The week at a glance...United States

Kilauea, Hawaii

Fireworks on the Big Island: Tourists this week flocked to Kilauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, to see a newly opened vent spew molten rock more than 80 feet into the air. “They’re coming in droves,” said Marnie Lane, a ranger at Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, which even without the fireworks attracts 1.3 million visitors a year. The latest eruption apparently began after a crater floor collapsed and lava burst through at a weak point on the mountain’s surface. Fiery rivers of red-orange lava were sent cascading through the forests on the southern end of Hawaii, the archipelago’s biggest island. The eruption sparked 150 small earthquakes and prompted the U.S. Geological Survey to warn of dangerous levels of sulfur dioxide near some volcanic vents. Several park trails and a campground were closed, but the park’s most popular regions, which afford a view of the spectacular eruption, remained open.

Provo, Utah

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Foul out: Brandon Davies, the third-leading scorer of Brigham Young University’s basketball team, has been suspended for the rest of the season after he admitted to having sex with his girlfriend. Premarital sex is a no-no at the Mormon institution, where students are required to sign a strict honor code committing them to “a chaste and virtuous life.” (That code also bans smoking, swearing, and drinking coffee.) But while the 6-foot-9-inch player’s admission cost him a place on the team, his honesty won him the respect of Cougars fans and players. The sophomore was allowed to sit on the bench with teammates during last week’s conference-title-clinching win over Wyoming, during which some 5,000 students chanted “We love Brandon!” throughout the game. “It meant a lot to have him here,” Cougars guard Jimmer Fredette told The Salt Lake Tribune. “He’s like a brother to us, and we’ve had a lot of good times together.”

Evanston, Ill.

Sex education: After being bombarded with complaints from outraged parents and alumni, a Northwestern University professor has issued a grudging apology for allowing a live sex demonstration on campus last month. Psychology professor John Michael Bailey said that he regretted “upsetting so many people” with the spectacle, which involved a guest presenter repeatedly bringing his fiancée to raucous orgasm with a motorized sex toy. But Bailey added that he still saw “absolutely no harm” in the show, which was witnessed by some 100 students from his human sexuality class. University president Morton Schapiro said that he now hoped the media would focus on the “wonderful things” that occur “each and every day” at the college, such as a recent breakthrough in Alzheimer’s treatment.

New Haven, Conn.

Rape suspect arrested: The manhunt for the so-called East Coast Rapist, wanted for sexually assaulting at least 17 women over the past 14 years, appears to have ended. Aaron Thomas, a 39-year-old unemployed truck driver from New Haven, was arraigned this week in Connecticut on charges of raping a woman while her baby slept in a nearby crib. He is the prime suspect in a series of sexual assaults in Connecticut, Maryland, Rhode Island, and Virginia. Police tracked Thomas down after a coordinated publicity campaign yielded a tip in Maryland. Investigators tracked Thomas to Connecticut and gathered DNA from one of his cigarette butts, which they say matched evidence found at 12 crime scenes. Authorities say Thomas admitted to a “Jekyll and Hyde” lifestyle and asked the detectives who arrested him, “Why haven’t you picked me up sooner?”

Philadelphia

Clerical abuse: After claiming for weeks that it had rid its ranks of predatory priests, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia this week admitted that at least 21 remained active in the church and would now be suspended. The mass suspension, the most extensive ever in the U.S. Catholic Church’s ongoing sexual-abuse scandal, follows a grand jury report last month accusing the archdiocese of a decades-long cover-up of abusive priests. In response to that report, Philadelphia Cardinal Justin Regali suspended three priests and claimed that no other active clerics faced “credible” abuse allegations. That makes his announcement of new suspensions almost a month later a major embarrassment. Regali did not explain the discrepancy. But as new civil suits were filed against former priests and the archdiocese itself, said religious studies professor Leonard Norman Primiano, “We may have to be asking, What did the cardinal know and when did he know it?”

Quantico, Va.

Bradley Manning stripped: U.S. Army jailers last week began forcing Bradley Manning, the soldier accused of providing reams of sensitive documents to WikiLeaks, to sleep and attend morning inspection in the nude. Manning, 23, could face the death penalty if convicted of new charges that he gave “intelligence to the enemy.” The former intelligence clerk has been held in a military detention facility for eight months under “prevention of injury” watch, which mandates constant direct or video observation and limits his sleeping attire to boxer shorts. But Manning’s lawyer, David Coombs, said that after Manning made a “sarcastic quip” to the brig commander last week that he could harm himself with the elastic in his underwear, the authorities ordered him to surrender his boxer shorts too. Coombs called the action “punitive.” A military spokesman said the measures were not intended to cause “humiliation or embarrassment” but to ensure the “safety and the security of the detainee.”