Stay honest, Gwen. Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska was found guilty of felony corruption charges yesterday. Gwendolyn Sykes, Yale’s chief financial officer, apparently could not persuade a jury that her former mentor was a “trusting soul,” as she testified earlier this month.

A ravenous hawk caused a Cross Campus scene — and a tranquil drizzle of bird feathers — when it landed on a tree in front of William L. Harkness Hall yesterday shortly before 6 p.m. with bird prey in its mouth. Passersby began to gather, their mouths agape, as dozens of cut-up feathers proceeded to tumble down for no less than 20 minutes. So too did three squirrels, who furtively snuck up on the hawk and finally sent it flying away at 6:17 p.m. — but not before it dropped the bloody carcass, which two seniors picked up and buried in a dirt patch behind Woodbridge Hall.

Barack the vote. About 125 students piled into the Branford Common Room last night for the Yale for Change get-out-the-vote kickoff meeting. Representatives from the Yale College Democrats, Yale for Obama and Students for a New American Politics urged students to sign up for canvassing trips to as far away as Pennsylvania and New Hampshire. Madeleine Haddon ’12 signed up to go to Philadelphia. “I love Barack Obama,” she said.

Peer pressure to vote. As Election Day approaches, it is worth noting that political science professors Donald Green and Alan Gerber have found that people are much more likely to vote when threatened that their neighbors will be told if they stay home from the polls.

No, not that kind of pinup. The Architecture School yesterday hosted the Undergraduate Summer Project Pin-Up, which featured drawings and designs from undergraduate students who did architecture-related work this summer independent of Yale.

Architecture students in high demand. The town of Derby, Conn., has asked the Yale School of Architecture whether any students or faculty would like to help redesign the inside of its opera house. The building is vacant but historic, and the city hopes Yale’s involvement would generate more interest in the project.

This day in Yale history

1956 Israel attacked Egypt in the afternoon. The same evening, three Yale professors — philosophy professor Paul Weiss, history professor Harry R. Rudin and political science professor Robert A. Dahl — discussed the event. Weiss and Rudin worried about the attack’s influence on world peace, suggesting that World War Three could result. Rudin said, “If war ever takes hold in the Near East, there’ll be no stopping it.”

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