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Grad student alleges blog posts are GOP dirty tricks

Grad student alleges blog posts are GOP dirty tricks

One year ago, Juan Melli GS founded bluejersey.com, a left-leaning blog that he hoped would satisfy his passion for political debate and grant him an occasional respite from mechanical engineering research.In the past few days, however, Melli's site has swept him into the midst of a political scandal, one that could implicate the campaign staff of a New Jersey senatorial candidate in one of the nation's most closely-watched election races.The controversy involves comments posted Tuesday on Melli's site, submitted by users claiming to be ex-Democrats disillusioned with incumbent Sen.

NEWS | 09/21/2006

Accomplished chemistry professor remembered for brilliance, energy

Edward Stiefel, the renowned chemistry professor who helped lead the cleanup of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, died Sept.

NEWS | 09/21/2006

Musical Chairs

The Muir String Quartet performs in Richardson Auditorium on Thursday evening. The group played works by Haydn, Berg and Schumann.

NEWS | 09/21/2006

Kagame: Rwanda breaking with its ugly past

"There are no easy questions and no easy answers in Rwanda, but you have to do something in any case," Rwandan President Paul Kagame told a packed audience Thursday afternoon.Traveling to Princeton during a brief interlude in this year's session of the United Nations General Assembly, Kagame described both the progress Rwanda has made and the challenges his nation still faces since the devastating 1994 genocide, which left over 800,000 people dead."Most post-conflict reconstruction tends to revolve around the restoration of [socioeconomic] frameworks," Kagame said.

NEWS | 09/21/2006

Kurtzer questions Iran role in Israel-Lebanon conflict

Daniel Kurtzer, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt, refuted the popular theory that Iran was involved in Hezbollah's actions against Israel earlier this year as "unpersuasive" in a lecture yesterday and repeated his call for the United States to withdraw troops from Iraq.Kurtzer was in Israel when fighting broke out in July.

NEWS | 09/21/2006

Harvard's endowment nears $30 billion

Harvard's endowment reached an all-time high in the year ending June 30, growing $3.3 billion to a total just shy of a whopping $29.2 billion.But in a development that could damage its national rankings, Harvard College, the undergraduate arm of the university, said this week that the percentage of its alumni contributing to its annual fund decreased this year to 39 percent, a 17-year low.The rate was only one point below Harvard's performance last year, but it has been declining over the past five years, The Harvard Crimson reported.Princeton, meanwhile, has received steady alumni giving of between 58 percent and 60 percent, Director of Development Relations Steve LeMenager said.

NEWS | 09/20/2006

Could Gates be lured to Princeton?

The announcement Monday that the University has created a Center for African-American Studies has given new momentum to a question outstanding since 2002: Will superstar Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates finally come to Princeton?Former University provost Amy Gutmann extended a standing job offer to Gates, who was then the chair of Harvard's African and African-American Studies department.

NEWS | 09/20/2006

Senior spearheads effort to rethink P/D/F option

Students will be able to rescind a course's P/D/F grading option at any point during their undergraduate careers, if a proposal to overhaul the University's P/D/F policy is embraced by the administration.The proposal (read the full text), spearheaded by Graham Gottlieb '07, will be discussed at the first USG meeting Sunday.Certain aspects of the current policy, Gottlieb said, "don't make sense.

NEWS | 09/20/2006

Ozfest

Daphne Oz '08 signs copies of her new book, "The Dorm Room Diet: The 8-step plan for creating a healthy lifestyle that really works," which offers advice for college students hoping to escape the "Freshman 15"

NEWS | 09/20/2006

Chemistry professor wins Heroes Award for anti-cancer drug

Edward Taylor, the 83-year-old organic chemistry professor behind the new blockbuster anticancer drug Alimta, was recently awarded the 2006 Heroes of Chemistry Award for his contributions to medicine.The award, among the most prestigious in chemistry, is given by the American Chemical Society to "chemical innovators whose work has led to the welfare and progress of humanity."Alimta ? which was approved by the FDA in 2004 for treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma ? effectively protracts patient life while minimizing suffering.

NEWS | 09/20/2006

Malkiel, students spar over colleges

The Stokes Lounge of Whig Hall became a forum for student anxieties last night as Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel and Executive Vice President Mark Burstein answered questions from the Class of 2008 concerning next year's four-year residential college system.The audience of around 50 grilled the administrators for more than an hour about concerns related to the emerging colleges, particularly about whether they will divide rich and poor students, siphon potential members away from the century-old eating club system and exclude those who opt to be independent."Why create a dorm with really nice facilities that will draw attention when you can't participate if you don't want to be part of the college system?" one student asked.

NEWS | 09/20/2006

Axed policy finds support online

The University's decision to abandon early admissions has triggered mixed but impassioned reviews from students.

NEWS | 09/20/2006

Job search unaffected by deflation, report says

Though fewer students have earned A-range grades over the past two years, the new grading policy has not harmed students' post-graduation endeavors, according to a report released yesterday by The Faculty Committee on Grading.While the implementation of the grading policy is "heading in the right direction, and we are encouraged by the progress made thus far," the committee said it plans to continue collecting data and pushing grades towards the target."We will monitor our students for their wellbeing," Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel, the principal architect of the policy, said in an interview.

NEWS | 09/19/2006

Small clues amid noise: Your brain on Sudoku

Move over, crossword puzzles. Sudoku ? the addictive number-placement game first popularized in Japan ? has taken America by storm.After spawning innumerable books and websites and providing hours of entertainment for stranded airline passengers, the deceptively simple game has recently attracted an academic following.

NEWS | 09/19/2006

Murphy criticizes Bush's war plan

The American government, in its conduct during the War on Terror, has largely abandoned the values set forth in the U.S.

NEWS | 09/19/2006

A Sweet New Year

Ryan McCullough '08 (r.) and Zach Hughes '08 celebrate the upcoming Jewish new year, Rosh Hashanah, by enjoying the traditional snack of apples and honey in Frist Campus Center on Tuesday night.

NEWS | 09/19/2006

Professors and laptops vie for students' attention

Three semesters ago, in an ORF 245 lecture, Elisabeth Merrill '08 was taking notes as her professor, Savas Dayanik, demonstrated a statistics program for the class on his laptop.

NEWS | 09/19/2006

After coup, students unfazed

Dozens of University-affiliated individuals have weathered social and political unrest after Thailand underwent a military coup d'etat yesterday afternoon.The students and alumni are safe, however, and seemed unconcerned by the situation."Everything has been peaceful so far, although I guess it's only been going on for six hours or something now," Matt Losch '05, a Princeton in Asia (PiA) fellow living in Bangkok, said in an interview last night.There are currently 23 PiA fellows working in Thailand, program director Anastasia Vrachnos '91 said, adding that none of them are in danger."Princeton in Asia takes security very seriously," she said.The coup ? the first in the country since 1991 ? ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra while he was visiting the United States to address the United Nations.

NEWS | 09/19/2006

Early admissions dropped

Less than a week after rival Harvard shocked the world of elite college admissions by dropping early admission, Princeton announced yesterday that it would follow suit, abandoning its own program beginning next year.Though a decision on whether the University would scrap its Early Decision program had been expected in the coming weeks, President Tilghman's announcement ? met by strong applause when it was made yesterday at a faculty meeting ? came sooner than expected."I think it will make the admissions process far more fair and equitable," Tilghman, once an ardent defender of Early Decision, said in an interview after the meeting.

NEWS | 09/18/2006

Center to study race in America

In an effort to strengthen Princeton's commitment to the study of race, the University is establishing a Center for African-American Studies to replace the 37-year-old program of the same name, President Tilghman announced yesterday.The center will double the program's faculty, expand course offerings and, eventually, offer an undergraduate major.

NEWS | 09/18/2006

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