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DAILY WILDCAT

Friday, April , 

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SERVING THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA SINCE 1899

County approves $10M for road repair By Rachel Gottfried DAILY WILDCAT

Pima County’s beaten roads are finally getting a facelift. On Tuesday, The Pima County Board of Supervisors approved delegating $10 million to road repair. The county says it will spend about $5 million on repairs in the next few months alone. In Pima County, the number of major streets in poor or failed condition has tripled in five years. There

are 1,800 miles of roads to maintain. “Over 61 percent of our roads are in the poor or failed category,” said Priscilla Cornelio, director of the Pima County Department of Transportation. But as more roads fall into disrepair, less funding is available for them. The county has 10 percent less state funding for roads this year than it had in 2002. “A lot of that is related to these legislative sweeps where the state Legislature has taken local road

money to balance their budget,” said Chuck Huckelberry, the county administrator. Huckelberry said part of this is due to people driving less frequently because of high gas prices. This causes there to be less revenue all around, he said. Huckelberry provided the Board of Supervisors with 18 suggestions for how Pima County could fix its streets. Of the 18, Huckelberry favored five of the proposals that the board came up with. One of these proposals was to

spend $2.5 million from this year’s pavement repair fund and $2.5 million from next year’s fund to do 17 projects covering 27 miles of pavement on major streets. The second was to borrow $5 million from bond funds that have been assigned to other long-term road projects. This money could pay for an additional 77 miles of residential street repairs. The borrowed money would need to be repaid in three to five years in order to complete the projects that the bonds were originally approved

for, Huckelberry said. Huckelberry and the board also considered increasing the transportation department’s general fund, selling bonds and using up to $5 million of the county’s $35 million general fund reserves. Taking from the reserves would be a last resort, Huckelberry added. “I will be supporting Chuck’s five recommendations, but it’s more than potholes — it’s getting

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Bill raises concerns about free speech By Stewart McClintic DAILY WILDCAT

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Transportation officials break ground on the construction of Tucson’s Sun Link public transportation project outside of the BIO5 Institute on Thursday. The ceremony was part of the modern streetcar project’s kickoff celebration, where Mayor Jonathan Rothschild announced the streetcar’s official name. Sun Link will connect the UA to the downtown area.

Streetcar project kicks off By Brittny Mejia DAILY WILDCAT

The modern streetcar project shifted into high gear Thursday, as hundreds of people turned out for its kickoff celebration. Mayor Jonathan Rothschild welcomed attendees and introduced U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva, Arizona Rep. Ed Pastor, Oro Valley’s

Mayor Satish Hiremath and UA President Eugene Sander. Rothschild said the streetcar, named Sun Link, will benefit the city by connecting businesses and the UA to a “downtown that is finally coming into its own” and creating jobs. “This is not only about a streetcar system,” LaHood said. “This is about the jobs that will be provided that would not have been provided

if it hadn’t been for the vision of so many in this community.” LaHood thanked state leaders, community members and construction workers for their help and support of the project. He emphasized the desire from Washington, D.C., to get people to work, get them out of their cars and counting on public transportation. “Change is never easy, but we need to stay with the time and stay

current,” Rothschild said. “That is really the significance for us.” LaHood talked about former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ help in initiating the project. He said Giffords called him more than once asking for a TIGER Grant to fund a streetcar for Tucson. TIGER Grants are provided by the U.S. Department of Transportation to “fund projects

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Pencil lead to be used in electronics UA researchers are finding ways to replace silicon with graphite By Kyle Mittan DAILY WILDCAT

Laptops may have made handwriting notes a thing of the past, but the pencil — or at least pencil lead — is making a comeback, as UA researchers are developing ways to use pencil lead as a conductor in electronics. Brian LeRoy, an assistant professor in the physics department, along with Matthew Yankowitz and Daniel Cormode, two physics graduate students, published their findings in the science journal Nature Physics. Graphite, which is used to make pencil lead, can be broken down into

one atomic layer and then becomes graphene, Yankowitz said. “People are interested in graphene because they think that it can replace silicon in next-generation electronics,” he added. The layers themselves are microscopically thin, hexagonal lattices, Cormode said. If a sheet of paper were as tall as a desk, a layer of graphene would be thinner than an actual sheet of paper sitting on the desk. Silicon has long served as the primary electronic conductor for products in the technology market like today’s computers, and, as a metal, works as an on and off switch. This allows electrons to conduct through the device when turned on, immobilizing them when turned off. LeRoy and fellow researchers who specialize in studying the electronic

properties of certain materials are looking to replace silicon with graphene, which tends to be more efficient at moving the electrons. Silicon is a very resistant metal by nature, Cormode said, and produces heat. In turn, devices must power a coolant source, like fans. Graphene works as a less-resistant conductor, which will not only move the electrons through the device faster, but also avoid the heat production that silicon’s resistance causes. After determining graphene’s electronic properties, the trick was controlling the electrons in the material. This is done by placing the graphene lattice on boron nitride, a material that is equivalent in structure to graphite. Because both materials are structured in hexagonal

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Proposed state legislation could criminalize harassing or annoying people through various forms of communication, but the bill’s vague language could kill its hopes of passing. Arizona Rep. Ted Vogt, a Republican from District 30, has been working to refine the language of an Arizona statute that makes it illegal to use a telephone with the intent to terrify, intimidate or harass. House Bill 2549 would make it a crime to harass anyone through any form of electronic communication, including the Internet. Violators could go to jail for six months. The bill has gone through both the House and Senate in different forms, but is still awaiting final approval from the House. Vogt said he is revamping the bill due to concerns raised about its language being too broad, as well as the fact that some profane language on mediums like the Internet is used in a joking manner. He will be clearing up some of the bill’s language in a committee hearing next week. The bill currently states that it is “unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any persons.” In addition, the bill would make it illegal to stalk anyone through any electronic form of communication. “Electronic or digital device,” for

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Three UA researchers are finding ways to use graphite instead of silicon to make future electronics.

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