Graduate students received financial assistance from President Obama’s student loan debt relief plan last month. Originally, this was supposed take place on Jan. 2014, but in the midst of the tuition and loan crisis students will see their financial loans lessen this year. In a public address to university grad students Obama said that over the past three decades the cost of college has nearly tripled for students and last year graduates, who took out loans, left college owing an… Read more

The Obama administration recently announced its plan to help create 250,000 summer jobs this year for underprivileged youths aged 16-24, in a response to record-high levels of unemployment in that age group. The program, Summer Jobs+, calls for the government, nonprofit organizations and private sector businesses to collaborate and offer employment opportunities to ‘young people. So far, there have been 180,000 positions committed from organizations around the country. In July 2011, the employment rate of  youths was 48.8 percent, according… Read more

A new California law now requires children who are eight and under to be in booster seats while being driven, effective Jan. 1. Previously, the law required children aged six or under to be in booster seats, but it changed when statistics on smart motorist wrote “that highway crashes are the number one cause of death among the nation’s youth.” Statistics about the number of car accidents children have been injured in can be found at National Highway Traffic Safety… Read more

The 2012 Technical Achievement Award by the National Association of Corrosion Engineers has been awarded to Behzad Bavarian, professor of manufacturing systems engineering and management. “The Technical Achievement Award is given in recognition for technical achievement in corrosion engineering that had significant impact on the practice of corrosion control, or on the enhancement of the profession of corrosion engineering,” according to The National Association of Corrosion Engineers website. Bavarian recognizes what the award represents. “As the recipient of this award,… Read more

S.K. Ramesh, dean of CSUN’s College of Engineering and Computer Science, was elected to a three-year term on the governing board of a prominent international electrical engineering honor society. At the beginning of the year, Ramesh began his term as the director of the west region of the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers-Eta Kappa Nu (IEEE-HKN), the largest professional association for the advancement of technology. The website of the organization details that there are about 200 university chapters. “It’s… Read more

An unknown number of class seats became available this week to accommodate graduating seniors, said Vice Provost Cynthia Rawitch. “We thought we were able to serve the demand for those most in dire need, graduating seniors, and that clearly was not done, so we decided we at least have to open enough seats for those students,” Rawitch said. “Students spoke, they told us, they wrote to us, parents wrote to us, parents called us and so we’re trying to do… Read more

More than half of the world’s languages are spoken by 2 percent of the population, according to a presentation given by linguists Gregory D.S. Anderson and K. David Harrison Tuesday night in a packed room at the Oviatt Library. The two have traveled the world, from Siberia to Bolivia to Papua New Guinea to document the world’s most threatened languages, some of which have only a handful of remaining speakers. “One language every two weeks goes extinct,” said Harrison, the… Read more

Gov. Jerry Brown has outlawed openly carrying unloaded handguns despite heavy resistance from gun enthusiasts. Though it was already illegal to openly carry loaded handguns, AB 144 expands California’s firearm regulations by nixing people from openly carrying an unloaded handgun outside of a person’s home or vehicle. AB 144 was approved on October 13, 2011 and became law Jan. 1. Violators could face up to one year in prison and/or a fine of $1,000. The bill does exempt hunting and… Read more