News

It's Valentine's Day, and you can't help but notice the couples engaging in lovey-dovey public displays of affection everywhere you turn. What's a single person to do?

Instead of sitting at home with a pint of Ben & Jerry's, Laura Hohman and her roommate Adam Musha are throwing an "Anti-Valentine's Day PAR-TAY" for their fellow single friends.

Hohman, a physics and astrophysics sophomore, said Valentine's Day can sometimes be depressing for singles, and that she wanted her friends to have somewhere to have fun instead of sitting at home, alone.

For student-athletes, Big Brother might find his way onto computer screens, thanks to a new monitoring program.

YouDiligence - software intended to monitor athletes' Facebook and MySpace profiles - seeks to protect athletics departments' images nationwide.

But not all athletics officials are praising the program as the answer to their current or future problems.

Some of the students who decided to leave the Minnesota Student Association this semester have remained in politics.

Former Diversity Education Fund Grants chairwoman Julia Krieger started volunteering for Al Franken about a year ago. Nathan Olson, former student representative to the Board of Regents has been working for Franken since the summer.

Olson and Krieger are primarily responsible for spreading the word about Franken's campaign for Senate. They work on a variety of tasks, ranging from making phone calls to participating in political rallies.

Even after leaving his hometown and its young residents behind for college, Matt Norris never forgot them.

Norris, a first-year University student, is changing the culture of his hometown by involving youths in the city's future and creating resources for them - right out of his satellite city office in his room in Yudof Hall.

The movement Norris works on, called Champions for Youth Opportunities Coalition, began in 2005 when a survey showed the citizens of Brooklyn Park were concerned about juvenile crime and a lack of opportunities for teenagers.

.N'DJAMENA, Chad (AP)- Chad's president declared a nationwide state of emergency Thursday, telling citizens that tightened controls were needed to restore order after recent rebel attacks.

In a speech broadcast on national radio and television, President Idriss Deby said he signed a decree increasing the government's powers for 15 days.

Deby said the decree instituted "measures important and urgent to maintain order, guarantee stability and assure the good functioning of the state."

>TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iranian authorities banned five Web sites that comment on current events for "poisoning" public opinion ahead of the crucial mid-March parliamentary elections, the state radio reported on Thursday.

The move is the latest for this election period, which has seen the Interior Ministry, run by hard-liners close to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, disqualify more than 2,000 prospective candidates - most of them reformers.

As Minnesota struggles to make up ground on the University of Minnesota-Duluth women's hockey team, teh Bulldogs may have just helped the Gophers' cause.

Duluth forward Iya Gavrilova, a freshman from Krasnoyarsk, Russia, is currently under investigation by the NCAA and the school. Gavrilova played on two teams in Moscow, where players have been known to receive payment, food, board and transportation.

.DEKALB, Ill. (AP) - A former student dressed in black opened fire with a shotgun and two handguns from the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University on Thursday, killing five students and injuring 16 others before committing suicide, authorities said.

The gunman fatally shot four women and a man in a "brief, rapid-fire assault" that sent terrified students running for cover, university President John Peters said. Four died at the scene, including the gunman, and the other two died at a hospital, he said.

Urban studies senior Sarah Juetten gets to do what she loves: make a community more environmentally savvy.

With the help of an internship at the Southeast Como Improvement Association, Juetten said she is working on projects for the community while fulfilling a credit for her major.

The University's urban studies program requires students to intern before graduating, said Paula Pentel, urban studies coordinator of undergraduate advising.

"It's designed to help students curious about cities put together a degree program that meets their interest," she said.

Despite there being only 45 days in the 2008 legislative session, longtime local representative Phyllis Kahn, DFL-Minneapolis, said the second part of the biennium tends to be the easiest.

"Remember we do a biennial budget, so we do the hardest work first," she said, referring to the 2007 session.

As for the second year, Kahn said, "When things move, they move very quickly."