News Briefs

All aboard the PSU rail

It’s not quite the Hogwarts Express, but plans for TriMet’s Portland Mall Revitalization Project hope to extend the MAX light rail through downtown Portland and the PSU campus.

There will be a presentation on the current draft of the Conceptual Design Report for the project and an opportunity for community comments Thursday, July 10, from 5-7 p.m. in the Gallery Room on the second floor of the PSU Urban Center.

For more information, visit www.trimet.org or call (503) 962-2150.

Blazing orientation lunch

Hundreds of students and orientation-goers were forced to evacuate Smith Memorial Student Union yesterday to the cacophony of blaring fire alarms resounding throughout the building around 11 a.m.

Connect, the new student orientation program, was hosting a lunch in the second-floor ballroom when a food warmer from Aramark, which was catering the event, caught a tablecloth on fire.

An Aramark employee threw a nearby bucket of water onto the flames, dousing the fire, although the smoke still caused the alarms to sound.

The orientation was only briefly interrupted.