Locally led efforts are important to the ongoing struggle for democracy in Myanmar, according to Thelma Young, campaigns coordinator from the U.S. Campaign for Burma at a panel Wednesday night at the Kay Spiritual Life Center.

“Most people have no idea about the mass atrocities still happening in Burma,” Young said.

The Taliban has strengthened in the southern provinces of Afghanistan since 2005 and progress in the region is heading in the wrong direction, according to experts at a security policy forum hosted Wednesday by George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs.

The Iraq war is the most important 2008 election issue to students, according to School of Communication professor Jane Hall, who taught a class in which students conducted a national survey on students and the upcoming election.

Leeanna Goldstein Rubin, a sophomore in the College of Arts and Sciences, beat out 3,600 entrants from 53 countries to become one of only 35 semifinalists in the Voice of McDonald’s 2008 International Singing Contest.

The competition is open to the more than 1.

The Republican Party lost control of Congress in 2006 because the party had lost its way, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said Tuesday evening at an event in Mary Graydon Center.

“I still don’t believe the American people hired Nancy Pelosi,” Pence said to a crowd of about 30 students at the College Republicans-sponsored event.

Students at the University of Texas at Austin received controversial phone calls on election day 2006 from Democratic Party advocates, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported Friday. The university provided the students’ phone numbers to the interest group under Texas’ open-records law.

AU students can now receive text message or e-mail alerts when a class they want to take opens up, according to Joel Croft, a sophomore in the Kogod School of Business who wrote the program.

Illinois Sen. Barack Obama won a mock caucus held Tuesday by the AU College Democrats.

Twenty-six students of a group of 60 showed their support for Obama’s candidacy in the caucus.

Sally L. Smith, head of the learning disabilities master’s program in the College of Arts and Sciences’ School of Education, Teaching and Health, died Saturday due to complications from myeloma.

Smith, 78, founded the Lab School of Washington in 1967 as a place where students with learning disabilities could get instruction through an arts-based program and an individualized education plan.

Thursday, Dec. 6 Mission: Improv-able’s Holiday Blow-Out 11 p.m. WHERE: Battelle-Tompkins Atrium INFO: Mission: Improv-able is holding its final performance of the semester. This show will work in conjunction with The Smile Train, the world’s leading cleft palate charity, in order to raise money to sponsor a child abroad.

Thursday, Nov. 29 A parent reported that his son had fallen in Hughes Hall and did not seek medical attention. Officers made contact with the student, who again refused to seek medical attention. A staff member reported that a student outside Anderson Hall was trying to dismantle a boot placed on his car.

Holiday thieves stole nearly 16 tons of ham last weekend from a meat factory in Sydney, Australia, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

“This is the first time I’ve seen our hams robbed in 20 years,” Anthony Zammit, co-owner of the meat warehouse, told the Morning Herald.

An unidentified person has been dumping large amounts of horse manure outside a strip mall in Anchorage, Alaska, the Anchorage Daily News reported Monday.

Two piles began appearing four months ago, said Ron Teekell, the owner of a storage company next to the dumping site.

A new light-rail line addition to Metrorail could draw an additional 47,000 riders daily, according to projections released Monday by Maryland transportation officials.

Many local residents are unhappy with the new plans, which were first publicized last night at an open house in Silver Spring.

Podcasts produced weekly by School of Communication professor Rick Rockwell’s “Broadcast Journalism I” class can now be found on iTunes.

The class produces a newscast every Wednesday and has aired six since producing its first one on Oct. 24. 

“This is the real thing,” Rockwell said.