In the news

Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Deborah F. Rutter, 57, the head of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, was named the next president of the Kennedy Center in Washington and will become the first woman to lead the performing arts center since it opened in 1971.

Jean-Claude Mas, 74, the founder of the French company Poly Implant Prothese, was sentenced in Marseille to four years in prison for selling hundreds of thousands of defective breast implants in more than 65 countries.

Joe Biden, the vice president, met with relatives of victims of last year’s school shooting in Newtown, Conn., and announced that $100 million will become available for mental-health services nationwide.

John Podesta, a former chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, will join President Barack Obama’s inner circle for one year as a counselor to focus on energy and climate-change issues, the White House said.

Adam Kramer, 28, faces an aggravated robbery charge, accused of ordering several tacos at a Mexican restaurant in San Antonio, pulling a sword and refusing to pay.

Phyllis May, a Redmond, Wash., woman who sells sock monkey dolls, said a Transportation Security Administration agent seized a cowboy sock monkey’s 2-inch long toy pistol as she passed through the St. Louis airport.

Hunter Yelton, 6, a first-grader at Lincoln School of Science and Technology in Canon City, Colo., was suspended for several days for kissing a girl in his class, leading his mother, Jennifer Saunders, to accuse school officials of overreacting.

Zhang Xuezhong, a Chinese law professor, said he has been expelled from East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai after he refused to recant an article he wrote calling for constitutional rule in China.

Ian McKellen, the openly gay 74-year-old star of the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit films, told Radio Times magazine that the British government has advised him not to go to Russia because of the country’s law banning “propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations” aimed at anyone under 18.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/11/2013