Intelligencer Journal/Lancaster New Era

PEOPLE

Patti Smith gets Hepburn Medal

Rock musician and writer Patti Smith was honored by Bryn Mawr College with a medal named after the late actress Katharine Hepburn.

Smith received the 2013 Katharine Hepburn Medal on Thursday night in a ceremony at the women's liberal arts school in suburban Philadelphia.

Smith is recognized as a rock 'n' roll trailblazer whose work as a musician, writer, performer and visual artist influenced multiple generations. Her 1975 debut album, "Horses," is considered one of rock's greatest albums, and she received the 2010 National Book Award for nonfiction for her memoir, "Just Kids."

The medal named after Hepburn, a Bryn Mawr alumna, honors women who change their worlds and whose work embodies the intelligence and independence of the four-time Oscar winner.

"Bryn Mawr is helping shape the futures of young women and providing them with the tools to be dominant forces in our society," Smith said.

College President Dr. Jane McAuliffe said Smith "conveys enormous passion and continues to transform herself throughout her artistic journey."

CNN's Anderson Cooper won't be in Buffalo, N.Y., to celebrate the city's heritage on Dyngus Day, a holiday that made his show's "Ridiculist" and left him giggling uncontrollably on the air last year.

Dyngus Day is a Polish-American day-after-Easter tradition celebrating the end of Lent. It features people playfully sprinkling each other with water and swatting one another with pussy willows to show their amorous interest.

Through a protracted fit of laughter last year, Cooper said, "It's so stupid, really so stupid." He later said he was referring to his giggling, not the holiday.

Organizers set up a website to try to persuade Cooper to attend and offered to name him the festival's first pussy willow prince.

But Cooper tweeted Thursday he's "really sad" he won't be able to. He says it sounds like "a lot of fun."

Actor James Cromwell has been arrested for allegedly disrupting a University of Wisconsin Board of Regents meeting where he was protesting animal testing.

University police said Cromwell, 73, was arrested and ticketed on a misdemeanor charge of disorderly conduct. Cromwell and an activist from an animal-rights group also arrested were released from jail by Thursday afternoon.