Opinion

Earth Day has passed once again (let’s hope you planted a tree and picked up some litter this Saturday), but that’s no reason for us to get lax on our personal ecology. Saving the Earth is easy, after all. As a species we may be living at the edge of a precipice, but — if the “Go Green!” boosters are to be believed — there are simple things we can each do every day to avoid a cataclysm.

Once more, Facebook is under fire for taking advantage of its users to generate more ad revenue. This time, Facebook is accused of selling your correspondence on their website to advertisers to increase the accuracy of their marketing.

With a simple swipe of a Starbucks gift card, a stressed-out college student temporarily resolves drowsiness by downing a grande caramel macchiato. This daily visit to UC Irvine’s on-campus Starbucks is a mindless and potentially harmful habit.

You may find yourself wondering, “What’s going on in the Middle East?” With everything happening so far away from Southern California, it’s easy to lose track. But what’s happening in Libya is important, along with events in Yemen, Tunisia and of course, Egyp

After the fifth air traffic controller in a month was reported to be asleep on duty, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has set out to issue new scheduling guidelines aimed at reducing fatigue on the job for air traffic controllers.

College students drink to have fun and forget about their problems with no regard to future consequences. Drinking can be used for negative reasons including depression or failing an exam.

When we are young, we are all eventually exposed to the bitter truth about Santa Claus. We imagined the big-bellied Mr. Claus along with his little elves, happily working in the swirly cotton-like snow slopes of the North Pole. Yet, this vivid image we carried as children crumbled with every harsh word of truth.

Compiled by the New University Editorial Board.

In a free society, people should be able to express themselves and their opinions as they see fit. However, recently in France, legislation has come into effect that effectively bans the wearing of a burqa, the full-body Islamic veil, in a public area or space (wearing a burqa in a public school has been banned since 2004). French authorities say that only about 1,900 women wear the burqa or the niqab, two versions of the full covering with a mesh or slit for the eyes. This amounts to 0.038 percent of France’s Muslim population.

If you go to UC Irvine, chances are you’ve been to the Newport Beach “warzone” before. The stretch of the peninsula that goes from roughly 30th Street to 50th Street is legendary to student and non-student partiers alike who enjoy public intoxication and random party crashing.

The big U.S. budget battle reached an unsatisfactory conclusion, and both sides are now stuck with a compromise they are not completely fond of for now. Curiously, the potential contenders for the Republican presidential nomination have been silent. This was a great time for them to throw some red meat to their conservative constituents and bolster primary voter support or take an easy shot at the president. Instead, they chose to ignore the issue entirely, and out of all the possible responses, this was probably the smartest.

Ai Weiwei. If you asked people in China who this person is, few could answer. But the man and his recent disappearance are highly instructive in understanding something very important about China and its future.