1. Cities face Occupy movement's 'mass day'.
Protesters in New York launched what they called an effort to "shut down Wall Street" Thursday morning at the beginning of a nationwide day of what could be the largest protests yet by the Occupy movement.
From New York to Los Angeles, organizers were calling for a "mass day of action" to mark two months since the movement began. A heavy police presence was in place as protesters kicked off the effort with a large group of demonstrators marching on Wall Street. CNN personnel could see about a dozen people arrested, including a retired Philadelphia police captain, Ray Lewis, who had joined with the Occupy Wall Street protesters. CNN saw him arrested as he stood in the middle of a street near Wall Street on Thursday morning.
2. 6 killed as storms sweep across South.
Search teams combed through rural South Carolina Thursday morning, a day after strong storms swept through the Southeast, killing at least six people and causing injuries in several states. At least three people died and five others were taken to hospitals after a storm hit York County in South Carolina, according to the sheriff's office. "This is considered a search-and-rescue operation at this time," said Lt. Mike Baker of the county sheriff's office. The county coroner's office said authorities are unsure whether the number of deaths will go up.
3. Penn State, college football's biggest crisis.
College football is in a real institutional identity crisis. The range of reactions to the Penn State scandal, from Penn State University itself to the NCAA to the American people, tells us that we don't know what college football is or what it should be.
The NCAA's response has been little better. NCAA President Mark Emmert released a statement last week, saying, "The NCAA will defer in the immediate term to law enforcement officials since this situation involved alleged crimes. ... To be clear, civil and criminal law will always take precedence over Association rules." While perhaps technically correct, the victims, as well as the college football community, deserve more of a response than this.