News in Brief  is a summer blog run by the news editors, updated every week until the actual presses resume in September.

Gossip Gargoyle

• Over the weekend, we broke the story on the downsizing of not-so Hallowed Grounds. ORCSA advising offices will supplant a large chunk of the cafe’s seating area and its refrigerators. The news sparked the creation of a petition with more than 1,000 signatures.

• A 7-foot-2 reality TV chef attacked University police last week. Joshua Marks, a Chicago native and the season three runner-up on “MasterChef”, called from an emergency Blue Light phone last Tuesday, knocked down a UCPD officer, and was doused with pepper spray by a second officer. He then ran and hid in a nearby backyard before his arrest. Marks, who suffers from bipolar disorder, has been charged with the felony of aggravated battery of a police officer, UCPD spokesperson Bob Mason said.

• Turns out “Fabulous Fab” isn’t quite so fabulous anymore. On Thursday, Fabrice Tourre, the Goldman Sachs trader–turned–UChicago economics doctoral student was found liable for six of the seven fraud charges brought against him by the Securities and Exchange Commission. The charges against Tourre were related to his failure to disclose to investors that a mortgage backed security that Goldman was selling them was also being bet against by the same hedge fund that created the deal. Still no word on how Tourre’s IM soccer team will fare in his absence.

• Admissions officer Garrett Brinker (A.B.’10) offered some “tips” on the perfect college application essay. If you, young Maroon, didn’t find “take your time” and “have fun” to be useful prescriptions, it’s okay! You’re already in! As for President Robert Zimmer, judge for yourself but we’re predicting the waitlist.

• Academics come and academics go, sometimes to bigger and better things and sometimes not. Two UChicago brains added to our abandonment issues this week. Booth finance professor Raghuram Rajan has been named Governor of the Federal Reserve Bank of India, effective in September. John Thompson, President and CEO of the University’s National Opinion Research Center (NORC) was confirmed to be the head of the U.S. Census Bureau last Thursday.

• Professor emeritus G.W. Stocking died last month at the age of 84. Stocking, who chronicled the history of social sciences, was known as “anthropology’s anthropologist.” He began teaching at the University in the 1960s and retired in 2000.

• Chris Wilkerson was appointed Head Football Coach last week, taking over from retiring head coach Dick Maloney, who led the Maroons for 19 years. After serving as a football coach at Dartmouth College since 2005, Wilkerson will lead a new generation of Maroons as they defy former University president Robert Manyard Hutchins, who is said to have quipped that “football fraternities and fun have no place in the University. They were introduced only to entertain those who shouldn’t be at the University.”

• Feeling listless after Forbes bumped us down 10 notches in their college rankings? We came in No.13 in Princeton Review’s Most LGBT-Friendly Colleges, though we lost the title of Top Party School to the University of Iowa. But hey, contrary to what the Huffington Post thinks, we didn’t rank in the Most Sober 20 either.

Around the Block

• Hyde Park Mobil and Car Wash will pump its last drops on Monday. The polarizing gas station on East 53rd Street between South Kenwood and Kimbark Avenues will be replaced by Vue53, a high-rise apartment complex. Removal of underground gasoline tanks and pipes will begin August 13 while the station itself will be demolished by 2014.

• The ball’s in Bronzeville’s court now—literally. XS Tennis, the tennis club formerly located on East 47th Street and South Kimbark Avenue, will bounce over to East 51st and South State Streets, where the fifth most infamous public housing projects in the country used to sit. Hyde Parkers looking to drop that Valois weight can mosey down the street to LA Fitness instead.

• The 28 bus (which runs from 103rd Street, or sometimes Olive Harvey College, to 47th Street, or sometimes Union Station) continues its streak as CTA’s most confusing route. The 28 Stony Island Local, not the defunct X28, will begin making more stops between East 47th and 57th Streets on August 25. CTA eliminated the stops earlier this year as part of a “180-day experiment” but restored the original route after backlash over the reroute.

On Second (City) Thought

• Fast food and retail workers protested across seven cities last week. In Chicago, 400 employees from businesses including Walgreens, McDonald’s, and Whole Foods took to the streets demanding a minimum wage of $15 and the right to unionize. The first round of protests were in April.

• This is (actually) dope: Illinois became the 20th state in the country to legalize medical marijuana. Governor Pat Quinn sealed the deal at the University’s new hospital pavillion last Thursday. And the bud doesn’t stop there. The city’s first medical marijuana clinic opens in Wicker Park today. Recreational usage, however, is still illegal.