July 17, 2002

Carolina in the News

Current National Coverage

Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina 
people and programs cited recently in the national media:

Reporters, do your civic duty (Commentary)
USA Today
At a seminar some years ago, a newspaper editor declared that if he walked out of 
his office building and saw a purse-snatcher robbing an unaccompanied woman, he 
would take notes for a news story, but neither go to her aid nor call the police
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2002/07/16/ncguest1.htm
(Note: Professor Philip Meyer holds the Knight Chair in the School of Journalism 
and Mass Communication.)

Tobacco doublespeak
USA Today
Cigarette giant Philip Morris spends millions on a campaign that tells parents how to 
stop their kids from getting hooked on tobacco. "Talk. They'll listen," it advises... 
Cigarette marketing undermines such involved parenting. In fact, teen smokers with 
the "most authoritative" parents are five times more likely to have been influenced by 
tobacco company come-ons than their less-restricted peers. That's one of the major 
findings in a study released today by researchers at the University of California-San 
Diego and the University of North Carolina who followed the smoking habits of 
more than 1,600 teens.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/comment/2002/07/16/edtwof2.htm

Breast-cancer preventive drug offers hope, risk
The Tallahassee Democrat (Florida)
Millions of women at high risk for breast cancer should consider taking prescription 
drugs that can prevent some cases of the feared disease, even though the medicine 
may give them other serious medical problems, a prestigious federal panel recommended 
last week. It was the second official recommendation on breast cancer in four months... 
"These are pretty substantial effects and are worth considering," said Dr. Linda Kinsinger 
of the University of North Carolina, the study leader. But the drugs' side effects create 
"something of a dilemma for patients and doctors when it comes to decision-making."
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/living/health/3674077.htm

National News Note

Dr. Sidney Smith, chief scientific officer for the American Heart Association and professor 
of medicine, was interviewed about the new guidelines issued Tuesday by the American 
Heart Association by ABC News and NBC Nightly News.

State and Local Coverage

Students to feel N.C.'s pain 
When 170,000 college students arrive at UNC campuses next month, they'll find 
unwelcome changes along with their higher tuition bills: more crowded classrooms, 
canceled courses and fewer teachers. The state's worst budget crisis since the 
Depression is quietly downsizing academia across North Carolina. Universities have 
laid off staff and nontenured professors while record numbers of students are enrolling.
http://www.newsobserver.com/front/story/1560469p-1589759c.htm

N.C. teen drivers face another restriction 
Heeding a UNC study about the state’s graduated driver’s license program, the state 
House passed a bill Tuesday that would keep new 16- and 17-year-old drivers from 
"packing" their cars with other teens... An extra passenger increases an inexperienced 
teen driver’s crash risk by 33 percent and for two passengers it increases it by 137 
percent, said study author and researcher Robert Foss with the UNC Highway Safety 
Research Center. Most teen drivers with Level 2 licenses are alone or with one 
passenger nearly 90 percent of the time, Foss said, so the inconvenience to them 
would be minimal. 
http://www.herald-sun.com/durham/4-247793.html
(Note: Other coverage includes The News and Observer 
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/nc/story/1560395p-1589719c.html and a related 
story by the Associated Press mentioning UNC in The Charlotte Observer 
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/news/local/3677614.htm)

UNC projects get green light; more coming 
Town planners have given UNC permission to start two campus building projects 
and are likely to OK another four by this time next week. Officials issued permits 
for the initial two projects -- a $10.5 million renovation of three dormitories and 
the erection of a $64.8 million parking deck and student union -- on Monday. 
http://www.herald-sun.com/orange/10-247774.html

Heat alert 
Last February, shock waves reverberated across the Florida State campus. Devaughn 
Darling, a formidable looking Seminoles football player, collapsed and died during an 
off-season workout. He had an irregular heartbeat and sickle cell trait, but doctors 
gave no official cause for his death. Then in July, University of Florida freshman Eraste 
Autin suffered heatstroke shortly after a conditioning session and died in a Gainesville 
hospital... Football players are big, strong and durable, but they aren't invincible. 
Twenty players from all levels have died in the U.S. since 1995 from heatstroke, 
according to Fred Mueller, director of the National Center for Catastrophic Sports 
Injuries Research in Chapel Hill.
http://sports.newsobserver.com/sports/college/story/1560369p-1589828c.html
(Note: Mueller is a professor of exercise and sport science.)

The home front
Robert March Hanes' writings have been read by few North Carolinians since his papers, 
including letters home from the front lines in World War I, were placed in the North Carolina 
Collection more than 40 years ago. On July 1, the diary and letters of the businessman and 
legislator were opened to the world as part of dozens of manuscripts available on the latest 
Web site in the university's Documenting the South series. 
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/Issues/2002/07/17/town00.html

Switch to marketing helps firms survive
Charlotte Observer
Throughout World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War, Mauney Hosiery 
made socks the government sent to U.S. soldiers fighting overseas... The shift 
toward marketing stems from a growing realization among U.S. firms that American 
labor costs are simply too high to sustain labor-intensive manufacturing, said Jay 
Klompmaker, a professor emeritus at UNC Chapel Hill's Kenan-Flagler 
Business School who studies marketing and manufacturing.
http://www.charlotte.com/mld/observer/business/3660072.htm

Leaves of knowledge 
In 90-degree heat, Mike Schafale pulled on a long-sleeved shirt to protect his arms, 
grabbed a wild rhododendron branch and pulled himself from a hiking trail into the 
thicket of Hanging Rock State Park. Fifteen years into a quest to count every plant in 
every important wild place in North Carolina, the ecologist was not about to let green 
briar thorns slow him down... Taking a plant census, called a pulse, is painstaking 
business. In swamps, longleaf pine forests or Appalachian ridges, the pulse ritual is the 
same. Schafale, Wentworth and co-organizers, including Robert K. Peet and Alan S. 
Weakley of UNC-Chapel Hill, summon volunteers to vacation rentals, out-of-session 
summer camps or even vacant migrant worker quarters for spells lasting as long as 
eight days. 
http://newsobserver.com/news/story/1532320p-1561650c.html

Impact of airport closure will be felt (Letter to the Editor)
I continue to be dismayed by the "progress" being made toward the closure of the 
Horace Williams Airport. The recent article by Kirk Ross (CHN, July 10) reporting 
the decreased use of the airport with fuel sales being less than half of June 2001 sales 
is not surprising. Chancellor Moeser's methodical assassination of a viable airport 
started when he ejected the Chapel Hill Flying Club from the Horace Williams 
Airport...
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/Issues/2002/07/17/opinion03.html

Choreographer Betsy Friday dead at 44
Betsy Friday, who grew up in the shadow of the UNC Bell Tower before forging a 
successful theatrical career in New York City, died Tuesday morning of complications 
from leukemia following a bone marrow transplant. She was 44. Ida Elizabeth Friday 
was the daughter of William and Ida Friday. Her childhood home was "the big house" 
on East Franklin Street, where the former president of the University of North Carolina 
system and his family lived for 30 years. 
http://www.chapelhillnews.com/Issues/2002/07/17/news07.html

Issues and Trends Affecting Carolina

Senate Panel Proposes Big Increase for NIH, Smaller Ones for Student-Aid Programs
The Chronicle of Higher Education
A Senate appropriations subcommittee voted on Tuesday to provide the National 
Institutes of Health with a $3.7-billion increase in the 2003 fiscal year, $25-million 
more than President Bush had proposed. The Senate spending plan would also raise 
the maximum Pell Grant award by $100, to $4,100. The bill was the product of close 
negotiations between Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Appropriations 
Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education. 
http://chronicle.com/daily/2002/07/2002071703n.htm
(Note: The Chronicle of Higher Education requires free registration to access articles.)

Abuse Is Feared as SAT Test Changes Disability Policy
The New York Times
The College Board has agreed to stop flagging the scores of disabled students who 
take the SAT under special conditions, such as extra time, in a legal settlement that 
could send tremors through the college admissions process. About 2 percent of the 
two million high school students who take SAT's each year get some accommodations 
— almost always including extra time — because of their documented disabilities. 
To make sure college admission boards know this, the College Board marks these 
tests with a notation that says, "Scores Obtained Under Special Conditions."
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/15/national/15SAT.html
(Note: The New York Times requires free registration to access articles.)

Plan aims at business loopholes 
Democratic leaders of the state House plan to roll out their own tax package today 
that would raise about $530 million to help close the gap between revenues and 
expenditures. The new twist in the House package, which will be presented in the 
House Finance Committee today, is the proposed closing of four corporate tax 
loopholes that together are estimated to generate about $150 million a year in new 
revenue. Most of the tax package resembles the plan endorsed earlier by the Senate, 
including delaying some tax breaks from going into effect and boosting various fees 
and costs such as seat-belt citations.
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/nc/story/1560398p-1589705c.html

Note: If you have any questions about Carolina in the News, 
please call Cathleen Keyser or Mike McFarland at News Services, 
(919) 962-2091 or news@unc.edu or mike_mcfarland@unc.edu