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As well as Varsity’s weekly print editions each Friday and daily online coverage, our new Brunch Briefing is launching. Every Sunday morning, you’ll get the round-up of the key stories, videos, and photos of the week, as well as fun updates about goings-on in Cambridge.

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Hughes Hall fights May Ball elitism
In a move welcomed by many students, the Hughes Hall May Ball committee has announced it will be offering a 20% discount to any Cambridge student on a full bursary. With some college May Ball tickets reaching over £190 per person, some students will be able to purchase tickets to 16th June Ball for only £75.

College rent protests stir support
The Cambridge ‘Cut the Rent’ campaign has taken hold at Magdalene, Murray Edwards, and Robinson. Eye-watering rent charges might be more understandable if the rooms were any good – a further horror, then, that one Magdalene student’s room was so grim that member of the maintenance department reportedly joked: “Try not to die in here.”

Decarbonising Cambridge
Three student societies have released a report, backed by Cambridge MP Daniel Zeichner, identifying routes to partial and complete withdrawal of the University’s investments in fossil fuels. The report has been submitted to the University’s Divestment Working Group, set to publish its report on the pros and cons of divestment later this term.

TCS and CUSU at loggerheads over finances
The acrimonious relationship between The Cambridge Student (TCS) newspaper and the students’ union, which funds it, is likely to continue at the first CUSU council meeting of term tomorrow, after TCS directors disputed “regrettable inaccuracies” in a budget document just released.

Sexual harassment campaign in black-clothed protest
A campaign started by a King’s Theology undergrad raised £250 for the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund and Cambridge Rape Crisis Centre, after it encouraged students to wear black for a day in solidarity with victims of sexual assault and harassment. Varsity’s video team was at the University Library on Friday to cover the 60-strong demo.

Toope’s “unacceptable” salary
Newly-arrived vice-chancellor Stephen Toope may have to “be prepared to justify” his £365,000 pay packet after new guidelines by a UK committee of university chairs questions VCs earning over 8.5 times the median salary of their university. While we don’t have exact numbers on Cambridge pay, an FOI showed that in 2016/17 the highest-paid employee was paid 13.12 times the median employee.

Uni backs academic in Regeni case
An unusually strongly worded statement by Stephen Toope on Wednesday condemned the “damaging and potentially dangerous” speculation about any role of the supervisor of former PhD student Giulio Regeni in his brutal torture and death in Egypt. Dr Maha Abdelrahman’s phone and computer were seized by investigators at her home in Cambridge last week.

Amatey Doku melts the ‘snowflake’ narrative
At a parliamentary inquiry on Wednesday, NUS vice-president for higher education, Amatey Doku, defended British students from the national media’s criticism of students as “snowflakes”. The meme-inspiring former CUSU president spoke shortly after the release of the University’s written evidence defending the use of safe spaces.

Varsity questions Lib Dem Brexodus claims
Analysis this week by Varsity shows how the Lib Dems may have used weak statistics to claim that the UK was losing EU academics due to Brexit. They highlighted Cambridge as an example, but forgot to ask about number of arrivals. If they had, they’d know that the number of EU academics starting here has in fact risen year on year for the past three years.

Cambridge gets its own Private Eye
Journalists in Cambridge have been hooked on a new anonymous student media reviewer, Ofcam. The sardonic blog writes irreverent analysis of the University’s student media scene, with recent posts including “TCS goes ersatz”, “Tab and Union in bed again”, and, most recently, a critique of Varsity’s coverage of the Ronald Coyne scandal last year.

A little rip-off never killed nobody
Varsity news hacks were somewhat amused to receive an email from a former member of Fitzwilliam College’s ‘Suspect’ Winter Ball 2016 committee accusing Robinson’s upcoming ‘Suspicion’ May Ball of “shamelessly” ripping off their theme – both centred around murder mystery.

The student moaned: “they have totally copied the logo, and the Cluedo setting (the characters and weapons from which could be found at Fitzwilliam’s ball). The slogan, ‘A Little Party Never Killed Nobody’ implies that they plan to set it in the jazz age another key feature of Fitzwilliam’s setting.”

The irony of accusing Robinson of an unoriginal “rip-off” when Fitz copied directly from the Cluedo board game seemed lost on our emailer. And if anyone should complain about the slogan, it should be Fergie.

Topple of the poplar
In a cruel act of meteorological fate, Jesuans woke up on Thursday morning to the sight of an 80-year-old poplar fallen due to high winds in the night. Don’t worry – Varsity was at the scene quickly to get a photo!

A parting gift: one wheely popular video
Dr Brian Cox (no, not that one) made waves on Facebook this week as a video of his scooter skills went viral. The clip of Wolfson’s praelector testing out his college’s new access ramp has now been watched over 50,000 times.

Got a story that could be covered here or reported elsewhere by Varsity? Let us know: news@varsity.co.uk