Local
The new ice skating rink outside Norris opened Tuesday. Use is free, while renting equipment costs $3 for students with a WildCard.
John Margolis, the founding dean of Northwestern in Qatar, will retire in June. His successor is Everette Dennis, the chair of the Communication and Media Management department and director of the Center for Communications at Fordham University.
Recruitment for Greek life kicked off this week. About one-third of NU students are members of a fraternity or sorority. The Interfraternity Council will meet with vice president of student affairs Bill Banis next week to discuss its proposal to allow fraternity members 21 years and above to keep beer and wine in their rooms.
The men’s basketball team has had a difficult start to its Big Ten campaign. After losing to Purdue in its conference opener, the Wildcats lost to Michigan State and Illinois. All three opponents are ranked. The Cats beat Indiana Sunday night. The women’s basketball team is 2-2 in Big Ten play, losing to Penn State and notching wins against Purdue and Indiana.
Illinois’s pension reforms, signed into law by Governor Quinn on Dec. 30, will give Evanston more time to work on reducing its pension debt to police officers and firefighters.
National
Congresswoman Grabrielle Giffords, Democrat of Arizona, and 18 others were shot by a gunman during a meeting with constituents at a supermarket. Six of the victims died, including John M. Roll, chief judge for the United States District Court for the District of Arizona. Giffords was shot in the head and is in critical condition. After the shooting, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor announced next week’s House schedule-including the repeal of the health care law-has been postponed.
Republicans assumed leadership of the House of Representatives on Wednesday as the 112th Congress began. In November’s elections, Republicans took 63 seats from the Democrats to form a 242-193majority. Speaker John A. Boehner’s priorities include replacing Obama’s healthcare law, on which the House will hold a vote in the coming weeks, and cutting $100 billion from domestic spending this year. Some Republicans have said they would vote against raising the U.S.’s debt ceiling in March or April. National debt hit $14 trillion Monday.
The Constitution was read aloud on the House floor for the first time ever, but controversy ensued over omissions-some deliberate, some inadvertent-and a “birther” in the gallery who shouted “except Obama” as a president’s qualifications were read.
In the Senate, the reduced Democratic majority used procedural rules to extend the first day in session, during which rules for the new Congress can be adopted. Democrats plan to reform the filibuster rule, which requires a supermajority of 60 votes, when they reconvene on Jan. 20.
Looking ahead to his reelection campaign, President Obama appointed as his Chief of Staff William Daley, an experienced business leader, lawyer, commerce secretary under President Clinton, and brother of Mayor Richard Daley. The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has had a fractious relationship with the administration, called Daley “a strong appointment.”
Daley was a board member of Northwestern.
Obama also named Gene Sperling Director of his National Economic Council, succeeding Larry Summers, but has yet to appoint a press secretary after Robert Gibbs announced Tuesday he will leave the White House after the president’s State of the Union Address.
Goldman Sachs invested $500 million in Facebook, valuing the company at $50 billion. Some say the valuation is too high for a company whose revenue is estimated to be $2 billion.
International
A leading progressive in Pakistan, Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab, was assassinated by one of his own guards for challenging religious intolerance, particularly Pakistan’s blasphemy laws.
The Sadrist Movement’s leader Muqtada al Sadr, who led his supporters in rebellion against U.S. troops in Iraq from 2003-06, returned to Iraq after three years in exile in Iran. The influential anti-Western Shia cleric is a supporter of Iraq’s fragile coalition government.
Ivory Coast’s leader Laurent Gbagbo refuses to step down despite international pressure. The United Nations, the United States, the European Union, and the African Union have recognized his opponent Alassane Ouattara as the winner of the presidential election held in November.
The world may soon have a new country as Christians in the south of Sudan voted on a referendum to secede from the Muslim North on Sunday. The vote was scheduled in 2005 when the two sides made peace after more than two decades of war that killed 2 million people. The referendum result is not expected for a few weeks and, if Africa’s largest nation were to split, the oil-rich South would only declare independence on July 9.
After Hungary took over the rotating presidency of the European Union, oth
er members expressed concerns about the country’s laws passed restricting press freedom.
