With over 70 percent of MIT’s yearly research funding coming from the federal government, the federal budget sequester will have a significant impact on research at the Institute.

On Wednesday, the Prime Minister of Haiti, Laurent Lamothe, came to MIT to sign a letter of agreement with the Institute regarding a collaboration to develop STEM teaching materials in Creole, the language spoken by a majority of Haiti’s citizens.

On Monday, the Cambridge City Council voted in favor of a rezoning petition proposed by MIT to allow development of Kendall Square with tall buildings for residential and commercial use. There were seven votes in favor of the proposal, with Councillor Minka vanBeuzekom voting against and Vice Mayor Denise Simmons abstaining.

On Friday, March 29, MIT filed a legal memorandum to “partially oppose” the March 15 motion by the Estate of Aaron Swartz to publicly release documents related to Swartz’s criminal prosecution. The documents, originally provided to the U.S. Attorney’s Office by MIT for pre-trial discovery, are kept confidential by a Protective Order. According to MIT’s memorandum, the U.S. Attorney’s Office required a Protective Order on the documents beginning November 2011 due to “sensitive information” they contain.

MIT’s tokamak, Alcator C-Mod, has faced the threat of losing all of its federal funding throughout 2012. The experimental fusion reactor, which relied on $24 million from the Department of Energy for operation in 2012, was unexpectedly slated to lose all federal support in March in the President’s budget proposal for fiscal year 2013. The loss of these funds, nearly the entire budget of C-Mod, would force the closure of the experiment, one of just three such devices in the U.S.

On Monday, students in 2.009, Product Engineering Processes, presented their final projects related to the theme “outdoors.” The students, all seniors in Mechanical Engineering, worked for three months in eight color-coded teams of 15-19 students each to research markets, choose a focus, design a product, and produce a working prototype with a $6500 budget.

Founded in response to the 1997 alcohol-related death of Phi Gamma Delta pledge Scott Krueger, SaveTFP is a fourteen-member MIT student group devoted to reducing stress among students. It was originally closely tied to the MIT administration, and according to current SaveTFP member Lia Bogoev ’14, was meant “to teach people about alcohol safety and show people that you can have fun without alcohol.”

On Nov. 6, Thomas Massie ’93 was elected as U.S. Representative for Kentucky’s Fourth District. Massie graduated from MIT in 1993 with a Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and also received a Master’s in Mechanical Engineering from the Institute in 1996. Massie, a Republican, won the seat after a seven-way primary and has already been sworn in due to his predecessor’s early retirement.

Tenzin Gyasto, the Dalai Lama and foremost figure in Tibetan Buddhism, recently concluded a visit to MIT, home to the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values. The Center organized several events this week with the Dalai Lama and other prominent spiritual and academic figures.

With just a month to go before the presidential election on November 6, MIT students are all talking politics. Or are they? In light of the first presidential debate, how do students feel about voting, elections, and politics in general this year?