News

It’s finally here: the last Trail issue of the semester. Next week is reading period, the following week we are tested on what we learned during reading period and the week after that—who knows? Some of us will graduate. Some of us will watch our friends graduate. Some of us will watch The Graduate on Instant Netflix and ignore phone calls from our parents asking if we’ve found a job yet. In the beginning of the year, I wrote a short article—what I proudly called “The State of The Trail...

The historic pagoda at Point Defiance, a well-known landmark to park goers, was significantly damaged in a fire on Friday, April 15. It was the second of what turned out to be several suspicious fires at Point Defiance this month. Each of the fires, which all occurred after dark, have been judged arson. There were no witnesses to the fires and no suspects have yet been apprehended. Extra security has since been added to Point Defiance. Despite the short span of time in which each instance of arson was committed,...

Muted controversy turned to uproar earlier this month following the distribution of the most recent edition of The Rattler, a satirical spin-off of the ASUPS’ Tattler newsletter. Criticism of the formerly-anonymous publication focuses on a series of jokes in a section entitled “10 worst pick-up lines” that reference sexual assault. The list included “does this smell like chloroform to you?” And “what, you don’t like roofies? Oh, this is awkward.” The newsletter, which has been published off-and-on for more than a year, was distributed throughout Marshall Hall. It has no...

The Tacoma Police Department established a new unit last week, dedicated to investigating unsolved mysteries, known as cold cases, full-time. Veteran Tacoma Police Detective Gene Miller was assigned to the unit on March 14 to investigate homicides and suspicious missing person cases that were never closed. Miller has begun prioritizing all of the Department’s cold case information and seeking assistance with DNA and other forensic evidence from the Washington State Patrol crime lab. A police investigation is considered “cold” after all possible leads have been exhausted, all evidence has been...

Recently, the Internet news site Inside Higher Ed reported on a new study called the Citation Project. This study analyzed research papers written by first-year students at a variety of different colleges. The Citation Project concluded that college students are not synthesizing their information, that they are not citing or paraphrasing information correctly and that their papers often include too many quotes. Researchers for the study sorted each piece of information found in student papers into four categories: exact copying, “patchwriting” (copying a piece of information with vary limited changes,...

A potential government shutdown was avoided on Friday, April 15, when President Barack Obama signed the budget agreement that outlines federal spending for the remainder of the fiscal year. The agreement was reached and sent for voting late on April 8, an hour before the government shutdown would have occurred. The agreement will cut spending by $38.5 billion and will fund the federal government through Sept. 30. Programs like the National Endowment for the Arts, the high-speed rail and emergency first responders will be affected by these cuts. Congress also...

The Supreme Court has recently heard a case concerning gender discrimination in Wal-Mart stores across the United States. On Mar. 29 the class action suit—Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., v. Betty Dukes, Et Al.—was argued before the Supreme Court. While the case centers on gender discrimination in promoting and paying female employees, the main issue of this case is whether or not female Wal-Mart employees constitute a single class of people with the authority to sue a major corporation. “Every store, the District Court found... managers are provided with the same level...

When the layout of the Puget Sound website changed almost two years ago, this prompted more departmental changes from within the University. The admissions office has been working on redesigning their webpage that is targeted towards admitted students. Four years ago, when the current seniors were deciding to attend Puget Sound, there was a discussion board on Cascade that allowed only the deposited students to talk amongst one another. Today, there are many more resources for admitted students, not just deposited students. Therefore, prospective students can communicate with one another,...