frustration with the nation’s color-coded terror alert system Thursday and said he wanted a system of specific alerts when intelligence warrants it.

Ridge said he believed the national alert system provided vital information to law enforcement, businesses and the public about the seriousness of intelligence gathered on terrorists. But he said his goal was to provide more targeted information so individual communities or sectors of the economy could take needed action.

Phoenix

Fellow Marine indicted in Kuwait grenade attack

A federal indictment alleges a grenade attack that injured a Marine in Kuwait was carried out by a fellow Marine plotting with the man’s wife and trying to disguise the crime as a terrorist act.

Chief Warrant Officer Larry A. Framness, 36, and Wendy Glass, 33, both of Yuma, are charged with murder conspiracy in the May 14 attack on Chief Warrant Officer James H. Glass.

Wendy Glass, who allegedly had an affair with Framness, is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in federal court.

Framness, an 18-year veteran, is being held at the Marine Corps station in Miramar, Calif., where his squadron is stationed.

Glass, a 20-year Marine veteran, suffered shrapnel wounds to his neck, back and legs. He has recovered and is back in Yuma with his unit, Marine Wing Support Squadron 371.

Washington, D.C.

Earth may have formed earlier than thought

The Earth became a major planetary body much earlier than previously believed, just 10 million years after the birth of the sun, researchers say.

Experts now believe that the inner solar system planets — Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars — actually began forming within 10,000 years after the nuclear fires of the sun were ignited about 4.5 billion years ago, says Stein B. Jacobsen, author of an analysis appearing today in the journal Science.

Early in its life, the sun was surrounded by clouds of dust and gas. This material slowly clumped together. Eventually, enough was concentrated in four bodies to form the inner solar system planets.