Gnappy, an alternative jazz quartet from Austin, performs on the Northgate promenade Thursday night as the Northgate Music Festival kicked off its first night of the three-day event. The festival benefits CARPOOL, Scotty's House and the Children's Museum of the Brazos Valley, and use eight venues to host more than 100 performers, including Flickerstick, Better Than Ezra and Burden Brothers.

Texas A&M's history, characterized by anger, arrogance and silence, tells us a great deal about American history, said Finnie Coleman, assistant English professor and associate director of the honors program.

A "Welcome Home, Joshua" banner adorned the back wall of the Big Powwow room at C&J's Barbeque. Family and friends talked while they waited for the arrival of Sgt. Joshua Hollinger at Thursday's reception for the Texas A&M student who recently returned home from military service in Iraq.

For three days after the December tsunami devastated Southeast Asia, former Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton visited four countries hit by the tsunami to evaluate the needs of the area.

Richard C. Holbrooke, former ambassador to the United Nations and the peacemaker during the Bosnia-Herzegovina war, will talk about handling ethnic conflict through international diplomacy Friday afternoon at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center.

Starting this year, the rules have changed for student body elections, and with only weeks before the campaigning commences, the Election Commission has said that the enforcement of rules will be stricter than in previous years.

An unusually mild and wet winter is taking its toll on beef cows across the southern and eastern parts of the state, said Dr. Joe Paschal, livestock specialist with Texas Cooperative Extension.