NATION IN BRIEF : TENNESSEE : 5 Guilty in Scheme to Get U.S. Contracts

Two professors, two NASA employees and an Army weapons specialist were convicted in a scheme to trade advanced degrees for defense contracts. At the center of the scheme was Walter Frost, a former professor at the University of Tennessee Space Institute in Tullahoma. While he was still at the school, Frost’s private company, FWG Associates Inc., received $2 million in government contracts steered to it by some of his students who were government employees, federal investigators said. In exchange, the students copied research reports Frost had written and handed them in as their work. Sentencing is set for July.