Sorority recruitment wrapped up Wednesday night, bringing in approximately forty fewer members than last year. Recruitment this year was marked by the presence of the new sorority, Pi Beta Phi, and keeping the move from fall to spring recruitment that began last year.

Yicong Liu ’09, recruitment chair of the MIT Panhellenic Association said that it is difficult to judge whether fall recruitment is definitively more effective than spring recruitment, in part because this is only the second year of fall recruitment but “particularly since we have a new variable, Pi Beta Phi, thrown into the mix.” “I think we’re really going to need a couple of more years,” she said.

Both Liu and Tiffany W. Guo ’09, Panhel president, said that they do not plan to move back to spring recruitment any time soon.

Pi Beta Phi did not give bids during this week’s recruitment. Instead, consultants and alumnae from outside chapters were available this week to meet with interested women. The sorority will be having its own recruitment Sept. 25-28. Women who are interested in Pi Beta Phi do not have to go through the formal recruitment process and are only ineligible to join Phi Beta Phi if they received and declined a bid from another sorority.

Panhel worked with the representatives from outside chapters to publicize Pi Beta Phi because it did not have an MIT base, Liu said.

The other five sororities gave out 128 bids, 127 of which were accepted. Alpha Chi Omega will receive the most new members, with 33 bids accepted, followed by Kappa Alpha Theta with 32, Alpha Phi and Sigma Kappa with 29, and Alpha Epsilon Phi with 4. The number of bids accepted is down from last year’s 163 bids given and accepted, and is the lowest since 2005, when 117 women accepted bids during recruitment, which was held in the spring.

“We have a lot of girls coming to the process just to check it out, just to meet some women and meet each of the chapters, and then perhaps choose not to go on to the next step … we see a lot of people take that route,” said Guo.

Liu mentioned that with Pi Beta Phi brought in, there may have been women who would have shown interest in the existing five sororities who instead chose to wait for Pi Beta Phi’s recruitment. “It’s hard to say exactly how much [interest there was], but we definitely did see people who were very interested in Pi Beta Phi,” she said.

Meghan E. Dow ’12, a new pledge for Alpha Chi Omega, commented that the sense of community and philanthropic focus drew her to the sororities. “They’re some of the nicest girls I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting,” she added. “It was the best experience.”

Interested women begin recruitment by meeting the sororities the first two days. After several days of events including parties, tours, and narrowing down their options, potential members find their best fit and receive their bid the final day of recruitment.

Want art? For free? If your bare, ugly walls are driving you up the wall, you can come by the List Visual Arts Center between now and Sept. 14 to enter a lottery for a piece of art for your dorm room this year.

The largest program of its kind in the country, the Student Loan Art Program at MIT loans out 400 prints each year, including pieces by renowned artists such as Andy Warhol and Berenice Abbott.

Students enter their top three choices into the lottery and receive their results Sept. 16, and pieces that are not claimed by September 18 are distributed on a first-come first-serve basis. The students are trusted to look after these pieces for a year and return them the week before Spring finals week. So far, none of the art has been damaged or destroyed. Usually around 1000 students enter the lottery.

Right now, art lottery shopping is in full swing, with around 100 students per day previewing and pondering the works that are up for grabs at the Arts Center.

Last Wednesday, Tanmay Kumar ’12 was eyeing Doc Edgerton’s constructions that combine physical concepts with artistic grace. The prospective course 16 major said he would love to win one of them for himself this year: “They’re mechanical!” he said.

Edgerton’s and Warhol’s works are among the most popular, but pieces by other artists attract plenty of attention.

On Wednesday, a group of people clustered around Karl Gerstner’s “Color Sounds,” a series of geometric prints that appear to pop out from their frames.

List Visual Arts Center curator Bill Arning hopes students end up learning more about the art they live with for an entire year. He says that the response to the lottery has been great every year but he is often surprised by the pieces that aren’t picked up like the “Grid,” a simplistic and elegant piece by Brice Marden which wasn’t claimed last year.

Arning also suggests that students pick a piece that they don’t immediately like because they will, in time, see it differently. Maybe Ken M. Haggerty ’11 had heard Arning’s advice: an avid photographer, Haggerty was browsing for a piece to loan that is different from something he might create himself.

The Student Loan Art Program began in 1966 with donations from Catherine “Kay” Stratton (wife of former MIT President Julius Adams Stratton ’23) and former MIT President and Media Lab founder Jerome Wiesner. The collection grew again in 1977 when 100 prints were donated. Since then, the collection has added several works each year through donations and purchases.

Today the collection contains a wide variety of pieces from the cheerful to the morbid, classical to abstract.

Building W1, formerly Ashdown House, closed on August 15 as workers prepared to renovate it into an undergraduate dormitory. Actual construction will not begin until the building is inspected and cleaned up, according to Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ’75.

Currently, workers are checking the plumbing, electricity, heating, and ventilation systems, and old iron radiators are being removed, said Karen A. Nilsson, Senior Associate Dean for Residential Life. Workers are also looking through the building to see what needs updating, and inspecting exterior features such as the brick, mortar, and windows.

The detailed inspections are necessary since the building is over 100 years old. “We don’t know what people have done to it,” Clay said. “Somebody might have put up false walls or covered up fire escapes … we might have more room than we think,” he said.

There are still no official estimates of how much the renovations will cost, or when construction will start. After the design phase, the construction job will be put up for bid, according to Clay. “Nothing is finalized until we sign a contract,” he said.

Ashdown House was originally a hotel that opened in 1901, and was converted into graduate housing in the late 1930s. Plans to convert it into an undergraduate residence have been in the works for years. Finally, last spring and summer, the eleven students of the W1 founders group met with architects to advise them about the design.

Karl F. Wolff ‘11, interim president of NW35, said that students have been able to influence the design process. “We have given feedback, and we have been heard,” he said. “Most of the time [the administration] listens to it, but it will be a while before we see if they took it seriously.”

Student voices, however, have not always been heard. W1 will have a central dining hall, which students had protested.

“We pushed really hard for kitchens,” said Karl F. Wolff ‘11, interim president of NW35. But now, according to Nilsson, “That discussion has ended.”

Now the Phoenix Group, the fifty or so undergraduates currently living in NW35 who will eventually move to W1, is planning on writing the W1 constitution. They also hope to influence building modifications to preserve the positive aspects of NW35, including wide hallways and some painted walls.

DormCon president James Torres ‘10 is working to support the Phoenix Group, and looks forward to hearing from Wolff at the next DormCon meeting. He recognizes that they are “trying to kick-start a culture in a dorm” and can benefit from advice from other dorms, hearing what worked and what hasn’t.

“They’re new to this and other dorms can give them advice,” Torres said. “We want to help them get on their feet.”

The Phoenix Group will have to decide whether they want floor culture, a style adopted by Burton-Conner and East Campus, or dorm culture, like that of Baker and Simmons. Torres is pushing for floor culture in W1, but, he says, “As long as the founders group is happy, I would go along with it. … In the end, they are the ones who will be living there.”

The MIT alumna arrested mid-July in Afghanistan failed to appear for her indictment in federal court in Manhattan yesterday. Aafia Siddiqui ’95, refuses to be strip-searched, so she cannot make court appearances, receive visitors, or use the telephone. She has had minimal contact with her lawyers since mid-August.

On July 16, Siddiqui allegedly fired on U.S. personnel while being held in Afghan custody. According to the indictment, Siddiqui grabbed and fired an Army Officer’s assault rifle from behind a curtain in an interview room. The U.S. personnel were unaware of her presence, the indictment said; they fired back and injured her.

The grand jury indictment was filed on Tuesday, and largely resembles the criminal complaint released on Aug. 5. The indictment includes seven counts against Siddiqui: two counts of attempted murder, four counts of assault, and one count of discharge of a firearm.

Siddiqui’s lawyers have been unable to meet with her since early August, according to a letter to Judge Richard M. Berman from Elizabeth M. Fink, her New York court-appointed defender. The letter, dated Wednesday, states that Siddiqui, who is recovering from gunshot wounds, was “handcuffed behind her back, made to walk from the old building to the new building without her wheelchair, strip-searched, and placed in a cell” when visited by Pakistani diplomats on Aug. 8.

According to the letter, Siddiqui has refused all further strip searches, and has thus been denied visitations and phone calls to her family. “Siddiqui is completely isolated from counsel, psychological help and her family,” Fink writes.

Fink says that she believes Siddiqui “is a victim of torture, and that the strip searches exacerbate an existing acute psychological disorder.”

“I do not believe that Dr. Siddiqui is competent to participate in her own defense … Dr. Siddiqui requires further evaluation including examinations by medical professionals specializing in the treatment of torture victims,” Fink wrote.

Siddiqui’s Boston-area lawyer, Elaine Whitfield Sharp, says that she met with Siddiqui on Aug. 11 and spoke to her by phone on Aug. 14, Sharp continues to be very concerned about Siddiqui’s health, and says that the strip searches are particularly uncomfortable for her client because of her injuries, as well as her Muslim beliefs.

Siddiqui’s lawyers and the court-appointed psychologist have requested she be transferred to a “less restrictive setting where she would not be subjected to strip searches and where she could receive more extensive care.” Judge Berman set a deadline of Friday, Sept. 12 for the defense to brief this issue, Wednesday Sept. 17 for the prosecution, with the next court appearance on Monday, Sept. 22.

The text of the indictment carried additional details about Siddiqui’s arrest on July 17. It claims Siddiqui carried handwritten notes that referred to a “mass casualty attack” and mentioned U.S. locations like the Empire State Building and Brooklyn Bridge. The indictment also alleges Siddiqui carried notes on “destroying reconnaissance drones,” and use of gliders and underwater bombs.

When Siddiqui was arrested on July 17, an eleven-year-old boy was arrested with her, but his identity was unclear. On Aug. 22, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Garcia wrote to Siddiqui’s lawyer indicating that preliminary DNA analysis of the boy was consistent with him being her son.

Fink’s letter from Wednesday continues to support the claim that Siddiqui was held by the United States following her 2003 disappearance. Fink wrote that The Washington Post told her of “reliable sources in both the American and Pakistani government who have verified” that Siddiqui was held, first by Pakistani intelligence in 2003, and subsequently by the CIA. The Post declined to comment.

MIT will no longer consult students before releasing their birth dates or information about their awards or honors, though it will not publish this information in directories, Chancellor Phillip L. Clay PhD ’75 announced in an e-mail to students on Aug. 25.

Students may prevent MIT from disclosing any personal information by filing a Request to Suppress Directory Information, available at http://web.mit.edu/registrar/www/forms/out_out.pdf. Forms should be dropped off today in room 5-111.

The change in Student Information Policy follows a proposal discussed by Dean for Undergraduate Education Daniel E. Hastings PhD ’80 at a meeting with undergraduates on May 1.

—Mengjie Ding

Compiled by Arkajit Dey, Natasha Plotkin, and Marissa Vogt.

Eli and Edythe Broad, who are giving away a multibillion-dollar fortune made in real estate and insurance, announced on Thursday their biggest gift so far, a $400 million donation to the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.

The institute works to discover genetic links to major diseases and determine the molecular causes of disease, which could lead to new ways to diagnose and prevent illnesses and develop medicines.

The money will be managed by Harvard University’s vaunted investment unit with the goal of turning it into a $1 billion endowment that will ensure the institute’s future and make it one of the wealthiest scientific research centers in the world.

“To me, the story isn’t about our gift,” Broad said in an interview, “but about taking an experiment that started just four years ago and making it permanent with an endowment that will enable it to continue to conduct science in a very different and new way.”

The Broad Institute is a rare joint effort between two fiercely competitive institutions, Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While Broad has its own scientists, most of the researchers working there are linked to other institutions around the world.

Broad offers them a place to collaborate while maintaining their positions elsewhere and draws together teams of mathematicians, engineers, physicists and scientists from other disciplines to work toward common goals.

“This idea of breaking down the barriers so that scientists view Broad as a sort of free-trade zone for research has been fantastic,” said Eric S. Lander, the founding director of the institute and a leader of the Human Genome Project, which sequenced the human genome.

David Baltimore ’61, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist who introduced the Broads to Lander, said that such a structure was less cumbersome than the traditional model of a research institution housed at a university.

“The institute is able to pay higher salaries to people whose jobs are technical rather than academic, for instance, which is something universities can’t do very easily,” Baltimore said.

The institute also generates a great deal of intellectual property as a result of its research, which is easier to manage within an independent organization, Baltimore said.

The Broads have previously given the institute $200 million, money that Eli Broad said he regarded as venture capital to determine whether the collaborative model would produce significant results.

At the outset, Harvard and MIT each also contributed $100 million, and the institute has attracted gifts of the same size from the Starr Foundation, the philanthropic arm of American International Group, the insurance giant; and the Stanley Medical Research Institute, founded by Theodore and Vada Stanley, who are giving away a fortune made through sales of collectibles.

The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and the Prostate Cancer Foundation have also financed the institute’s work.

“That was the greatest philanthropic investment we ever made,” Eli Broad said of the initial two gifts he and his wife made in 2004 and 2005.

He cited the institute’s work on the Connectivity Map, a database that can be used to draw connections between genes involved in diseases and various drug therapies, as well as the institute’s discoveries of genes associated with diseases like diabetes, Crohn’s and irritable bowel syndrome.

For instance, the institute’s Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research led a team of scientists that identified the first specific genetic links to schizophrenia, and the center has been involved in similar breakthroughs related to bipolar disease and autism.

“My rough estimate is that a scientific paper emerges about once every three days from collaborations that have come out of this institute,” Lander said.

Two weeks ago, The Tech reported that in Google Maps, the country of Georgia was a blank slate. As of Wednesday, Sept. 3, Google has added cities for the countries of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

— John A. Hawkinson

Fencing came so easily to Eric Sollee that he was elected captain of Harvard’s freshman squad not long after picking up the sport, and went on to become an All-American, placing fifth in the NCAA championships in 1952.

Then one day a friend asked him to stop by the Carroll Center for the Blind in Newton and take on some sightless opponents.

“Eric, wearing a blindfold, lost all three bouts to the blind students,” the center said in a tribute on its website, “and was greatly intrigued by their ability and the value of fencing to the rehabilitation training of persons who are blind.”

Beginning in the late 1960s, Mr. Sollee started teaching the blind to fence at the Carroll Center.

As a fencer and a teacher, he won matches around the world and coached at MIT and Harvard.

Mr. Sollee died June 30 in Wentworth-Douglass Hospital, not far from his Dover, N.H., home.

He was 82 and previously had lived in Newton for more than four decades.

“Eric’s enthusiasm is infectious, it’s absolutely great,” Rabih Dow, rehabilitation director at the Carroll Center, told the Globe in 2005. “His understanding of the application of fencing skills to orientation for the blind is quite deep; he knows it well. He’s a fantastic coach, there’s no question about it. Students worship this guy.”

And Mr. Sollee worshiped fencing, a sport to which he was introduced while serving in the Army.

“He picked up fencing from this guy who he was trying to teach boxing to,” Alison Sollee of Durham, N.H., said of her father. “This guy knew some fencing skills and taught them to my father, and that became the love of his life - except for my mother.”

At Harvard, from which he graduated in 1952, Mr. Sollee also was captain of the varsity squad as a senior.

In one American Fencing League Association tournament, he won all three divisions - foil, epee, and saber - and he also won the Greater Boston Open Foils Championship, according to the Harvard Varsity Club website. Mr. Sollee was inducted into the club’s hall of fame in 1999.

While he knew from the outset that fencing was his calling, it took a while before he turned his pastime into a full-time pursuit.

“I huckstered pharmaceuticals and investments abroad and domestically for 22 years after graduating,” he wrote in the 50th anniversary report of his Harvard class. “When my wife, Natalie, earned a PhD in psychology and joined Children’s Hospital, we became a two-income family. I used the opportunity to switch my work to fencing for a living - teaching and coaching, that is.”

Having already begun teaching blind students to fence at the Carroll Center, Mr. Sollee became head fencing coach at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1970s, launching a women’s program soon after.

He coached until the early 1990s and counted among his students Johan Harmenberg, who went on to win a gold medal in the 1980 Olympics.

Sometimes, he instructed his college varsity players to don blindfolds and fence in matches against blind students from the Carroll Center.

And like their coach had years earlier, the college team members often were outmatched by the sightless fencers.

Eric Tennyson Sollee was born in Los Angeles.

His father was a Norwegian immigrant and his mother was from the Philippines. During World War II, the family was in his mother’s country, where his father was working as an engineer when the Japanese army began placing US citizens in the Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila.

At 14, Mr. Sollee was listed as a child traveling with his father, who had a US passport, so they were held in the camp.

His sister was listed on the Filipino passport of their mother, and the two of them waited in the Philippines until the family was reunited when the war ended.

The Sollees moved to Newton, where Mr. Sollee graduated from high school.

After serving in the Army to take advantage of the GI Bill, which paid for his college expenses, he went to Harvard. There he met Natalie Dosick, a student at Radcliffe College.

“They were both English majors and they both loved literature,” their daughter said. “In their older years, they would read Shakespeare aloud together.”

Athletic in a number of pursuits, Mr. Sollee noted in the 10th anniversary report of his Harvard class that he also enjoyed “skin diving, water skiing, and fishing in the reefs that abound in the seven thousand islands of the Philippines.”

Sen. John McCain, the former prisoner of war whose bid for the White House appeared in complete collapse just one year ago, accepted the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday with a pledge to move the nation beyond “partisan rancor” and narrow self-interest. His speech came at the end of a convention marked by some blistering attacks on his opponent, Sen. Barack Obama.

Standing in the center of an arena here, surrounded by thousands of cheering Republican delegates, McCain firmly signaled that he intended to seize the mantle of change Obama claimed in his own unlikely bid for his party’s nomination.

McCain suggested that his choice of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska as his running mate gave him the license to run as an outsider against Washington, even though McCain has served in Congress for more than 25 years.

“Let me offer an advance warning to the old, big-spending, do-nothing, me-first-country-second Washington crowd: Change is coming,” McCain said in remarks prepared for delivery.

With his speech, McCain laid out the broad outlines of his general election campaign. He sought to move from a convention marked by an intense effort to reassure the party base to an appeal to a broader general election electorate that polling suggests has turned sharply on Republicans and President Bush.

To that end, McCain returned to what has been his signature theme as a presidential candidate, including in his unsuccessful 2000 campaign: that he is a politician prepared to defy his own party.

“The constant partisan rancor that stops us from solving these problems isn’t a cause, it’s a symptom,” he said. “It’s what happens when people go to Washington to work for themselves and not you. Again and again, I’ve worked with members of both parties to fix problems that need to be fixed. That’s how I will govern as president.”

McCain defined bipartisanship as not only working with the opposite party but being prepared to work against his own party, even though he is aligned with Bush on two of the biggest issues facing the country: the Iraq war and the economy. That pledge of political independence and bipartisanship could prove especially valuable at a time when Republican party is so unpopular.

It also permitted him to reprise what has been a central line of attack against Obama, the Democratic nominee, at a convention whose motto is “country first”: that his opponent has put his political interests ahead of those of those of the country.

“I will reach out my hand to anyone to help me get this country moving again,” McCain said. “I have that record and the scars to prove it. Sen. Obama does not.”

He invoked a word — maverick — that has sought to associate himself with over the years.

“You know, I’ve been called a maverick, someone who marches to the beat of his own drum,” he said. “Sometimes it’s meant as a compliment and sometimes it’s not. What it really means is I understand who I work for. I don’t work for a party. I don’t work for a special interest. I don’t work for myself. I work for you.”

Jack Abramoff, the onetime flamboyant lobbyist who amassed a fortune by showering gifts on congressional and executive branch officials while bilking Indian tribes of millions of dollars, was sentenced on Thursday to four years in prison.

Judge Ellen S. Huvelle of federal district court here ordered that Abramoff serve the time for corruption and tax offenses uncovered by an influence-peddling investigation that touched Republican leaders in Congress and midlevel officials in the Bush administration, among others. Huvelle said that Abramoff had engaged in “a consistent course of corrupt conduct.”

Abramoff, who came to symbolize an out-of-control, even brazen style of courting government officials, told Huvelle he had since realized how far he had stepped over the bounds of what was permissible. Wearing a worn brown T-shirt, pants with an elastic waistband and a Jewish skullcap, he apologized profusely and in a quavering voice said he was begging for mercy. “I have fallen into an abyss,” he said. “My name is the butt of a joke.”

The sentencing process was unusual and complicated by many factors. Prosecutors had asked Huvelle to sentence Abramoff to a term less than the approximately 11 years allowed by federal sentencing guidelines to reflect his extensive cooperation with investigators.

Although the Justice Department typically exhorts judges to hand down stiff sentences, a prosecutor, Mary K. Butler, argued vigorously for a reduced jail term to encourage other criminals to cooperate in exchange for a lenient sentence.

Abramoff, Butler said, had contributed substantially to the conviction of about 10 officials, including a member of Congress, Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio. “We need to send a message to our other cooperators,” Butler said.

Huvelle said she had recognized Abramoff’s cooperation by sharply reducing his sentence. But she noted the corrosive effect of his behavior on public trust in government and, in the end, sentenced him to nine months longer than the 39-month sentence the government had sought. Abramoff, who is described by his lawyers as penniless, still owes about $15 million in restitution to various Indian tribes.

Abramoff has served about two years of a separate sentence in an unrelated fraud case in Florida involving cruise ships. In all, Abramoff will serve about six years in prison on both convictions.

Mayor Kwame M. Kilpatrick pleaded guilty to felony charges here on Thursday and agreed to resign from office and serve 120 days in jail, ending eight months of political turmoil but also sparking a new era of uncertainty for the city.

After the agreement, Gov. Jennifer M. Granholm of Michigan suspended her hearing into whether to remove Kilpatrick for misconduct, relieving her of being in the awkward position of possibly ousting the mayor, a fellow Democrat, from office.

“It is my profound hope that we can now write a new history for this great but embattled city and that the citizens of Detroit begin the healing process to move forward,” she said. But even as the fate of Kilpatrick became clear on Thursday, a new layer of potential pitfalls came into view.

The city council that will now try to bring stability to the nation’s 11th largest city is known for its volatility. Its two top leaders, Kenneth V. Cockrel Jr., the council president who will now be interim mayor, and Monica Conyers, who will become president of the council, were recently involved in a public shouting match that has become a running joke.

And some members of the council are under federal investigation for possibly taking payoffs before approving a multi-million-dollar sewage contract.

“Moving forward will require all of us to put aside the anger and bitterness of the past few months and heal as a community,” said Cockrel, 42.

Cockrel, whose father, a civil rights activist, died in 1989 before he could achieve his own mayoral aspirations and whose stepmother is a current council member, said that chief among his responsibilities will be “restoring the credibility of not only the mayor but also of the city of Detroit.”

In an evening address from his office, an upbeat Kilpatrick took a parting swipe at Granholm. He also acknowledged what he called his “poor judgment,” asked the city to throw its support behind Cockrel and gave a litany of his achievements.

The Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 345 points on Thursday on a confluence of poor news about the economy, although investors could not pin the drop on any overriding reason.

Reports showed that retail sales were weak in August, just as more Americans filed for unemployment benefits. Anxiety lingered about a global slowdown. Fears of another financial crisis refused to go away.

None of the news came as a shock to Wall Street. So what pushed the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index down 3 percent, its worst daily performance in three months?

“Boy, it’s hard to say,” Douglas M. Peta, a market strategist at J&W Seligman & Co., said after the market’s close. “All of us were scratching our heads. Why today?”

Explanations were proffered, but rarely proved. Speculation ran rampant that some major hedge funds were rapidly selling off their assets; Atticus Capital, a $14 billion hedge fund based in New York, was forced to issue a statement denying that it was shutting down.

Two prominent regional banks, National City and First Horizon, had their credit ratings slashed by S&P on concerns about credit and losses related to subprime mortgages. Bill Gross, the head of Pacific Investment Management, said banks were at risk of a coming “financial tsunami.”

The Labor Department reported that the number of Americans who filed initial claims for unemployment benefits last week rose to 444,000, near a five-year high. And retailers said that sales were weak in August, as consumers opted to shop at discount stores. The reports suggested that profits at many American retailers would continue to fall even as gas prices come down.

By the end of the session, the S&P 500, the broadest measure of the American stock market, had sank back into a bear market. The Nasdaq composite index lost 3.2 percent.

A Chinese government committee said Thursday that a rush to build schools during the country’s recent economic boom might have led to shoddy construction that resulted in the deaths of thousands of students during a devastating earthquake in May.

The statement by Ma Zongjin, the chairman of an official committee of experts assessing damage from the May 12 earthquake, is the first time that a representative of the Chinese government has acknowledged that poor construction may have led to the collapses. Until now, officials in Beijing and in southwest China’s Sichuan province, which suffered the most damage, had said the sheer force of the 7.9-magnitude quake caused the collapses.

The school collapses have become the most politically sensitive issue to emerge in the aftermath of the earthquake. This summer, grieving parents held street protests to challenge local governments and demand that officials conduct proper investigations into construction quality. Local officials felt so threatened by the parents that they ordered riot police to break up protests — policemen even dragged away crying mothers — and offered the parents compensation money in exchange for them dropping their demands.

As Tropical Storm Hanna surged toward the Atlantic Coast on Thursday, the authorities declared states of emergency in Virginia and North Carolina and recommended evacuation from some coastal regions of South Carolina.

The storm could escalate into a hurricane before making landfall in South Carolina or North Carolina on Saturday morning, forecasters said. It slammed the Bahamas with 65 mph winds and heavy rain on Thursday after killing more than 60 people in Haiti.

“It now appears Hanna will be a Category 1 hurricane when it hits the North Carolina coast early Saturday morning,” Gov. Michael F. Easley of North Carolina said in statement. “Since the exact path is uncertain, everyone who lives in the coastal counties needs to be ready.”

In the storm’s wake, the season’s next storm, Hurricane Ike, could deliver an even heavier blow, forecasters said. The storm, currently a Category 4 hurricane with 135 mph winds, is churning across the Atlantic and could hit the Bahamas by Sunday before turning northwest toward Florida, the National Hurricane Center said.

Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, is set to become president on Saturday, an accidental ascent for a man known more as a wheeler-dealer than a leader. He will start his tenure burdened by a history of corruption allegations that cloud his reputation even as they remain unproved.

Though he has won the reluctant support of the Bush administration, which views him as a willing partner in the campaign against terrorism, Zardari will assume the presidency with what many consider untested governing skills as a tough Taliban insurgency threatens the very fabric of the nuclear-armed state of 165 million people.

It remains to be seen how forcefully he will act against militants in the face of Pakistani public opposition to American pressure. Nor is it clear how much influence he exerts over the still powerful military and the nation’s premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence.

Vice President Dick Cheney flew here on Thursday to deliver a forceful American pledge to rebuild Georgia and its economy, to preserve its sovereignty and its territory and to bring it into the NATO alliance in defiance of Russia.

Cheney spent only four and a half hours in Georgia, but the visit included a strong rebuke to Russia’s behavior and a highly symbolic visit to U.S. troops unloading humanitarian supplies at the airport here within sight of an airplane factory that Russian bombs had damaged.

He arrived a day after the United States pledged $1 billion to help Georgia recover from its defeat by Russia’s armed forces, which continue to control two breakaway regions, as well as buffer zones in Georgia.

Standing beside President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, Cheney said that the United States had strongly supported Georgia since protests in 2003 ushered a democratic government to power and that it would continue to do so despite Russia’s proclamations that Saakashvili’s government was illegitimate.

“I assured the president as well of my country’s strong commitment to Georgia’s territorial integrity,” Cheney said after meeting with Saakashvili, without aides, for more than an hour, twice the scheduled time. “Georgia has that right, just as it has the right to build stronger ties to friends in Europe and across the Atlantic.”

The decline in oil prices has been a relief for consumers and a rare piece of positive news in a bleak economic landscape. But for oil producers that have grown accustomed to rising revenue, falling prices are turning into a cause for concern, if not quite panic.

Oil prices have dropped by a third in seven weeks and appear to be headed below the symbolic $100-a-barrel threshold for the first time since March. Though oil remains expensive by historical standards, the speed of the decline is prompting some soul-searching within the OPEC cartel.

Venezuela and Iran, the leading price hawks in the group, said they did not want oil to fall below $100, a price Iran’s oil minister recently said was a “minimum.” Both countries signaled that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries needed to reduce output to bolster prices.

Other OPEC members, like Algeria and Kuwait, fear that high energy costs might jeopardize their exports as the global economy slows. Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, has not specified a price it considers fair, though King Abdullah has said that $100 was too high.

Flourishing tropical activity in the Atlantic basin over the past week has yielded a trio of storms: Tropical Storm Hanna, poised to become a hurricane and affect Boston Saturday night into Sunday, category 4 Hurricane Ike over the central Atlantic, and minimal Tropical Storm Josephine over the eastern Atlantic. Ike could potentially affect the east coast of the U.S. sometime during the middle of next week, but the main story right now is Hanna, packing sustained winds of up to 70 mph. Its projected path and intensity has the storm grazing the Carolinas as a category 1 hurricane early Saturday and potentially making a second landfall over southern New England as a tropical storm early Sunday morning.

Moisture associated with Hanna will begin to arrive tonight into tomorrow morning. A brief break from the rain may occur during the afternoon hours tomorrow, only to be followed by more heavy rain and wind directly associated with Hanna during the overnight hours. Hanna will quickly depart, and any precipitation should end by noon Sunday. Monday looks to be a gorgeous day with sunny skies and pleasant temperatures.

Extended Forecast

Today: Sunny and humid, highs in the mid 80s°F (30°C).

Tonight: Increasing cloudiness with rain late. Lows near 65°F (18°C).

Saturday: Periods or rain, especially in the morning and toward evening. Highs near 75°F (24°C).

Saturday night: Minimal tropical storm conditions possible. Windy with heavy rain and lows near 65°F (18°C). Winds could gust over 50 mph.

Sunday: Improving conditions. Rain possible early, with clearing skies later in the day. Highs near 75°F (24°C).

On August 29th, in a historic move that surprised pundits, Senator John McCain announced his selection of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin (pronounced PAY-lin, not PAH-lin) for his vice presidential running mate. The reaction from the left was immediate and visceral; feminists claimed the choice was patronizing, liberal bloggers sardonically thanked McCain for the giving them the election and the Obama campaign lashed out, calling the governor inexperienced and a pawn of Big Oil.

These criticisms have missed the point entirely. Palin was not chosen because of her gender or conservatism — for that McCain could have easily turned to Kay Bailey Hutchinson or Tim Pawlenty — she was chosen because she is a reformer with considerable upside among blue-collar voters.

As a Washington outsider who has built her political career by fighting nepotism, corruption, and corporate influence in her home state, she reinforces Senator McCain’s strained image as a party maverick. As a hockey-mom with a unionized commercial fisherman for a husband, she lends John McCain a populist appeal that his military service alone couldn’t provide.

She strengthens John McCain’s claim that as president he will end the cronyism and excess that have characterized the past seven years. Her presence on the ticket undermines the catcalls from the Obama camp that a McCain presidency would be Bush’s third term, and instead she offers John McCain the chance to recast the Republican brand, to run as a new kind of Republican, to remake his party as the representatives of the little man, standing against the Ted Stevenses, Jack Abramoffs, and the K Street politics that have poisoned both Democrats and Republicans.

In an election year destined to reward the candidate that can assume the mantle of change, Palin’s reform credentials will provide McCain the ability to position himself as a transitional politician, cleaning house and pushing his party to embrace new policies and demographics.

Along the way it doesn’t hurt that Palin is a woman, but her gender alone will be insufficient to win over a significant fraction of female voters. However, if the Obama camp is not careful, if their criticism of the governor is too strident, they’ll risk igniting the identity politics that would lead former Clintonistas to vote Republican. Some recent attacks, such as complaining that Palin won’t have the ability to care for her family and be vice president at the same time are particularly bone-headed in that they’re practically tailor-made to provoke the sort of debate on gender that Obama does not want.

Other attacks, such as critiquing the governor’s relative newness to politics, have merit, but are full of danger as well. Calling out Palin’s light resume not only gives the McCain camp opportunity to fire shots back on Obama’s inexperience, but also allows them to make sly accusations of a double standard at work. If Sarah Palin is just as seasoned as Barack Obama, then the complaints about her experience really boil down to Obama having the “look” of a president and Palin having the “look” of a beauty queen. One can imagine John McCain, with feigned indignation, wondering aloud to reporters in the back of his campaign bus why Barack Obama believes only men have the necessary gravitas to be president.

The real minefield will be the vice-presidential debate on October 2nd, when the belligerent and gaffe-prone Biden will square off against the eye-catching Alaskan governor. If the Delaware senator manages to put his foot in his mouth — as was his wont during the primaries — and says something chauvinistic, there is a real risk that Hillary PUMAs (Party Unity My A**) will use it as their excuse to stay home during the election, or worse, vote Republican.

Constitutionally the VP’s role may be to assume the office of the presidency in the event of the current office-holder being incapacitated, but on the campaign trail the most important role of the veep is that of attack dog, lobbing mud at the opposing candidates while the top of the ticket does his damnedest to appear above the fray. Palin is a skilled political mind, and while playing negative has not been her modus operandi in Alaskan politics, her recent speech at the Republican National Convention demonstrates that she is more than qualified to go on the attack.

In the coming months, expect the governor to draw some unflattering comparisons between herself and the would-be Democratic president. She, the red-blooded, blue-collared, selfless mother of five; He, the elitist, unpatriotic, Ivy-League egoist. She, apple pie and motherhood; He, arugula and self-promotion. She, the Discovery Channel’s “The Most Dangerous Catch”; He, the Home Box Office’s “The Wire.” She, Bruce Springstein; He, Britney Spears. Throw in Palin in a Chevy truck and play some Lee Greenwood in the background and the campaign ads write themselves.

To those who see American politics divided along an axis of Liberal-Moderate-Conservative, the Palin choice does not make sense. John McCain is a rare candidate who has a legitimate chance at courting the political center: why throw it away by choosing a conservative vice president? The answer is that the left-right political spectrum misses important details in how Americans define themselves politically.

“Moderates” should be viewed not as the ONLY swing group but as one swing group among many, including blue collar working whites, hispanics, catholics, and secular voters. Mitt Romney, Joe Lieberman, and Tim Pawlenty may have patched holes in the McCain candidacy, but would have done little to expand the Republican party into these growing swing demographics.

McCain’s selection of governor Sarah Palin is not a cheap gimmick or desperate long shot gamble. This represents a long awaited fundamental shift in the Republican’s long-term electoral strategy, and if the Democrats do not watch themselves, it is a shift that could pay dividends very quickly.

Keith Yost is a graduate student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Engineering Systems Division.

For the seventh year in a row, the MIT women’s volleyball team kicked off its season by winning the Gordon College Invitational. The Engineers defeated the host Fighting Scots (25-17, 19-25, 23-25, 25-17, 15-13), Keene State College (25-13, 19-25, 25-21, 25-15), and Endicott College (25-22, 25-16, 25-19) to begin their campaign with a 3-0 record. Alexandra T. May ’10 was named the Tournament MVP while Lindsay E. Hunting ’09 was named to the All-Tournament Team.

Against Gordon, Kelly E. Schulte ’12 tallied 14 digs, 13 kills, four aces, and four blocks. May posted 18 kills and 11 digs as Hunting contributed 14 digs. Jennifer Li ’11 and Katrina M. Ellison ’10 bolstered MIT’s attack with eight and six kills, respectively. Catherine Melnikow ’10 finished with 34 assists, seven digs, four aces, and three blocks.

Against Keene State, Schulte powered the Engineers’ front row with 15 kills to go along with nine digs. May had 16 digs and seven kills as Ellison and Barden E. Cleeland ’10 each added four kills and three blocks. Melnikow registered 23 assists and five aces while Hunting had 12 digs and three aces. Li bolstered MIT’s defense with five blocks.

May had a solid outing against Endicott, picking up 12 kills, 10 digs, and three aces as Li recorded 10 kills, including a .500 hitting percentage, and four blocks. Hunting racked up 17 digs while Allison E. Hamilos ’12 posted seven digs, six kills, and three aces. Melnikow tallied 30 assists, eight digs, and three aces as Cleeland rounded out the front row with seven kills and three blocks.

MIT continued their streak by sweeping Rhode Island College 25-11, 25-9, 25-22 on Wednesday.

The MIT men’s soccer team secured a 4-1 victory over the host Endicott College Gulls on Tuesday night thanks to a trio of second-half goals. Zachary E. Kabelac ’12 paced the Engineers’ balanced attack with two assists while four different players found the back of the net to score. Thomas S. Caldwell ’09 collected three saves in goal.

Christian W. Therkelsen ’11 broke up a scoreless game at the 16:18 mark when he collected a through-ball from Kabelac and beat the Gulls’ goalie in a one-on-one situation. Endicott tallied the equalizer 14 seconds later as Benjamin Graves capitalized on a cross from TJ Sapienza. The deadlock would hold for the remainder of the first half.

MIT ended the defensive battle after 5:54 had passed in the second half as Peter Bojo ’11 corralled Kabelac’s shot off the post and buried a quick strike for what proved to be the game-winner. David M. Nole ’09 gave the Engineers some breathing room in the 82nd minute with a header to the right of the goalie following a cross from Neil S. Zimmerman ’09. MIT capped the scoring with 1:26 remaining in regulation. Tristan. G. Kooistra ’09 sent a cross into the box which was headed by Kevin L. Chou ’11 to the back right corner of the net.

MIT earned its first win of the campaign with a 1-0 decision over Simmons College. Edith R. Reshef ’11 provided the lone marker in Wednesday’s non-conference match as the Engineers rebounded from their 4-0 defeat by Brandeis University on Saturday.

Saturday’s match marked the Brandeis Judges’ second straight season-opening win over MIT. Izabella Miranda tallied a goal and an assist coming off the bench for the Judges, while MIT’s Stephanie V. Brenman ’09 collected three saves for the Engineers.

The Engineers welcomed back forward Jean E. Theurer ’10, who missed the season-opener recovering from illness. Theurer’s impact was immediate as she generated three scoring chances in the first 10 minutes of the game. Her first opportunity at the net came on a break-away attempt just four minutes into the match, but Theurer’s shot from 10 yards out hit the top of the cross bar. Simmons keeper Rachel Elliot made two strong saves in the same stretch to keep the Engineers off the board.

MIT controlled the play for most of the contest, outshooting the Sharks 12-3. After a scoreless first half, the Engineers put a score on the board early in the second half. Separating from the Simmons defense, Theurer sprinted toward the goal from the right side of the post before sliding the ball over to Reshef, who tapped in the eventual game-winner in the 50th minute.

MIT’s defense yielded zero shots in the second half while senior Brenman collected three saves en route to the shutout. Elliot stopped seven shots in a losing effort for Simmons.

The New England College Pilgrims defeated MIT 5-1 in non-conference field hockey action on Saturday as Jodie Dresser led a balanced scoring attack. Virginia L. Nicholson ’12 provided the lone goal for the Engineers in her intercollegiate debut.

Dresser put NEC on the board 12 minutes into the contest when she scored off a feed from Heather DiNapoli. DiNapoli added to the total 11 minutes later, scoring on a rebound in front of the net. Sarah Feugill extended the Pilgrims’ lead to 3-0 just three minutes later, converting a pass from Dresser. Ashley Simula would give the Pilgrims a 4-0 halftime advantage when she put home an unassisted goal in the 31st minute. NEC controlled much of the first half, outshooting MIT 16-1.

Marissa Ayotte scored to make it 5-0 less than three minutes into the second half. MIT would finally get on the board in the 61st minute as Nicholson put home a rebound off one of the Engineers’ 11 shots in the second-half. MIT had a chance to narrow the margin on a penalty stroke in the final minute, but was unable to convert.

Keri A. Dixon ’12 collected 12 saves for the Engineers in her debut in net, while Mary Roux stopped eight shots for NEC.

MIT now sets off on a six game road trip, not returning home until Friday, Sept. 19.

While the age of fairy tales is all but a distant memory for most of us, the lure of the “happily ever-after” lands is all too strong to resist, irrespective of age. Add in some exquisitely crafted music and a few moralizing twists, and there is no wonder why Stephen Sondheim’s highly acclaimed musical “Into the Woods” never fails to deliver unforgettable experiences for audiences of all ages. After spending most of the summer working on this exciting yet challenging musical, MTG is ready bedazzle you with a journey “Into the Woods” that will surely meet all expectations.

“Into the Woods” is more than a collection of fairy tales. In fact, its plot will surely pique the interest of MIT folk, as it is essentially lifted off of a statistics problem set: how many fairy tales can you tell simultaneously using the minimum number of characters, so that each tale reaches its intended conclusion? The answer might vary, but the audience will surely recognize the well-known story lines of Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, Jack and the Beanstalk, and Rapunzel, all cleverly intertwined in such a way that no story would work without the others. Yet, since fairly tales are mostly for kids, “Into the Woods” goes a step further, or as it is the case here, a whole act further to explore what happens beyond the “ever after.” As the plot permeates with realism, it becomes darker, starting to mirror ordinary life and hence adding significant depth to the overall tale.

Although the clever plot is enough of a selling point, the true magic of “Into the Woods” lies in its music. Sondheim lives up to his status as one of the “greatest artists in the American musical theatre” (NY Times) by penning an exquisitely intricate and charming score paired up with deliciously funny lyrics. Although challenging to perform, the music feels very accessible to the audience, in great part due to Sondheim’s masterful songwriting skills and a very subtle orchestration.

MTG’s production of “Into the Woods,” aptly directed by Matthew Stern ’08, was delectable from start to finish. The singing was very good, the acting even better, and the overall comic element spectacular. Since the musical involves so many hilarious punch lines, the audience had a hard time refraining from laughter, which in turn had a catalytic effect on the singers, allowing them to act and sing more freely, becoming, as the parts required, even funnier. Contributing a great deal to the success of the production was the smooth stage work. Using a combination of cleverly engineered rotating sets, and a judicious use of space, MTG was able to both convey the depth of the woods and keep up with the blazingly fast pace of the story in the space-stingy Little Kresge. More over, the well chosen props and costumes enhanced significantly the humor of the scenes.

The cast did a wonderful job bringing this production to life. Featuring great vocal talents and natural stage presence, the singers continuously engaged the audience both in the comedic moments and in the more soulful solo or duet arias. The main characters, the baker (J. Michael Spencer) and his wife (Kerry Brooke Steere) were delightful as a couple, and especially moving when singing their duet “It takes two,” where they vow not to give up on their hopes of breaking the spell that keeps them infertile. Steere also showed tremendous acting skills portraying the inner struggle of the baker’s wife, who still dreams of Prince Charming, even though she is married and wishing for a child.

One of the funniest characters in the show, the Little Red Riding Hood was admirably portrayed by Karen Hart ’11. Hart does such a tremendous job, both singing and acting that it almost feels this part was written for her. Her nemesis, the wolf, is memorably portrayed by Edmund W. Golaski ’99, who also doubles as Prince Charming. In both roles, Golaski showcases an excellent voice full of nuance, either as the wolf dreaming of a copious meal (“Hello, little girl”) or joining his brother Prince Charming (Luis Loya ’06) in a silly, yet engaging duet “Agony.”

Jack (Timothy Wilfgong) is another notable part that is very well acted. Wilfgong perfectly captures the tormented world view of the somewhat slow lad who suddenly runs into fortune, highlighting his unusual affection for his old cow in the hearfelt aria “I guess this is goodbye.” Nicole O’Keeffe ’09 shines as Jack’s mother, delivering the part with a lot of energy.

Cinderella and her family are also amazingly entertaining. Carrie Lee ’10 does admirably impersonating the cleaning girl, especially through her remarkable vocal talents. Cinderella’s sisters are outright hilarious in every one of their scenes, owing to the exuberant performances of Yunji Wu ’09 and Megan Rexius, always energetically guided (even literally) by their snobbish mother (Amelia Thomas).

In another story, we hear the ensnaring humming of Rapunzel (Lauren Bakis) locked in the doorless tower by her overprotecting mother and witch (Mia Shandell ’10). While Bakis’ voice is delightful, Shandell outdoes herself in some spectacular arias. Handling superbly what is likely the most challenging part in the musical, as a witch in her quest for youth and beauty, Shandell does it all and very well: she raps, she dances, she curses, she screams and even soulfully laments her condition while trying to keep her daughter with her (“Stay with me”).

Finally, the show would not be complete without a story teller. Dave Berger takes on the part with great aplomb, while also doubling as the mysterious man — a character in charge of making sure the fairy tales follow their proper course. Berger is incredibly hilarious in his later role, while also displaying a natural ability to switch between the roles with great ease.

Overall, MTG tackled brilliantly Sondheim’s challenging masterpiece, delivering a very engaging, witty performance. “Into the Woods” is more than a story, it’s an adventure that will make you laugh very hard and then it’ll make you think. Go and watch it.