Collegiate Times

As Virginia Tech mourns the loss of J.J. Stinson, the community is welcome to the following events to remember and reflect, according to the Newman Community website. Memories can also shared on their website.

Tonight at 8:00 p.m

The Bishop Ireton High School Alumni at Virginia Tech invite the community to the Pylons to share memories and prayers.

Friday, April 13 at 5:30 p.m.

All are welcome to reflect in the Hilcrest Dining Room. Staff from Cook Counseling Center and Housing and Residence Life will be available for additional support.

Tuesday, April 17 at 6:00 p.m.

The Newman Community is hosting a memorial service at War Memorial Chapel.

At 6:30 p.m., Bishop Ireton High school in Alexandria, Va. will host a prayer service for J.J. Stinson, a Virginia Tech student who died earlier this week. 

The service will be held in the auditorium, according to Mary Kelly, Bishop Ireton’s director of communication.  It will include prayers, music and a slideshow.

The Facebook page for the event says about 300 people are planning on attending, but Kelly expects the number to be higher.

Stinson graduated from Bishop Ireton in 2010. He was part of the National Honors Society and received the Presidential Award for Academics. The school also sent him to the Salesian Leadership camp in Brooklyn, Mich., which recognizes student leaders and helps them cultivate their skills.

Stinson was a second-year student and academic junior studying philosophy at Tech.

Kalanithy Vairavamoorthy, professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of South Florida, will be the inaugural speaker for the G.V. Loganathan Lecture Series, according to an announcement from the department of civil and environmental engineering.

His lecture, titled “Opportunities for Reinventing Urban Water Management in Cities of the Future,” will take place at Owens Hall Banquet Room Friday, April 6 at 4 pm.

Vairavamoorthy is internationally-recognized for his knowledge on urban water issues. Throughout his career, he has worked with UNESCO and the European Union to create clean and sustainable water and sanitation systems. He has also researched the future of sustainable water systems for cities and water issues affected by climate change in urban areas. He currently directs the University of Florida, Patel School of Global Sustainability.

Today is the last day to vote for Virginia Tech to win the “Tree Campus USA Arbor Day Events Contest.” Ten colleges are in the running to win $1,000 for trees to plant around campus. The contest is sponsored by The National Arbor Day Foundation.

Last year Tech won the competition and used the funds to purchase trees that were planted on campus during Earth Week 2011.

As of Tuesday Tech was in the lead, just a few hundred votes ahead of the University of Rochester.

You can vote at http://arbordaynow.org/contest/vote.cfm. The winning school will be announced tomorrow.

By Dean Seal, news staff writer

The Health and Wellness Group of Leadership Tech will be hosting a “Positivity Day” on the Drillfield on Wednesday, April 4 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Leadership Tech is promoting positive attitudes and encouraging students to de-stress with free food, music, games and relaxation activities.  The carnival style event will host both local business and student organized information booths, which will feature activities ranging from arts and crafts to a puppy petting zoo.

“We wanted to do something related to health and wellness,” said Lucy Tamberrino, a psychology major and member of the Health and Wellness Group. “And students are really stressed out, so we decided to put a focus on mental health.”

In conjunction with the Drillfield festivities, E. Scott Geller, an alumni distinguished professor, will be speaking on positivity from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. in Room 344 of Squires Student Center.

Universities libraries will also be contributing to the positivity by opening up “fine amnesty” as part of a local food drive.  The Library will waive a library fee or fine for any canned food item brought their information booth.

At Tuesday night’s Town Council meeting, Blacksburg Mayor Ron Rordam announced the town will hold a parade on April 29 to welcome veterans home.

Council Member Cecile Newcomb also announced that the grand marshal of the parade will be Colonel Wesley Fox.

Fox is a 43-year marine veteran who earned the Medal of Honor for his actions during the Vietnam War. After retiring from the marines, Wesley came to Tech to serve as Commandant of the Corps of Cadets from 1993 to 2001. Fox and his wife currently live in Blacksburg.

“We’re lucky enough to have him living here, I’m excited we have him as the grand marshal,” Newcomb said.

The parade will be held on Sunday, April 29 at 2 p.m. in downtown Blacksburg.

The Virginia Senate passed a bill that closes a loophole which allows online retailers, such as Amazon, to avoid sales taxes.

According to the Virginian-Pilot, this bill comes as local stores seek tax parity with online competitors.

The bill would require online businesses with a presence in the state to collect a 5 percent sales tax and forward it to the state.

Amazon currently has one distribution center in Sterling, Va. However, talks among the retailer and the state could bring two distribution centers to the state as well as 1,350 jobs.

The deal would also include $4.3 million in state financial aid as part of the deal.

By Nick Cafferky, news editor

At about 8 p.m. on Monday, Eric Johnson’s evening came to a grinding halt when he found himself trapped in a Lee Hall elevator.

“I hit ‘seven,’ and the ‘one’ sign flashes, and all of a sudden, it just stops,” the freshman general engineering major said. “The first thing I did was hit ‘seven’ again. And then I hit ‘two,’ and it didn’t work either, so I knew something was wrong.”

For more than three hours, Johnson, a Lee Hall resident, stood — sans a watch or phone to tell the time — waiting for the maintenance team to help him escape.

“I didn’t to want to hit that button have police come and have this be a whole fiasco, so I figured I’d let maintenance work,” Johnson said.

Without anything in his pockets to keep himself occupied, Johnson had to get creative when it came to entertainment.

“There are 1,458 squares on the bottom (of the elevator),” he said. “I untied my shoelaces and tied every knot I know of, sung a couple of songs and slept a little.”

Unfortunately, Johnson lives on the seventh floor of Lee, so avoiding the elevator isn’t a practical long-term solution.

“I might take the stairs for a week or two,” he said, “just in case.”

A federal judge ruled that a woman in Colorado could be compelled to give authorities the password of her PGP-scrambled hard drive.

Judge Robert Blackburn argued that disclosing a password does not violate the Fifth Amendment, which says no one can “be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself.”

If Ramona Fricosu, who is the defendant in a mortgage scam case, does not comply, she will have to face consequences, such as contempt of court.

In the past, some judges have ruled that there is a distinction between ordering a defendant to decrypt a computer and giving a password. However, Blackburn’s opinion is in-line with the Justice Department’s stance.

Fricosu’s attorney plans on appealing the decision, according to CNET. They argue that the right to remain silent coincides with not giving a password to authorities.

Read more:

Judge: Americans can be forced to decrypt their laptops (CNET)

DOJ: We can force you to decrypt your laptop (CNET)

The newest numbers released by GOP officials have Rick Santorum ahead of Mitt Romney by 34 votes in the Iowa presidential caucus. Initially, officials declared Romney the winner by eight votes, according to the Des Moines Register.

However, votes from eight precincts are missing and will never be recovered, causing officials to declare it a “split decision.” Inaccuracies were found in 131 precincts. The official data will be released Thursday morning, according to a statement from the Republican Party of Iowa.

With South Carolina’s primary on Saturday, this could be an upset for Romney. Typically, presidential candidates who win the Iowa caucus or the New Hampshire primary win in every other states’ primary.  After Iowa and New Hampshire, and although virtually tied with Santorum before Iowa, 31 percent of Republican or right-leaning voters would vote for Romney, compared to only 14 percent for Santorum, according to the most recent Pew Research data.