Camera

IF IT WEREN'T for a few seconds of grainy footage, Jason Smith would still be a free man. Instead, the Bucks County exterminator, who authorities say savagely killed pediatrician Melissa Ketunuti on Jan. 21, is in police custody after being filmed walking around Center City both before and after visiting the victim's home on Naudain Street. The footage, discovered at a neighborhood coffee shop two days after the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia physician was slain, gave detectives the break they needed to solve the horrifying case.

The Philadelphia School District says in a court filing that former Superintendent Arlene C. Ackerman did not steer a no-bid contract for surveillance cameras to a small minority firm, which contradicted a report the School Reform Commission recently adopted that said she had. In a response filed Friday to a whistle-blower's suit in federal court, the district denied that Ackerman acted improperly and alleged that the whistle blower - Francis X....

Darrell L. Clarke likes how Baltimore has been fighting crime in the last decade with a huge network of surveillance cameras tied into a central police command center. He has admired Baltimore's strategy since before he helped persuade his mentor, former Mayor John F. Street, to start a similar program in Philadelphia in 2006. Clarke, now entering his second year as Council president, is less enthusiastic about how that program, troubled by technological problems from the beginning, has been run in recent years under Mayor Nutter.

NEWARK, N.J. - Close to a half-million New Jersey motorists who have been ticketed due to red-light cameras could be eligible for a partial refund under the terms of a class-action settlement announced Friday. The $4.2 million settlement works out to a refund of $6 to $10 on tickets ranging from $85 to $140, the Newark Star-Ledger reported. - AP

ALAWSUIT pitting Gov. Corbett against the Associated Press over access to his schedule threatens to eviscerate the power of the state's Office of Open Records, which exists to make government more transparent. It's yet another example of an administration that came to office promising to change the state's self-protective political culture, but not exactly working to do so. The case stems from a February 2011 request by AP Capital reporter Mark Scolforo to look at Corbett's schedule and emails since he took office that January.

We're not among that group of tech-savvy travelers who have to have every new gewgaw that comes along. In fact, we tend to wait until some gadget screams "everyone else has one" or "we need it" before we buy anything with a learning curve steeper than a speed bump. Which is why we finally bought Rhonda a few months ago. Rhonda - as in the Beach Boys' 1965 hit, "Help Me, Rhonda" - is the name we gave to the GPS we bought for a recent car trip to visit friends who have a cabin in the mountains.

A JANITOR AT a South Jersey Catholic high school was busted Wednesday for allegedly having hidden cameras installed throughout the school so he could see images of students and teachers undressing, officials said. John Martin, 41, of Wenonah, Gloucester County, is charged with third-degree invasion of privacy for allegedly directing the placement of cameras in eight rooms sometimes used as changing areas in Gloucester Catholic Junior/Senior High School. It was unclear Wednesday night who was responsible for the cameras' installation.

FEW THINGS are more characteristic of business as usual in Washington, D.C., than closed doors. Nothing will do more to end business as usual than opening them to C-SPAN cameras. With the "fiscal cliff" of sequestration approaching, now is the perfect time to establish a precedent: The bigger the deal, the more important it is that negotiations be done in public. It took about 12 seconds after the 2012 campaign winners were declared for the maneuvering toward a "grand bargain" to begin among President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker John Boehner.

FREEDOM, Pa. - A hidden camera caught a Western Pennsylvania high school teacher doing drugs in his office and offering them to a student, police said Tuesday. Authorities said they received a complaint about James C. Summers this month, and then installed a hidden camera in the physical education teacher's office at Freedom Area High School. The video allegedly showed Summers, 41, of Darlington, crushing and inhaling a pill, and preparing a crushed pill for a student. Summers was arrested Tuesday and was being held in the Beaver County Jail after he was unable to post $200,000 bond.

OAKWOOD, Md. - With its intimidating powerhouse and forbidding arsenal of steel, concrete, and cables, the Conowingo Dam isn't on anyone's list of natural attractions. But right now, it is one of the most attractive venues in the country for the once-endangered American bald eagle. On their way south, the majestic birds with their distinctive white heads and tails are congregating at the dam, about 10 miles south of the Pennsylvania border along the Susquehanna River, where they will spend the next few months.