Scholastic Update articles from April 1991

Scholastic Update archives from April 1991

A national emergency: rising teen violence triggers fears that the U.S. is breeding a lost generation of children.
April 5, 1991... ON THURSDAY, FEBRUary 14, James Russell was supposed to celebrate his 17th birthday. His unemployed mother, Beverly, had even scratched together enough money to buy him a much wanted new coat with the Los Angeles Raiders football-team 1090...

Violent youth. (examples of violence by and against teens)
April 5, 1991... IMAGINE LIVING IN A NEIGHBORHOOD WHERE roving teenage and random gunfire make it too dangerous to toss a football in a play. ground or walk the streets at night. Imagine attending a school where body searches for for concealed weapons are the...

Israel faces the 21st century. (advertising supplement)
April 5, 1991... Students who have ever seen a TV cop show will understand what this cover depict. Ask them why they think UPDATE's editors picked this photo to illustrate teenage violence. Suggest that one reason might be that the stark image of handcuffed...

What kind of justice? Should violent young offenders be getting stiffer punishment? (includes related article on parental-liability laws)
April 5, 1991... BILLY L. WAS ALREADY due in court for armed robbery when he, along with two teenage friends, came upon a homeless woman in New York City's Central Park. On the spur of the moment, they beat her with a pipe and repeatedly raped her. At the...

The ultimate price. (death penalty for teenagers)
April 5, 1991... FEW ISSUES ARE AS PASsionately debated in this country as capital punishment. The essential issue-whether it's right to take a life for a life-raises profound questions about our national values and ideas of justice. The moral issues become...

A day in court. (sample cases from Manhattan Family Court)
April 5, 1991... This is a crazy place," says a lawyer looking around one of the packed and noisy waiting rooms at Manhattan Family Court in New York City. It certainly looks chaotic, with babies crying, children chasing each other over chairs, families...

Life on the inside. (Lloyd McCorkle Training School in Skillman, New Jersey, a prison for juvenile offenders)
April 5, 1991... TO A FIRST-TIME visitor, the Lloyd McCorkle Training School in Skillman, New Jersey, looks like a typical high school. The classrooms are bright and sunny. The library is well-stocked and decorated with posters of Michael J. Fox, Oprah Winfrey,...

Punishment or reform? Juvenile justice in U.S. history.
April 5, 1991... WHAT SHOULD BE DONE WITH YOUNG people who break the law? Lock them up like adult criminals? Or give them care tailored to the needs of children? Americans have been asking these questions ever since our nation began. U.S. lawmakers and...

A shot that echoed. (murder of Kevin Gant, a teenager who was concerned about youth violence & crime)
April 5, 1991... GROWING UP ON THE tough streets of his Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood, 16-year-old Kevin Gant was well acquainted with the world of teen crime. A top student from a tight-knit family, Kevin stayed out of trouble himself. But some of his...

Joining the fight. (organizations helping with the problem of teen violence) (directory)
April 5, 1991... TEENS CAN PLAY A VItal role in battling the plague of juvenile crime. In fact, there's probably a youth organization up and running in your community. If not, you might consider starting your own with the help of one...

Liquid gold. (oil)(includes article on alternative energy sources)
April 19, 1991... By admission of a senior Presidential adviser, the United States would never have gone to war in the Middle East if Kuwait's main export had been oranges. But Kuwait is oil country. And that was a major reason why the world lined up to repel...

A voracious appetite for energy. (illustration)
April 19, 1991... Despite signs of trouble, the United States has become increasingly dependent on oil as its primary source of energy. To many people, that poses a problem. Oil is a finite resource that, once used, cannot be replaced. In addition, the...

Kicking the habit. (new energy policy & America's dependence on foreign oil)
April 19, 1991... On February 20--day 36 of the Persian Gulf war--American combat troops geared up for a ground invasion of occupied Kuwait, and U.S. warplanes relentlessly pounded the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., President Bush...

'Ecocide' in the Gulf: the Persian Gulf war has resulted in environmental disaster.
April 19, 1991... Last November, Jordan's King Hussein warned that a war in the Persian Gulf would not only cause great human suffering and economic disaster, it could also lead to an "environmental catastrophe" that would be "swift, severe, and devastating."...

Profit and power: from the first gushers to the Gulf War, oil has shown it can make or break fortunes, towns - even nations.
April 19, 1991... In 1864, Pithole, Pennsylvania, lived up to its name. It was a tiny, dark logging village, little more than a pinprick in the dense forest of the northeastern United States. But when the new year dawned, Pithole underwent an amazing...

The next generation. (alternative energy sources)
April 19, 1991... Nearly two decades ago, America was headed for a new age. A 1973 embargo by Middle East oil-producing countries had rocked the U.S. economy, awakening Americans to the need for a more energy-conscious life-style. But then Mideast oil...

Nature's avengers. (radical environmental groups)
April 19, 1991... Like many Americans, Renee Cook watched news of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska with tears in her eyes. "I cried for two weeks," she says, recalling the oil-drenched animals and sludge-blackened beaches that filled television screens...

The fallen angel. (nuclear power)(includes article on the Chernobyl legacy)
April 19, 1991... On April 26, 1986, an explosion took place in reactor No. 4 of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the Soviet Union. Its force was so strong that it blew off the facility's concrete roof, releasing a cloud of poisonous radioactive gas and...

The cost of survival: as poorer nations industrialize, their need for energy grows - and so does their pollution.
April 19, 1991... Poverty is the greatest polluter." The late Prime Minister Indira Gandhi of India shocked an international conference on the environment with that statement several years ago. She was responding to environmentalists who charged that...

Defending the earth: a host of organizations are eager for the help of young people in fighting environmental abuses. (directory)
April 19, 1991... Few issues have inspired more interest from young people than the environment. Activists say that if teens chose to act on the interest, they can play a vital role in raising the public's environmental consciousness. Beyond the little...