Die-Hard Gator Alums May Find Final Resting Place at UF

Florida's tuition rule is immoral, unconstitutional: Linda Greenhouse

(NEWSER) - Move over Arizona and Alabama, because Florida, the home of nearly a million Cuban refugees and their descendants, “has come up with perhaps the most bizarre and pointless anti-immigration policy of all,” writes Linda Greenhouse in the New York Times . The state’s Board of Education has quietly enacted a policy treating Americans born in Florida as non-residents if they can’t prove their parents are there legally. “You read that right,” Greenhouse says: This is a boldfaced attack on equal protection. More»

Teen sniffers were hoping for cocaine, heroin, say cops

(NEWSER) - Oops. Burglars were so desperate for drugs when they broke into a Florida home that they snorted a powder found in a ceramic urn. But they didn't get even a hint of a buzz because they had inhaled some of the cremated remains of the former man of the house and two dogs, Reuters reports. "The suspects mistook the ashes for either cocaine or heroin," cops said of the 5 teens busted in the case. When they realized their grave mistake, they chucked the urn in a lake because they feared fingerprints would link them to the burglary, investigators said. More»

Companies will make your cremains into fireworks, diamonds, art

(NEWSER) - For some, the traditional casket funeral is a stiff, depressing way to mark the passing of a loved one. Wilder souls may take comfort in the options provided by a growing list of companies who will transform your remains into a wide range of objects. Salon checked it out and came up with nine unusual options. Ashes can be:

1. Made into an abstract painting
2. Exploded in fireworks

Give, freshmen, give!

(NEWSER) - Celebrate while you can, college freshman: After the football games have ended and the keg-party buzz has worn off, you may be in for a harsh reality—the school you're paying tens of thousands of dollars wants you to be a donor. Like, now. With alumni-giving rates at record lows and state funding lagging, more and more schools are trying to reel in still-impressionable students. Some start small: Emory has given first-years piggy banks, asking them to fork over small change. More»

In student survey, Ohio U. finishes second

(NEWSER) - Good news for parents paying for their kids to study at the University of Georgia: The school is finally No. 1. The bad news: The Princeton Review list ranks the nation's top party schools. "UGA has been on the party school list for a while, but it’s one we prefer not to lead," a university rep tells the Atlanta Journal-Constitution . Too late. "People need to understand the parties go on at night," says a rising senior. "We do actually go to class and study." More»