Drexel University

The Eagles were pinning their hopes on Rodney Peete. Harry Potter had yet to cast his spell. A White House intern named Monica Lewinsky was quietly transferred to the Pentagon. And billions of baby bugs were burrowing their way into the ground. Seventeen years later, they (the bugs) are about to make a lot of noise. The clamorous insects are called periodical cicadas, and they have started to emerge on the East Coast this month after going underground in 1996. They come out for just a few weeks, staying alive long enough to produce offspring that will then tunnel into the earth for another 17 years.

WHEN Sumo Dukulah began to work for the school district in November 2011, he had been raping a young relative for years, authorities alleged yesterday. Dukulah, 39, a teacher at L.P. Hill Elementary School in Strawberry Mansion, was charged with raping a family member for eight years, the District Attorney's Office announced. The cruel acts began when the child was 8 years old and continued until the victim was 16, the D.A.'s Office said. Dukulah was arrested Thursday by detectives with the Police Department's Special Victims Unit.

Amanda "Amy" Wall and her family are finally telling their story: an unexplained cure of nerve deafness in both her ears that will finally turn Philadelphia's Blessed Katharine Drexel into a saint of the Roman Catholic Church. But Amy, a button-cute 7-year-old who'll make her first communion soon, was smilingly media-shy yesterday. She hugged and clung to and whispered with her mom, whose prayers and determination made it all happen. "Before, she was special," Constance Wall declared at Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament convent in Bensalem.

FIXING FOR A FIGHT, a Drexel University senior kicked his way into another student's apartment just before dawn yesterday. But a startled resident inside grabbed a knife and before the sun rose past the treetops outside, the intruder lay dying, stabbed repeatedly in the chest, cheek and head. Drexel University identified the slain man as Evan Morris, 22, a student in the school's Goodwin College of Professional Studies. Police said the bloodshed began just before 5 a.m. in a three-story, graystone duplex on Race Street near 34th, on the edge of Drexel's campus.

Hello there At his friend Anthony's summer 2010 wedding in Ithaca, N.Y., Brendan noticed a woman who looked like she wanted to dance. Eliana Papadakis accepted his invitation, and they talked and laughed together much of the evening. Eliana liked this Brendan. "You must meet my daughter," she told him. Back home in Wayne, Eliana told her daughter, Maria, about Brendan: He grew up in Ardmore and graduated from the Haverford School - the brother school to Maria's Baldwin School.

Law students at Drexel University will soon have the option of fast-tracking their degrees with a program that allows them to enter the workforce after two years of study instead of three. The "Fast Forward" program, to be announced by Drexel today, was created in an effort to address rising concerns over student debt, school officials said. The program costs the same as the traditional three-year degree program at Drexel's Earle Mack School of Law, but condenses three years of coursework into two. "You get into the workforce a year quicker, and it adds greater value," Drexel Law School Dean Roger Dennis said.

Robots that can transfer plastic rings. Robots that can toss Frisbees into targets. Robots that can climb, swim, dance, or make music. Robots that can clean up a nuclear plant after a Fukushima-style disaster, sparing human beings the risk of radiation poisoning. All were on display - or at least were the topic of hopeful discussion - at Monday's Philly Robotics Expo, a mix of demonstrations, classes, and presentations designed to whet the intellectual appetites of the next generation of robotics engineers and scientists.

Wedding gowns inspired by boned corsets (ouch), children's wear with images from European storybooks (cute), and sportswear with medieval armor detailing (interesting) were among the 10 collections Drexel students showed earlier this month at their annual fashion show at the Urban Outfitters Navy Yard complex. Some favorites included Julia Edick's handknit children's sweaters, which married Old World charm with a retro sensibility. The handmade buttons were a nice detail that helped her win Drexel's Most Creative Graduate Collection Award.

Richard D. Breslin, a former Catholic priest who has been president of the University of Charleston in West Virginia for the last four years, was named yesterday as Drexel University's new president. At a news conference after his unanimous selection during a special meeting of the board of trustees, Breslin, 50, said he expected to be in his new post by the start of classes in September. He said his first priorities would include developing a long-range plan for the 12,451-student university, fashioning a system of governance for the school and launching a major fund-raising campaign in connection with Drexel's centennial celebration in 1991.

It's the "trucker's" moment in Philadelphia's food world now - especially when it comes to lunch. That's when some of the area's most exciting new food options are making the scene, rolling in on four wheels with a griddle full of creativity and an entrepreneurial dream. Channeling a Shane Victorino craving for Super Spam musubi? Check. Tiny Poi Dog at Temple University is your new Hawaiian snack shrine. In need of stunningly rich peanut butter ice cream sandwiched between double chocolate chip cookies?

Outside the Women's Medical Society, a small pot of dying white mums sat by the entrance of the three-story brick building on Lancaster Avenue where Kermit Gosnell practiced for 31 years. On the front window sill, someone had glued dozens of tiny white plaster baby hands. Passersby expressed mixed views after the guilty verdict was announced Monday in the trial of Gosnell, a fixture in the West Philadelphia neighborhood once known for his good deeds. Along Lancaster Avenue at 38th Street, about three blocks from the Drexel University campus, students live alongside longtime residents.

The Eagles were pinning their hopes on Rodney Peete. Harry Potter had yet to cast his spell. A White House intern named Monica Lewinsky was quietly transferred to the Pentagon. And billions of baby bugs were burrowing their way into the ground. Seventeen years later, they (the bugs) are about to make a lot of noise. The clamorous insects are called periodical cicadas, and they have started to emerge on the East Coast this month after going underground in 1996. They come out for just a few weeks, staying alive long enough to produce offspring that will then tunnel into the earth for another 17 years.

Two people were arrested in connection with an armed-robbery spree Thursday night that targeted iPhones and victimized nearly a dozen people in West Philadelphia. The first holdup involved a rowing coach and rower from Clarkson University in Upstate New York who were visiting Philadelphia for the Dad Vail Regatta, said Lt. John Walker of Southwest Detectives. Around 8:30 p.m., the coach and rower were confronted at gunpoint at 45th and Sansom Streets, Walker said. The victims gave up an iPhone, wallet, and bag. About 15 minutes later, three men at 43d and Regent Streets were robbed at gunpoint and surrendered three iPhones, Walker said.

Top Regional Attractions Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University 1900 Benjamin Franklin Pkwy.; 215-299-1000. www.ansp.org . $15; $13 seniors, students, military, children 3-12; free for children under 3. 10 am-4:30 pm Mon.-Fri., 10 am-5 pm Sat.-Sun.. African American Museum 701 Arch St.; 215-574-0380. www.aampmuseum.org . $10; $8 seniors, students and children. Tue.-Sat. 10 am-5 pm, Sun. noon-5 pm. American Philosophical Society Museum 104 S. 5th St.; 215-440-3400.

After a young woman in her neighborhood committed suicide in April, Pamela Robb vowed to attend the Camden Trauma Summit. "If one of us is hurting, we're all hurting," said Robb, 58, the tenant association president at the Northgate II high-rise in North Camden. A Camden resident for a half-century, Robb was among 150 citizens, clergy, and public health and safety professionals who gathered Monday at the Cooper Medical School of Rowan University. The relentless toll that violence exacts on Camden, a big small town that's been called America's most dangerous city, was the focus of the summit.

The Salvation Army of Greater Philadelphia is getting a $100,000 donation from the Walmart Foundation to help fight hunger and poverty. A spokesman for the human-services agency said the gift would be presented Thursday. The agency will use the money to support its new Peer Mentoring Program, which is based on Witnesses to Hunger, part of the Center for Hunger-Free Communities at Drexel University's School of Public Health. Witnesses to Hunger, created by Drexel professor Mariana Chilton, began as a program in which Chilton gave cameras to 40 low-income North Philadelphia women and asked them to photograph their lives.

It's the "trucker's" moment in Philadelphia's food world now - especially when it comes to lunch. That's when some of the area's most exciting new food options are making the scene, rolling in on four wheels with a griddle full of creativity and an entrepreneurial dream. Channeling a Shane Victorino craving for Super Spam musubi? Check. Tiny Poi Dog at Temple University is your new Hawaiian snack shrine. In need of stunningly rich peanut butter ice cream sandwiched between double chocolate chip cookies?

Nick Elmer figures his best days as a wrestler are ahead of him. He knows his best days as a football player are behind him. Elmer, who led Penns Grove to a record-setting football season this past fall, on Wednesday signed a national letter of intent to attend Drexel University on a wrestling scholarship. "I thought I was going to go to school for football because of the year I had," said Elmer, a senior at Penns Grove. "But it didn't pan out. " Elmer was The Inquirer's South Jersey Offensive Player of the Year after he led Penns Grove to a 12-0 record and the program's first South Jersey Group 1 title - as well as a state-record 621 points.

Joseph J. Kelly, the grandson on his mother's side of immigrants from County Mayo in Ireland, was the first in his family to graduate from college. While living in the Mayfair section of Philadelphia, he worked nights while attending the Abington campus of Pennsylvania State University because he could not afford the State College campus until his senior year. "I don't know that he made much of his hardship, except that it reflects his great love of learning," resulting in a doctorate in English literature, son Brendan, a physician at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, said Wednesday.