PHILADELPHIA — A judge has permanently banned a suburban Philadelphia school district from secretly monitoring students with webcams on their school-issued laptops.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Jan DuBois on Friday has been expected. It's similar to a temporary injunction the judge imposed in February after a student sued the district over privacy concerns.

The Lower Merion School District acknowledges capturing 56,000 screen shots and webcam images so it could locate missing laptops.

The new ruling says Lower Merion can use other kinds of technology to find laptops but only if parents and students agree to it.

The order also requires school officials to arrange for the nearly 40 high school students who were unknowingly photographed by their laptops to see the images, as well as their parents.

ALTOONA — A central Pennsylvania man will spend a year on house arrest and six more on probation for keeping about $280,000 mistakenly deposited into his bank account.Herbert Starbird, 58, of Altoona, was sentenced Thursday. He had been convicted of theft in March for keeping the money he discovered in his First Commonwealth Bank account in October 2007.Starbird spent much of the $280,276, but only after claiming he checked with the bank and was told the deposit was not a mistake.But the bank and Blair County prosecutors say Starbird was stubborn and simply refused to repay the money once he was told it was a mistake in February 2008. He must still repay $157,000 already spent.