Since Councilman Eric Garcetti was first elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 2001 to represent District 13, which is centered in the Hollywood area, he has effectively led the charge for important reforms in Los Angeles. For example, Garcetti has led the effort on important environmental and human rights initiatives in the city. Principally, Garcetti worked on critical...

Israel. President Barack Obama made a diplomatic journey to Jerusalem and the surrounding region to advocate for peaceful resolutions and better relations between Turkey, Israel and Jordan. President Obama coordinated a call between Turkish and Israeli leaders, in which Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for Israeli's role in a 2010 skirmish between the countries. Cooperation stopped between the two...

Long-time Head Athletic Trainer John Sweet is no longer employed by the college. No official statement was issued regarding this matter, but an Occidental Weekly investigation found that Sweet left his job after several student-athletes reported sexual misconduct earlier this semester, according to students and administrators with knowledge of the situation. "I resigned for personal reasons," Sweet said in a...

The admissions office recently finalized decisions for the incoming first-year class of 2013-14. Although the admissions office has yet to process its accepted student data, this year’s acceptance rate is expected to be 42 percent, up three percent from last year, according to Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid Vince Cuseo. Decisions were mailed on March 21. Occidental received...

Students, faculty and staff members filled nearly two-thirds of Thorne Hall on Thursday morning to attend the Sexual Assault Task Force's first Town Hall Meeting. The Sexual Assault Task Force scheduled the meeting to give the college community the opportunity to publicly raise concerns about changes they wish to see at the school regarding sexual misconduct. Vice President for Institutional...

Occidental plans to introduce a school-wide theme, tentatively called “H2Oxy," through the Cultural Studies Program (CSP) for the 2013-14 school year. The program will focus on the significance of water to humans and consist mainly of a speaker series and panel discussions, according to English and Comparative Literature Studies Professor and CSP program head Jonathan Swift. Included in the theme...

Thirteen students participated in this year's Alternative Spring Break program to learn about the political, social and cultural issues of immigrants across different ethnic groups in Los Angeles. Students stayed on campus for the week, taking daylong trips through Los Angeles to work with community partners. Partner institutions included the Mayor's Office and the student-based organization Dream Team L. A,...

Though Occidental should be proud to have free parking, there is a substantial amount of inefficiencies related to the parking system. Free parking is without a doubt much appreciated by the Occidental community, but the current parking system contains several flaws that could certainly be improved through simple, calculable measures. Although parking is not a guarantee, all students and faculty...

President Veitch has changed his mind regarding the need for a real-time notification system for sexual assault, and will be asking Campus Safety to send out campus-wide emails for all reported incidents at the survivor's discretion. These decisions come after a previous letter to the campus community in which he denied agreeing to the Oxy Sexual Assault Coalition’s (OSAC) demands...

Occidental faculty voted to support a measure, proposed by Occidental UEP and politics Professor Peter Dreier, to ask the college Board of Trustees to divest college funds from companies that manufacture military-style assault weapons or high-capacity ammunition magazines sold to the general public. The faculty voted in favor of the measure 62 to eight, with eight abstaining. President Veitch indicated...