November 11, 2004

Carolina in the News

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

National Coverage

Binge Drinking Raises Death Risk After Heart Attack
Health Day News wire service
Moderate alcohol consumption has long been considered good for the heart, but a new study finds binge drinking doubles the risk of dying after a heart attack...."Even episodic binge drinking carries risk," added Dr. Sidney Smith, a former president of the American Heart Association and a professor of medicine at the University of North Carolina.

And is it true? Probably...
Newsday (N.Y.)
Tom Wolfe starts "I am Charlotte Simmons," his new novel about college life, with a fictional scientific article about an experiment showing that cats "steeped in an environment of hypermanic sexual obsession" soon become sex fiends themselves...."I think we can all relate to different aspects of Charlotte Simmons," says Frances Hankins, who showed Wolfe around the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill while she was a student there....Connie Eble, a Chapel Hill English professor who collects slang from students and helped Wolfe, says she thinks she gave him "sexiled."
Related link: http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000039&cid=lehman&sid=a8htRpaR.weQ

State & Local Coverage

Report: UNC can still hike tuition
The Herald-Sun (Durham)/The Chapel Hill Herald
For years now, UNC officials have raised tuition to bolster the salaries of faculty and teaching assistants. And a new consultant's report suggests that UNC is still affordable enough that the total cost of a Carolina education has room to grow.

Panel: U.S. medical system is ailing
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
The U.S. health system did not win top grades during a forum Wednesday that brought together educators from three of the nation's premier medical schools -- even though two of the panelists were former federal health officials...UNC's top doctor, Bill Roper, and Bruce Vladeck, a professor of health policy and geriatrics at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a member of the New York City Board of Health, are both former administrators of the federal Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) -- now the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.

N&O photographer captured Arafat's emergence
The News & Observer
In the spring of 2002, News & Observer reporter Oren Dorell and I were sent to the Middle East to report on how the conflict there was connected to the lives of Jews and Palestinians in North Carolina. On this day we were going through Ramallah with doctors from a UNC-Chapel Hill affiliated program that set up clinics in crisis areas of the world.

Business Doings
The News & Observer
Qualyst announced that two international patents were issued for its ADMET products. An Australian patent was issued for Accurate, and a New Zealand patent was issued for B-Clear. Qualyst, founded from research at UNC Chapel Hill, focuses on commercializing ADMET products for drug discovery and development.

Veteran newsman's view on why Bush won: It's who you like
The Herald-Sun/The Chapel Hill Herald
In the view of veteran newsman Sam Donaldson, the recent presidential election -- although packed to its gills with analysis, polling, advertising and complex, targeted campaigning -- ultimately came down to a very simple premise...."George W. Bush beat John Kerry. I mean, a man beat another man," Donaldson, who has worked for ABC News for nearly four decades, said Wednesday at UNC.

The 'GI Bill' recast America
The Herald-Sun (Durham)
Like "Victory Garden" and "Iwo Jima," the term "GI Bill" springs from the Greatest Generation and its increasingly distant past....According to UNC Archivist Janis Holder, the Chapel Hill campus was fortunate to have already expanded to house a Naval training program during the war.

N.C.panel suggests DWI reform be financed with beer fee
The Associated Press (N.C.)
Additional patrol officers, investigators and trainers are needed to beef up North Carolina's effort to combat drunken driving and the money to hire them could come from a higher tax on beer....Robert Foss, a highway safety researcher at the University of North Carolina, argued that the device targets the real problem: drunken people attempting to drive.

Trial focuses on premeditation
The News & Observer
Matthew Charles Grant's traumatic early childhood -- shuttled from one relative to the next, raised by teenagers and physically abused -- left him so scarred that he didn't have the mental ability to plan a murder...."I think he had severe emotional problems that severely affected his ability to plan his actions," said Seymour Hallek, a retired forensic psychiatrist from the University of North Carolina.

Overstated risk (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer
The Nov. 9 N&O carried a front-page article describing results from the clinical trial of a new therapy for heart failure....Jay Kaufman, Chapel Hill, the writer teaches in the department of epidemiology at the UNC School of Public Health.

Issues & Trends

Step up, or give cemetery back to UNC (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
When they assumed ownership of the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery in 1989, town officials also took on a binding obligation to maintain it with an eye toward preservation issues and in a way that's acceptable to UNC, the burial ground's former owner.

Produced by News Services, Carolina in the News is an e-mail sampling of current news media coverage about Carolina people and programs, as well as issues and trends that affect the university. Stories usually will be online and available free for a limited time - often one to two weeks. Expiration dates before stories move to archives vary by media outlet. Some outlets require free user registration or a subscription.

Carolina in the News is also posted daily to the News Services Web page, http://www.unc.edu/newsserv/clipsindex.htm.

Please share any questions, comments or suggestions at news@unc.edu.