Run by HIV/AIDS Regional Services (HARS) Kingston, Kingston’s 15th annual AIDS Walk kicked off at 6:30 p.m. at City Park and led participants along Beverly Street. The event culminated in a lantern festival and fire-dancing performance. Saturday’s walkers varied in age, race and sexual orientation, and included individuals who were infected as well as those who had little previous knowledge.

During his time as UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis visited a school in Zimbabwe and heard children talk about their fear of death and their belief in the power of prayer.
Lewis told more than 600 Queen’s and Kingston community members there are 40 million people living with HIV in the world, 30 million of whom are in Africa. He said that three million people die every year as a result of AIDS.

The University’s graduate studies programs will open up more than 966 new spaces over the next three years.
The exact numbers of how the spaces will be distributed by department aren’t yet finalized, and will depend on the numbers of this year’s graduate population.
The spaces were part of an Ontario government announcement on Thursday that increased graduate student space by 55 per cent.

Although April may still seem a long way away, preparing for a summer or post-graduation job is already a top priority for many students.
Through events run by Career Services, such as this week’s Career Fair and ongoing information sessions held on campus by employers, students can pursue specific companies, and hope they are pursued in return.

Starting Oct. 2, your blue box will go out one week, and your grey box will go out the next.
The new grey box is specifically for fibre products, such as newspapers, phone books and catalogues.
Cereal boxes, milk and juice cartons, paper egg cartons and paper towel tubes can also be included, but you need to flatten them, place them inside an untied plastic bag or tie them in bundles.
Blue boxes will still be for other recyclables, such as aluminum cans and plastic containers.

Janet Elvidge, head nurse at Queen’s Health, Counseling and Disability Services, said free testing for HIV is available at on campus at the health centre in the LaSalle Building.
John MacTavish, executive director for HIV/AIDS Regional Services (HARS) in Kingston, said the number of HIV infections is on the rise for youth in Ontario and there are a number of reasons why youth are becoming complacent about having safe sex.

The Arts and Science Undergraduate Society (ASUS) recovered from 2004-05’s $26,403 loss and posted a $9,358 profit in 2005-06.
Lyndsey Hannigan, last year’s ASUS vice-president and chief financial officer, said when she budgeted last year, she had to be tactful. Hannigan said the society was lucky last year because more students came than they had planned: With a $19.61 student fee, ASUS received more money because more students enrolled at the University.

A student group who spent more than two years compiling an assessment of the University’s sustainability still hasn’t found what it’s looking for.
The two co-presidents of Queen’s Sustainability, Charles Liu, ArtSci ’08 and Gareth Chantler, ArtSci ’09, said the report, the third of its kind in Canada, can instigate lasting change by acting as a benchmark against which to compare future data.

Despite paying about $15,584.30 for one year’s tuition in an Arts and Science degree, compared with $5,176.30 for domestic students, statistics released from the University have shown a steady increase in American students coming to Queen’s over the past five years.
In 2001, there were 79 Americans in the incoming group of first-year students. In 2002, the number rose to 97 and then to 120 in 2003. The number has since grown from 130 in 2004 to 132 in 2005.

They wore red hats and glowstick necklaces. They traded plastic cups for glass bottles. They gave out free popcorn.
Several of them were still on Aberdeen Street early Sunday morning at 5 a.m., cleaning discarded cups and bottles.
All of them played a role in helping smooth relations between party-goers and police.

Saturday night’s Aberdeen Street homecoming party drew more than 8,000 people—a larger crowd than last year’s bash when students flipped over a car and set it on fire—but the overall mood was safer and less hostile than 2005.

A campus group will spend this Sunday cleaning up Aberdeen Street with the hope of collecting enough empty beer cans to help build a house in Kingston.
Adam Alexander, ConEd ’08 and co-founder of the Habitat for Humanity Queen’s chapter, hopes to collect as many aluminum cans as possible this year in order to compete in Alcan’s annual aluminum can drive.

The class of Sci ’10 spent almost as much time “bringing sexy back” as they did climbing the pole at Saturday’s annual Grease Pole event, which broke for more than two hours after a male student was removed from the pit on a spinal board.
The pit was cleared nearly an hour and a half into the climb as Queen’s First Aid and medical personnel entered to treat the student, who was taken to the hospital for examination.

Jamie Miller is developing a new Masters program that will be the first of its kind in Canada. Miller, a Masters student himself, is working to create an environmental engineering program that focuses on projects in developing communities and disaster relief.
Miller, who is developing the project as part of his degree, said he hopes it will encourage students to look at engineering from a different perspective. He said the course will have a multidisciplinary curriculum.

Frances Darwin is the first person to admit that talking alone won’t solve problems.
Instead, the ArtSci ’07 student and director of the September 18 Student Symposium on Queen’s Identity hopes that by facilitating discussion about issues like campus diversity and tuition hikes, the event will push students, faculty and Kingston residents to take action and address problems in their community.