Baylor News

President Barack Obama has rallied college students at dozens of campuses, touted his record on student aid and needled Republican challenger Mitt Romney for advising students to “borrow money if you have to from your parents.” Romney counters that despite the flood of federal financial aid unleashed during Obama’s term, college costs and student debt have only grown.

The Baylor Institute for Faith and Learning will host the annual Symposium on Faith and Culture titled “Technology and Human Flourishing,” which will begin at 1 p.m. today in the Bill Daniel Student Center and end Saturday evening. The symposium will be held in the Bill Daniel Student Center and Cashion Academic Building.

Dr. Dave Bridge has taught at Baylor for three years as an assistant professor in the political science department. In 2010, he graduated from the University of Southern California with a doctorate in politics and international relations. Currently, he teaches American politics and a class that focuses on campaigns and elections. Bridge gives his opinion of the state of the presidential race in the second installment of the Lariat’s election Q-and-A series.

An Algerian man whose sentence for plotting to blow up the Los Angeles airport around the turn of the new millennium was thrown out for being too lenient was ordered Wednesday to spend 37 years in prison.

Ahmed Ressam, who had trained with al-Qaida in Afghanistan, was arrested in December 1999 when a customs agent noticed that he appeared suspicious as he drove off a ferry from Canada onto Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. A resulting search turned up a trunk full of explosives.

Waco News

State News

President Donald Trump has approved the execution by firing squad of Nidal Hasan, the former Army major convicted of killing 13 people in the 2009 Fort Hood mass shooting, with the execution scheduled for 1 p.m. Dec. 3 at the Central Texas military installation, roughly an hour from Baylor’s campus.

INTERNATIONAL

The Iran war is now in its 46th day. Iran responded by restricting access to Hormuz, which carries about a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil, and moving to toll vessels transiting the strait. Waco drivers are already feeling it. The local average hit $3.38 a gallon last week, up 21 cents in seven days and 75 cents year-over-year, according to AAA data.

Gas prices in Texas have surged more than 70 cents per gallon since the U.S. went to war with Iran three weeks ago. The near-total shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has driven oil prices up more than 40%, pushing the national average to its highest point since 2023 and sending diesel past $5 for the first time in three years.

The largest U.S. military operation in the Middle East in decades unfolded as American and Israeli forces struck Iran Saturday, killing its supreme leader and triggering retaliatory strikes from the Gulf to Israel. The White House said the campaign is aimed at dismantling Iran’s military and toppling its government.