RIO DE JANEIRO – The presidential election in the United States is likely to be determined by a handful of battleground states, but on the streets of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil’s second-largest city, there is just one option.

“You have different masks, depending on who you’re talking to,” author, professor and activist Junot Diaz told an audience that filled Salomon 101 Saturday night in the keynote address of the National Dominican Student Conference.

Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance – we are taught to think of grief as a rationally ordered journey that progresses through five stages with relief at the end.

“I want to paint the air,” said Impressionist painter Claude Monet in 1895. “And that is nothing short of impossible.” He was drawing a contrast between the artists of his day who only wanted to replicate objects they saw and those — like himself — who wanted to capture less tangible aspects of the natural world like light and air.

As classes wind down for reading period, the cafes of Thayer and Wickenden fill with students ready to indulge their caffeine addictions with palatable coffee.

Brown once relished its niche as the undergrad Ivy. Today, it is acutely aware of ‘peer competitors’ — and is becoming more like them.

Providence Mayor Angel Taveras may disagree with a number of people on a variety of issues — public school teachers on their contracts, city drivers on the cost of parking. But as he demonstrated Nov. 22 with the event Hey Providence, It’s Your Birthday! Celebrate 375 Years, held at Providence Performing Arts Center, the mayor understands there are some things everyone can get behind: music, fireworks and free cake.

The Perry and Marty Granoff Center for the Creative Arts played host to a series of firsts Saturday night as string quartet Brooklyn Rider took to the stage in the Martinos Auditorium.

When a court order halted Google’s efforts to digitize every book in the world last March, a number of institutions and non-profit organizations stepped in to take on the project.

After failing to preregister for two newly capped advanced economics courses, Bradley Silverman ’13, facing unexpected barriers to entry, decided to circumvent the regulations governing seats in those classes. Standing in Lecturer in Economics Maria Carkovic’s class ECON1540: “International Trade,” he displayed a sign reading “Dropping this class? I’ll pay $ for your spot!” in an attempt to create a black market.