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Nation in brief

Board may let students break up SAT sections

By wire services
Published December 17, 2005

Facing complaints the SAT has grown too long, the College Board will consider allowing students to take the three parts of the newly expanded college entrance exam in separate sittings.

The statement comes as at least 200 admissions professionals around the country have signed a letter to the College Board, which owns the exam, expressing concerns the test's length of 3:45 minutes has become a burden on students.

College Board spokeswoman Chiara Coletti said her organization was already aware through survey research that many felt the test was too long, and was examining if it could be broken up. She said it would also consider other options, such as more breaks.

LANCASTER, Pa. - A prosecutor said Friday he will seek the death penalty against an 18-year-old accused of killing the parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend, and no criminal charges will be brought against the girl.

Lancaster County District Attorney Don Totaro said statements from the suspect, David Ludwig, have exonerated Kara Beth Borden and convinced investigators that she had no role in planning or carrying out last month's shootings of her parents.

"There was no plan or no agreement to harm her parents in any way," Totaro said.

Prosecutors allege Ludwig killed Michael and Cathryn Borden on Nov. 13 after an argument over his relationship with their daughter.

Kara Borden was with him when he was captured the next day in Indiana, after a high-speed chase that ended with him crashing his parents' car.

Totaro said reasons the death penalty is justified include that there was more than one victim, and that the couple's children were home at the time.

NEW YORK - A man wanted for questioning in the Halloween night sexual attack on a woman in her Manhattan apartment by a man posing as a city firefighter was arrested Friday on a college campus in Tennessee, police said.

Police said fashion writer Peter Braunstein, 42, was seen on the University of Memphis campus by a woman who recognized him from news reports about his fugitive status. She called campus police, who caught up with Braunstein, according to New York Police Department spokesman Paul Browne.

"He said, "I'm the person you're looking for,' and he stabbed himself three times in the neck," Browne said.

Braunstein was hospitalized in critical condition.

New York police had been hunting since early November for the freelance journalist, once a writer for Women's Wear Daily. Police want to question Braunstein about the attack on a woman by a man who bluffed his way into her apartment after setting two small fires and pounding on her door while dressed in full fire gear.

He bound the woman and molested her for more than 13 hours, police said.

He has not been charged in the attack.

The woman's has told detectives that when she opened her door, the fake firefighter pulled a gun on her, then covered her face with a rag soaked in some type of chemical.

As she faded in and out of consciousness, the man put on a ski mask, tied her up and gagged her with duct tape, and molested her, she said.

[Last modified December 17, 2005, 01:02:06]