NATIONAL BRIEFS

NATIONWIDE: Alert on teen smoking in cars

Texting while driving, speeding and back-seat hanky-panky aren't all that parents need to worry about when kids are in cars: Add secondhand smoke to the list. A report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than 1 in 5 high school and middle school students ride in cars while others are smoking. Such secondhand smoke exposure has been linked with breathing problems and allergy symptoms. The research was released online Monday in Pediatrics.

Rankings matter to colleges

When US News & World Report debuted its list of "America's Best Colleges" nearly 30 years ago, the magazine hoped its rankings would be a game-changer for students and families. But it isn't students who obsess over every incremental shift on the rankings scoreboard. It's colleges that have spent billions on financial aid for high-scoring students who don't actually need the money, motivated at least partly by the quest for rankings glory. It was a college, Baylor University, that paid students it had already accepted to retake the SAT exam in a transparent ploy to boost the average scores it could report. It's colleges that have awarded bonuses to presidents who lift their school a few slots. And it's colleges that occasionally get caught in the kind of cheating you might expect in sports or on Wall Street, but which seems especially ignominious coming from professional educators.

NORTH CAROLINA: Stun gun for cutting in line

State authorities say they used a stun gun on a motorist who blocked a McDonald's drive-thru for 20 minutes after employees refused to serve her because she cut in line. Evangeline Lucca, 37, bypassed the order screen and line and pulled directly up to the pick-up window Friday afternoon at the restaurant in Hope Mills, 60 miles south of Raleigh, authorities say. They say the woman had her 3-year-old daughter in the car when she became confrontational. She was subsequently shocked by deputies and charged with second-degree trespass. The daughter was taken into protective custody.