Scholastic Update articles from February 1997

Scholastic Update archives from February 1997

Democracy in Russia: what's at stake.(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... The headlines on the cover of this issue of UPDATE are not true. They are the product of the imagination of the UPDATE staff as we sat around one day wondering: "What could happen if a major crisis erupted in Russia tomorrow?" But it was...

Yeltsin's second round. (Russian President Boris Yeltsin; includes notable dates in Russian history)(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... The rumors had circulated for weeks. Some reports claimed Russian President Boris Yeltsin was on the brink of death. Others said he was already dead. Speculation swirled around his heart problems, his alcohol problems, and the pressures of his...

The economy in crisis. (Russia)(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... Six years ago, Anastasiya Krykova could barely feed herself. Under Communism, long breadlines and short food supplies often left her hungry. But today, despite the well-stocked stores of the new capitalist Russia, life for the 71-year-old...

From Russia with guns. (organized crime)(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... The calm summer evening is shattered by screeching tires. A black sedan roars into the path of a bank president walking home from work. The car doors swing open. Three men in suits leap out, point their machine guns, and open fire. An...

Yeltsin's war. (Russian President Boris Yeltsin and the war in Chechnya)(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... In 1991, only days after the collapse of the old Soviet Union, a euphoric Boris Yeltsin promised Russia's 21 republics unprecedented freedom to manage their own political and economic affairs. "Take all the independence you can swallow,"...

Loose nukes. (black market sales of nuclear weapons and material in Russia)(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... It was a chance bust that confirmed the worst fears of intelligence experts and scientists around the world. On October 9, 1993, Leonid Smirnov, a former engineer at a Russian nuclear laboratory, was arrested for being drunk and disorderly at...

Crisis in Russia! (international crisis management)(Simulation, Part 1)(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... What if Russian President Boris Yeltsin died? If a Russian nuclear bomb were stolen? if Russia broke apart? No one knows if -- or when -- any of these events will actually happen. Some are more likely than others. But each is a potential...

Freedom and uncertainty. (Russian teenagers' attitudes toward democracy)(Simulation, Part 1)(Cover Story)
February 7, 1997... As graduation nears, Lena Permyakova is getting nervous. Like other high school seniors in Russia, Lena worries about grades, applications to universities, and what to do with her life. But most of all, she worries about Russia's shaky economy...

The rights stuff. (three Bill of Rights cases involving teenagers)
February 7, 1997... Do you have the same constitutional rights as adults? Or do you check those rights at the school door each morning? For the teenagers in these three stories, these questions became much more more than a philosophical debate. As each teen...

America on wheels; Americans exchanged horses for horsepower and roared into the Roaring Twenties. (includes information about the first automobile assembly line)(History/The 1920s)
February 7, 1997... The 1920s were a decade of dramatic upheaval in American society. Everything, from work to sexual morality, seemed to be changing at a heart-pumping pace. Country folk were leaving their farms for factory jobs in cities. U.S. soldiers returned...

Are we turning our backs on the poor? (includes related information on the welfare system)(Cover Story)
February 21, 1997... The federal government is making the most dramatic change in policy toward the poor in 60 years. Do the changes represent long-overdue reforms? Or a betrayal of America's needy? Thousands of bills have been signed into law at ceremonies on...

Two faces of poverty.(Cover Story)
February 21, 1997... No one family tells the whole story of poverty in America. Every poor family is poor in its own way. But the debate over how to solve the problem of poverty is ultimately about people. Here are two families, from very different backgrounds, who...

The war on poverty.
February 21, 1997... For 60 years, federal programs tried to fight poverty. Here's a look at how they worked, what they achieved, and why they were controversial. In 1932, hundreds of ragged schoolchildren paraded before the Chicago Board of Education,...

The rating game: a behind-the-scenes look at the fierce lobbying battle in Washington that created the new TV ratings.
February 21, 1997... A behind-the-scenes look at the fierce lobbying battle in Washington that created the new TV ratings You're channel surfing during prime time when--click--you notice those little letters at the top of your screen: TV-G, TV-PO, TV-14. And as...

Conquering fear itself. (Pres Franklin Roosevelt)
February 21, 1997... During the dark days of the Depression, Americans turned to Franklin D. Roosevelt for hope. With words of optimism and humor, he didn't disappoint. The Great Depression of the 1930s remains the biggest economic crisis in history. Few...