There was more news this week than a 27-year-old woman who claimed she was a Columbia student for nine months. Every week, Spectator’s News Desk will bring you a roundup of the week in campus and city news. In case you missed it, here’s a quick breakdown of this week’s top stories.

The start of the semester gets off to its usual rocky start, as the new East Campus entranceway is still not finished, the anonymous peer counseling hotline Nightline is still undergoing new training and will likely be closed through the end of the month, and student adjust to a new time of day: 8:40 a.m.

Beverages made two headlines in Friday’s paper: the administration is taking a harm reduction approach to alcohol, emphasizing smart drinking policies. First-year dorms are no longer “dry,” so 21+ residents of Southfield can bring alcohol into their rooms. In the real world, the Board of Health has passed Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s so-called “soda ban.” Look into how it will affect Harlem—which has one of the highest obesity rates in the city—in our related article and video.

Like politics? New York held its state primaries on Thursday, and one of the races to watch was between longtime rivals State Senator Adriano Espaillat and State Assembly member Guillermo Linares. Espaillat, who lost a close primary for the House of Representatives against Rep. Charles Rangel in June, beat Linares in a landslide.

The administration is searching for a new SEAS dean. The committee, which will be chaired by Provost John Coatsworth and include two students, will consider both internal and external candidates. The libraries, meanwhile, are cracking down on access to scanning and high-tech digital software for alumni, who are not pleased. And beyond the walls of Low, Columbia is making connections with Brazil, opening a new global center in Rio de Janeiro and planning other joint ventures with the South American country.

In the world of local businesses, the owner of a BP service station at 110th and Frederick Douglass Boulevard is suing the city to keep his property out of the way of development. Meanwhile, after Spec broke the news last week of the planned reopening of Floridita, the beloved Manhattanville restaurant that closed when construction of the new campus began, we sat down with owner Ramon Diaz about the struggle he’s been through and his hopes for version 2 of his restaurant. In a different kind of business, police used money from seized weapons and drug transactions at 3333 Broadway—the giant housing complex looming over the Manhattanville campus—to fund play streets for children this summer.

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