Buffalo dropped

Five black women college students dropped their racial harassment complaint against an Israeli-born white student who had called them 'water buffalo', saying that publicity had slanted the case in the man's favour, AP reports from Philadelphia. They withdrew their complaint a few hours after a joint staff-student panel had rejected Eden Jacobowitz's application for the complaint against him to be dismissed.

The University of Pennsylvania students argued that the remark by Mr Jacobowitz was a racial slur. But Mr Jacobowitz, 18, who risked expulsion over the incident, has denied his remark was bigoted.