New York Times Upfront articles from April 2009

New York Times Upfront archives from April 2009

Career watch: cybersleuthing.(TECHNOLOGY)( digital forensics)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Even when they don't leave fingerprints, a lot of 21st-century criminals forget about digital. traits they leave behind. That's where cybersleuthing, or digital forensics, comes in, and more than 100 corteges offer concentrations in the field....

151.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)(the number of american soldiers killed in afghanistan)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... 151 NUMBER OF U.S. TROOPS killed in Afghanistan in 2008, the most since the war began. In 2008, the number of civilian deaths--2,118--was the highest since the Taliban was ousted by the U.S. and its allies in 2001. SOURCE: THE NEW YORK...

2,500.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)
April 6, 2009... 2,500 NUMBER OF THE world's 6,000 languages that have vanished recently or are in danger of extinction. SOURCE: TIME

54%.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)
April 6, 2009... 54% PERCENTAGE OF THE U.S. foreign-born population that comes from Latin America. [See page 6.] SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

$465,421.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)(amount per minute AIG lost in the 4th quarter of 2008)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... $465,421 AMOUNT PER MINUTE that A.I.G., the New York-based insurance giant, lost in the fourth quarter of 2008--for a total of $61.7 billion, the biggest quarterly loss in history. SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

46%.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)
April 6, 2009... 46% PERCENTAGE OF U.S. households with children under 18 living at home--the lowest in 50 years. SOURCE: US. CENSUS BUREAU

Studying abroad: where the Americans are.(EDUCATION)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Record numbers of American college students are studying abroad, and increasingly, they're going to China. While the traditional. study-abroad sites--Britain, Italy, Spain, and France--still attract more students from the U.S., China now ranks...

... And in the rest of the world: as if the economic crisis weren't enough to deal. with, President Obama is also facing critical, foreign-policy challenges. Here's a took at 10 at the top of his agenda.(INTERNATIONAL)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1. IRAQ Winding down the war Since the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, more than 4,200 U.S. soldiers have been killed, thousands have been injured, tens of thousands of Iraqi...

Supreme decisions: criminal evidence, voting rights, and presidential authority: three critical issues on the Supreme Court's docket this term.(NATIONAL)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CASE 1 CRIMINAL EVIDENCE EVIDENCE FOUND as a result of police error, such as an unjustified search during a traffic stop, is now admissable in some cases, the Court ruled. When Bennie D. Herring went to...

The future of the court: if President Obama gets to appoint one, or even several justices, what kind of impact would it have on the Supreme Court?(NATIONAL)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] With five of the Supreme Court's nine Justices order than 70, it's likely that President Obama will have an opportunity to make one appointment--and possibly several--to the Court within the next few years, Talk...

The truth about "rehab" & drug addiction: the reality is far from glamorous.(HEADS UP: REAL NEWS ABOUT DRUGS AND YOUR BODY: A Message from Scholastic and The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA))
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Popular culture is filled with stories about the glitzy lives of celebrities, from the designer clothes they wear to their latest romances. It's easy to assume that everything they do is glamorous --including going...

Magic number: no one knows who came up with 99 cents as a sates gimmick. But it works.(BUSINESS)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] If you can't sell something for 99 cents, you should at least tack on .99 to the price. It's a "rule" retailers should remember as they try to get Americans to start shopping...

1979 Iranian revolution: Iran was once one of America's closest allies; now it's one of President Obama's biggest headaches.(TIME PAST)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] During his first television interview from the White House--given not to an American network but to Al-Arabiya, an Arabic-language channd broadcast throughout the Arab world--President Obama addressed one of his...

Should the U.S. have tougher gun-control laws? Public-safety officials say yes, but others say such laws infringe upon Second Amendment rights.(DEBATE)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] YES Gun Laws must be designed to keep firearms out of the hands of the criminal minority without violating the freedoms of the Law-abiding majority. Currently, gun-control taws vary from place to place. That's...

A better bailout for the U.S.: open doors.(OPINION)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Whenever the economy falters, one of the first impulses--in the U.S. and abroad--is to try to protect jobs and industries at home by keeping out products and people from other countries. Times columnist Thomas L....

Finding a way home: being homeless made Delisa want to give up until a mentor offered encouragement.(VOICES)(Education Project for Homeless Youth)
April 6, 2009... It's no fun being homeless and moving around all the time. For me, it started when my grandmother died six years ago. One of the hardest things was that our family got divided up: My two Little sisters went across town to Live with their dad,...

Cartoons.(Cartoon)
April 6, 2009... STEVE SACK * Star Tribune (Minneapolis) * CREATORS SYNDICATE IT'S TEMPTING.... BUT I THINK I'LL WAIT TIL IT GOES LOWER. STUART CARLSON * Milwaukee Journal Sentinel * UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE Hahaha... What? You want me to stop...

Teacher's edition.
April 6, 2009... THE ECONOMIC CRISIS has clearly been President Obama's top priority, but it doesn't mean that he's ignoring the host of overseas challenges facing the nation. "And in the Rest of the World" rooks at 10 key issues on the President's plate,...

Minimum wages around the world.(GRAPH: INTERNATIONAL)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... In his essay, "Where Sweatshops Are a Dream" [p. 14], Times columnist Nicholas Kristof argues that sweatshops, horrible as they are, provide a leg up for those in extreme poverty in the developing world. It is difficult for Americans to...

Game show.(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... * USE with articles identified. The statements are answers to questions [modeled after the TV show Jeopardy!]. Students must answer in the form of questions. * DIVIDE the class into teams. * READ the statements. * CALL on...

Cartoon analysis.(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... THINGS COULD'T BE WORSE. OUR BEST DAYS ARE STILL AHEAD. STATE OF THE WORLD [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ANALYZE THE POLITICAL CARTOON 1. What is President Obama speaking about? 2. How would you characterize his two...

Photo analysis.(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ANALYZE THE PHOTO (See page 14 in the magazine) 1. How do you think the child feels about his surroundings? 2. Under what circumstances do you think people have to do this kind of work? 3. What thoughts...

Dear teacher.(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Dear Teacher: "Rehab" is a commonly used term that can refer to a range of drug treatment options. Teens who read about celebrities checking into residential drug treatment centers--places that look a lot like five-star resorts--may have a...

What do you know about "rehab" and drug addiction?(STUDENT WORKSHEET)(Brief article)
April 6, 2009... Name -- Date -- Answer the questions below to find out what you know about treatment for drug addiction. 1. Drug addiction is a short-term illness that is cured with medicine. (A) True (B) False 2. People who are addicted to...

Job seekers wait in the rain outside a recent job fair in Hangzhou, in eastern China.(NEWS & TRENDS)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] JOB SEEKERS wait in the rain outside a recent job fair in Hangzhou, in eastern China. Amid a global recession and plummeting demand for goods from importers like the United States, China's boom has gone bust: 70,000...

Why birds wear backpacks.(SCIENCE)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Figuring out how migrating birds get from point A to point B has tong been a challenge for scientists. Now, researchers think a novel, device--a tiny bird backpack that contains sophisticated sensors and weighs less...

Prime-time recession.(TELEVISION)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Full-time moms are being forced to take part-time jobs, foreclosure signs are going up in the most familiar neighborhoods, and out-of-work bankers are taking low-level jobs as corporate interns. The economic meltdown...

How long will the fun last?(PSYCHOLOGY)(enjoyment)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... Have you ever wondered why that new iPod seems tooter when you first get it than it does a month later? A recent study published in the Journal of Consumer Research tried to figure out why, and how unrealistic people are about how they'll feel...

A Hunkier Shakespeare.(THE BARD)(William Shakespeare )(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Nearly 400 years after his death, William Shakespeare is looking better than ever, thanks to a recently discovered portrait that may be the only one painted in his lifetime. The portrait, at left, came from the...

How green is your cell phone?(ENVIRONMENT)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 1 PLASTIC BOTTLES pile up in recycling bins [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 2 RECYCLING PLANT turns bottles into plastic flakes. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] 3 CELL PHONES are made from the recycled plastic. ...

No more colds?(MEDICINE)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... A major stumbling block to finding a cure for the common cold has been that there are so many different strains of the human rhinovirus that causes it. But success may be within reach. Researchers say they have decoded the genomes of the 99...

Numbers in the news.(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... 16% PERCENTAGE INCREASE in U.S. movie attendance this year--the biggest rise in two decades. Some experts attribute the box-office surge to a need for escapism in a recession. SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES 2,680 NUMBER OF RECORD stores...

Google mistrials: a cornerstone of the American legal system is that judges decide what evidence a jury gets to see and hear. Now, with iPhones and BlackBerrys in their pockets, some jurors are doing their own research. Is justice being denied?(NATIONAL)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Last month, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been researching the case on the Internet, violating not only the judge's instructions but also centuries of legal rules....

The cost of capital punishment: death-penalty opponents are using a new argument for tough economic times: that capital punishment is too expensive.(NATIONAL)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CRITICAL THINKING Capital punishment is included in one of the first written codes of law, King Hammurabi's code, from Babylonia, around 1750 B.C. It included the phrase "an eye for an eye." * What does this...

Indonesia: another face of Islam: the world's most-populous Muslin nation isn't in the Middle East, and that's one of the reasons it's a very different kind of place.(INTERNATIONAL)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CRITICAL THINKING Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, "If you want to know if Islam, democracy, modernity, and women's rights can coexist, go to Indonesia." * What did she mean by this, and what...

Armed & underage: across the globe, thousands of children are being forced to serve as soldiers.(Cover story)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CRITICAL THINKING In 1989, the U.N. passed the Convention on the Rights of the Child--the first legally binding international instrument that focuses on the human rights of children. * What rights do you...

She got game: more girls than ever are playing high school sports, but getting onto the baseball diamond can still be a challenge.(SPORTS)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Marti Sementelli has been a baseball player since preschool, tossing plastic balls and swinging a tiny wood bat from the time she was 3 years old. She was a solid player at every youth level, and sometimes a star. In...

1939: Marian Anderson sings to the nation: barred from Washington's 'whites only' Constitutional Hall, Anderson performed a the Lincoln Memorial--and helped set the stage for the Civil Rights Movement.(TIMES PAST)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CRITICAL THINKING Briefly review the civil rights movement. * In what ways did Marian Anderson's performance at the Lincoln Memorial set the stage for the civil rights movement? What did this event, as well...

Should Washington D.C., get a vote in Congress? Congress is considering a bill that would give the District a vote in the House, but critics argue it's unconstitutional.(DEBATE)
April 20, 2009... YES Centuries after it was a rallying cry in the American Revolution, "taxation without representation" is still a fact of life for the 600,000 Americans who live in Washington, D.C. District of Columbia residents pay more federal...

Ten trillion and counting.(Cartoon)
April 20, 2009... OH, LOOK. ANOTHER STORY ABOUT OBAMA'S HAIR GOING GRAY. JOHN COLE * The Scranton Times-Tribune (Pennsylvania) * CAGLE FIND YOUR OWN CAVE... MIKE LUCKOVICH * Atlanta Journal-Constitution * CREATORS SYNDICATE ARE WE THERE YET,...

American newspapers disappearing! Read all about it!(CARTOON ANALYSIS)(Brief article)
April 20, 2009... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ANALYZE THE POLITICAL CARTOON 1. What changes taking place in the media world does the cartoon refer to? 2. What is ironic about what the paper boy is saying? 3. Why are newspapers going out of business...