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Even though Slope Day is drawing near, financial plans for next year’s event have already started, despite issues concerning graduate student funding.

According to Michael Walsh, Graduate and Professional Student Assembly vice president, the GPSA did aid in funding Slope Day this year, contributing the same amount — $4,000 — that they contributed last year. They were unable to provide any further funds due to the fact that the Slope Day Programming Board is not by-line funded by the GPSA.

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“Fear has run our lives since this administration came to power. To me, that’s not a way to live,” said Fay Gougakis at the impeachment rally she organized on the Commons on Saturday.

Gougakis, a local activist for many years, has a history of protesting policies of President George W. Bush’s Administration. Prior to organizing Saturday’s rally, she participated in two inauguration day protests and has supported both anti-nuclear and women’s rights movements.

Deckhead:

Seeks alternative to Starbucks-owned Seattle’s Best

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According to the Fair Trade Federation, coffee is the world’s second-most valuable traded commodity, behind petroleum. It is also one of the most fairly traded products. Fair Trade refers to an equitable and fair partnership between businesses and organizations in North America and producers in the developing world.

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Thanks to a Cornell-based company called e2e Materials, skateboards of the future won’t just be able to hover, they’ll also be fully biodegradable.

Prof. Anil Netravali, fiber science and apparel design, has developed a composite made entirely out of plant materials, which could replace formaldehyde-based particleboard. Last May, Netravali joined with Patrick Govang, then of the Cornell Center for Materials Research, to form e2e Materials and bring products based on Netravali’s work to the open market. Govang, now the president of e2e Materials, resigned from Cornell in January to concentrate on biodegradable composites full time.

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One week after Yale’s Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg announced a ban on stage weapons in light of the recent shootings at Virginia Tech, a group of administrators at the University reversed the decision. Trachtenberg had originally told a group of students that realistic stage weapons would no longer be allowed in on-campus theatrical productions, but concerns that the policy would inhibit free speech led to the reversal over the weekend, according to the Yale Daily News.

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Recently the Center for Disease Control and Prevention discovered a drug-resistant strain of gonorrhea, previously considered a curable STD that was relatively easy to treat.

The new strain is immune to the fluoroquinolone antibiotic in the form of a pill that doctors have readily prescribed for over a decade. From now on, the only guaranteed treatment for all cases is a shot of the cephalosporin antibiotic.

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Four U.S. citizens were detained by the Chinese government yesterday after protesting the planned 2008 Olympic torch route up Mount Everest and into Tibet — a route that is politically symbolic of Chinese hegemony in that region.