I list them in order of their petitions reaching the polls.

NEXT WEEK will be the OFFICIAL SENATE DEBATE! The candidates will be expected to come to the Greek Theater on Thursday, August 14th to participate in a debate, led by City Hall. This date is NOT set in stone, so keep coming back to this article to make sure, and to find out the time of the debate. (We are thinking of moving it to the weekend, but it would be nice to do it right before the paper is published, so the debate can be reviewed in the Times. You'll note the date has already changed since this was first published -- I meant the 14th the first time, actually!) It seems the candidates are okay with Thursday the 14th. Now, to set a time -- we're suggesting 8pm Whyville Time. How does that sound? Email the Times!

Candidates will answer questions from City Hall one at a time, without interrupting. Depending on the question, City Hall may allow each of the candidates to respond to the other candidates' comments, when they are finished. Citizens, you're welcome to submit questions you want us to ask by emailing times@whyville.net!

The final voting will begin immediately after the debate. This is a NEW round of voting, so you'll need to vote again -- your votes on the petitions won't count! You'll be able to vote from the announcements page that you get when you first login, so no worries about trying to get into a crowded City Hall. :-)

Remember, the platforms are in this week's paper, under "Why History". Keep coming back, as I expect to be posting updates to them this weekend and as late as Monday.

As you'll see in this week's lead article by Superid, City Hall workers have settled on a method of handling the face parts in Akbar's. New parts will wear out over 92 days -- the number next to your parts in your satchel is the number of days they have left before wearing out. Read superid's articles to stay on top of this situation.

Elsewhere in the news, MediaWiz has announced his long-anticipated Writing Workshop! If you'd like to get the Wiz's experienced eye to review your work and help you tighten your skill with the quill ( ;-) ), Y-mail him your works and he'll give it a go. You'll find you won't have any troubles with the filter when Y-mailing him, so don't worry about complex sentences getting blocked. Enjoy!

Many of you have also heard rampant rumors that Whyville is on the verge of closing its doors forever. Let me make the truth clear: this is not true! Our budget is not quite that tight -- the plans with Akbar's is a long-term decision, which means we plan on being around for a long time still. Don't count us out yet!

As you may have seen in the announcements page, City Hall will be giving clam bonuses to those of you who come to Whyville in August, but do not get muted, fined, or otherwise punished by City Workers at any time. Even if you do get a little bit of tape, you *may* still get a few clams for not going "what the heck!" and cursing a blue streak afterwards. This is to thank those of you who realize Whyville is a site for kids and parents as well as for teens, so we need to strike a fair and comfortable balance. Thank you!

Why-Passes! There's a great sale on Why-Passes going on right now, so check it out and support your town while taking advantage of priority access to your favorite website... not to mention, your face parts are protected by your investment in Whyville! So long as you own a Pass, your parts will not wear out. Sound like a good deal?

You'll all also like to know that City Workers are looking into setting up a way to earn clams for checkers, mancala/Kalah, and tic-tac-toe! Keep your eyes peeled for that... they're going to base it on college sports rankings, or something like that!

No more address book adds in chat -- according to my inside sources, adding people to your address book in chat resulted in trouble for City Workers. It's said that people were loading down their adbooks with way more people than they normally could have, which was causing database gluts, slowing down the site. Bummer!

Well, I think that's all the news. Boy, there's a lot of it this week. Hope you're staying informed, and tell us if there's anything we missed!

Off to watch Saturday morning cartoons,
Times Editor