Grad students key, candidate says

Deborah Freund shared her passions for higher education and her commitment to research in yesterday's presidential candidate forums.

Because the UA is a Research I institution, Freund said, the university depends on graduate students and emphasized the need to ensure they have a proper working environment.

When Freund was asked how she would improve funding for graduate students, specifically with increasing stipends, she admitted it's a financial problem shared by all universities. [Read article]

ASU retooling in wake of Diogu's departure

If you take away last year's game, where Salim Stoudamire's jumper killed ASU's chance at a rare upset, the constantly struggling Sun Devils haven't come within eight points of the Arizona men's basketball team since January 2002.

After losing Pacific 10 Conference player of the year Ike Diogu, the team that has made the NCAA tournament only five times in the last 27 years is in the rebuilding stages yet again. But, according to the Arizona coaching staff, the Sun Devils (7-10, 1-7) may be right on the verge of turning things around. [Read article]

In October, Tucson City Council candidates Nina Trasoff and Karin Uhlich promised voters a change. They swore that if elected, they would implement a series of immediate reforms designed to, in their view, improve the quality of life for the average voter in Tucson.

At the top of their list of goals was their forceful and clear demand that Tucson's $14-a-month garbage tax be repealed. The issue was one of many that Trasoff and Uhlich used to attack incumbent council members Fred Ronstadt and Kathleen Dunbar, both of whom had voted to pass an extension of the fee in 2004. [Read article]

Fire twirling, sword swallowing on club's weekly agenda There's a little pyromaniac in all of us. Blame our caveman instincts, but our fascination with this force of nature - both destructive and life-sustaining - starts with childhood, where experiments with a Zippo lighter and your mother's industrial-sized can of hairspray gives you hours of fun and, if you're lucky, a brand-new set of eyebrows. [Read article]