Student groups gathered Wednesday to protest and support Dr. James Anderson taking office as vice president and associate provost for institutional assessment and diversity. One student group, the Texas A&M chapter of Young Conservatives of America held an affirmative action bake sale in protest.

Scientists at the National Electron Beam Food Research Center are working to improve the safety of foods through a method that uses common electricity to irradiate foods. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5,200 people die from food-borne illnesses each year and 323,000 are hospitalized.

Seventy students gathered in Rudder 701 Tuesday night to watch a former High Times magazine editor and a former narcotics agent debate about legalizing marijuana during a live satellite broadcast. Marijuana should be legalized because it is "part of my culture" and "locking people up for substance use or abuse is not a good thing in my opinion," said Steve Hager, who edited High Times magazine about marijuana usage, for 15 years.

The anxiety of college life and its effects on students' mental health have been accentuated and scrutinized after a recent flare-up of suicides at New York University. Three NYU students committed suicide during the first two months of the current semester.

LUBBOCK, Texas - The prosecution rested Wednesday in the trial of a researcher charged with numerous felonies stemming from his report of missing vials of plague bacteria. Texas Tech University professor Thomas Butler, 62, is accused of lying to the FBI about the missing vials in his January report, which prompted a bioterrorism scare in this West Texas town.

WASHINGTON - The nation's worst blackout began with three power line failures in Ohio and should have been contained by operators at FirstEnergy Corp., a three-month government investigation concluded Wednesday. The report by a U.S.-Canadian task force said the FirstEnergy operators did not respond properly, allowing the Aug.

SANTA BARBARA, Calif. - Authorities issued a warrant for Michael Jackson's arrest on charges of molesting a child and asked the pop superstar Wednesday to turn himself in and surrender his passport. Jackson's spokesman called the allegations ''scurrilous and totally unfounded.

WASHINGTON - In 17 states that participated in a $128 million government program to discourage tobacco, the prevalence of smoking dropped nearly a percentage point faster than in the rest of the country, a study found. If the anti-tobacco program was used in all states and the District of Columbia it could reduce the number of smokers by about 278,700, said Frances A.

WASHINGTON - Fund-raising front-runners President Bush, Howard Dean and John Kerry are giving the rest of the presidential candidates a short-term boost in the wallet by skipping taxpayer financing next year. Because the three are turning away the assistance from taxpayers who check a box on their returns, the eight candidates still participating in the program are expected to get substantially more federal money at the start of the primary season.

SMITHFIELD, N.C. - A high school teacher was suspended for a classroom experiment that caused several students to vomit after drinking large amounts of milk. Jeff Ferguson, a chemistry and physics teacher at Smithfield-Selma High School, organized the experiment last week to test the body's ability to neutralize acids in milk.

OXFORD, Ohio - Steve Leslie's dorm room at Miami University has 20 plugs sprouting from the walls. They power a color TV, stereo, compact disc and DVD players, video game player, desktop computer and laptop, printer, scanner, refrigerator, microwave and two fans.

BOSTON - The Massachusetts high court decision endorsing gay marriage raises a host of complex legal questions, and one of the biggest is this: If one state allows same-sex marriages, must other states recognize them? Experts say it could take years for lawsuits challenging gay marriage to wend their way through state and federal courts before ultimately ending up at the U.

AUSTIN - Some South Texas lawmakers said Wednesday they have been called by U.S. Justice Department officials asking them to weigh in with their objections to the new Republican-backed congressional redistricting plan. One state legislator, Rep. Jim Solis, a Democrat from San Benito, said he will be in Washington on Friday for meetings with officials at the federal agency, which must sign off on the redistricting map if it is to be used in Texas elections.