Carolina in the News Carolina in the News: Wednesday, February 29, 2012
| Carolina in the News: Wednesday, February 29, 2012 |
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| Wednesday, February 29, 2012 | |
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Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media: National Coverage Is The Voting Rights Act Endangered? A Legal Primer National Public Radio ...Each jurisdiction argues that its election processes no longer inhibit minority voters. NPR asked three legal scholars to weigh in, and they agreed that minority voters still need the protections of the Voting Rights Act. But its survival, they said, faces a real threat given a Supreme Court now openly skeptical of the law. Mark Tushnet, a professor at Harvard Law School; Kareem U. Crayton, a professor the University of North Carolina School of Law; and Michael J. Pitts, a professor at the Indiana University School of Law, answer five of the most pressing questions. Invitation to a Dialogue: A Filibuster Alternative (Letter to the Editor) The New York Times There is a vacancy crisis on our federal courts. The last two presidents have faced extensive obstruction of their judicial nominations. President Obama has had a lower percentage of his judicial nominees confirmed by the Senate than any other recent president at this point in his term. (Ichard Painter and Michael Gerdardt. The writers are professors at the University of Minnesota and University of North Carolina Law Schools, respectively.) 'Tinderbox': How The West Fueled The AIDS Epidemic "Fresh Air" National Public Radio HIV is a slow-moving time bomb. ...(Craig) Timberg, the former Johannesburg bureau chief for The Washington Post, with his co-author Daniel Halperin, an AIDS expert currently at the University of North Carolina, explores the history of the HIV virus and efforts to fight the AIDS epidemic in his book Tinderbox: How the West Sparked the AIDS Epidemic and How the World Can Finally Overcome It. Study: Kids get more added sugar from foods than drinks USA Today Kids are gobbling far more added sugars than they should, and processed and packaged foods, not beverages, are the leading source in their diets, new government data show. ...Barry Popkin, a nutrition professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, agrees. "A major problem is that sugar contains nothing nutritional, and it is edging out the food kids should be eating, especially real fruits and vegetables." Doubts about 'the Jesus Discovery' (Blog) MSNBC.com Now that the word about "the Jesus Discovery" is out in the open, outside experts are weighing in — and many of them look upon the robotic exploration of a 1st-century Jerusalem tomb as a technological tour de force resulting in an archaeological faux pas. ...Jodi Magness, a religious-studies professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said "it pains me to see archaeology hijacked in the service of non-scientific interests, whether they are religious, financial, or other." Regional Coverage Weighing the effects of sports-related head injuries The Summit Daily (Colorado) ...Kevin Guskiewicz, chair of the Department of Exercise and Sports Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and recent recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship, said there are three million sports-related brain injuries a year across the United States. In the past year alone, emergency room visits for concussions have increased 200 percent for children (although Guskiewicz suspects that could be because more people are going to see a doctor). State and Local Coverage Stem cells, chemo can beat testicular cancer WRAL-TV (CBS/Raleigh) Stem cell transplants done in conjunction with chemotherapy are offering hope to men with advanced testicular cancer. About a year ago, David Alston, 42, went to his doctor for some odd symptoms, including "feeling numb in one leg for a couple of seconds," he said. Alston had testicular cancer. Although it's rare, the disease is the most common malignancy for men aged 15 to 35. ..."He underwent conventional chemotherapy, tolerated that fairly well," said UNC Hospitals oncologist Dr. Paul Armistead. UNC hosts discussion on college sports WTVD-TV (ABC/Raleigh) UNC Chapel Hill hosted a discussion over the state of big time college sports Tuesday evening. The event happened even as the school recovers from its own NCAA investigation and waits to learn its punishment. Related Links: http://www.wralsportsfan.com/colleges/story/10791948/ http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/02/29/1892535/ncaa-critics-speak-up.html ‘Grave concern’ over NC Pre-K proposal The Herald-Sun (Durham) ...To illustrate its claim that public schools’ pre-K programs perform better than those that are privately run, the state Department of Public Instruction on Tuesday pointed to the results of two studies of the More at Four program (now NC Pre-K) conducted by UNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute in 2009 and 2011. State leaders speak out on proposal to nix public pre-K (Blog) The News & Record (Greensboro) A House proposal to completely privatize the state's pre-kindergarten program is facing criticism from state and education leaders, including Gov. Perdue and State Board of Education Chairman Bill Harrison. A few minutes ago, I received an email from the Department of Public Instruction touting two recent studies by the Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill that show children who attend public pre-K do better academically than those who attend private programs. Triangle Hosts Food Symposium WUNC-FM (Chapel Hill) The future of food, farming, and sustainability are topics at a symposium today and tomorrow at UNC and Duke. Jaqueline Olich is from the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at UNC; she's also one of the coordinators of the event. According to projections from the United Nations, Olich says food production will have to increase by up to 100-percent by the year 2050 to sustain an estimated 9 billion people. 2 shows, 1 theme The Chapel Hill News Late last year Joseph Megel, director of UNC's Process Series, was helping Kane Smego and Will McInerney of the Sacrificial Poets create a theatrical adaptation of their "Poetic Portraits of Revolution," a collection of poems and first-person accounts they compiled on visits to Egypt and Tunisia during the Arab Spring revolutions the past year. In the midst of that, Megel learned that UNC's Morgan Family Writers-in-Residence series was bringing South African playwright Athol Fugard to Chapel Hill. Issues and Trends Not From My Wallet Inside Higher Ed Think of it as the latest iteration of the “not in my back yard” argument. Most people want higher education for their children, and most people think it’s a good idea for other people’s children to have higher education, too. ...A few weeks later, members of the University of North Carolina system’s Board of Governors pushed to adopt a similar policy. When that was rejected by the full board, they began to push for a tax break for families who did not qualify for financial aid. |