New York Times Upfront articles from October 2003

New York Times Upfront archives from October 2003

Robots in space.(News & Trends)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... ROBOTS IN SPACE: Astronaut Nancy Currie [left] and a "robonaut" work together on a mock mission at NASA's Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. NASA is testing the concept of using human-robotic teams to improve the productivity of astronauts...

Strange new mob scenes.(Cyber Times)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... Why would dozens of strangers gather in a San Francisco park, play a brief game of duck duck goose, and disperse? Or stand in a London mountain, open their umbrellas, then leave? It's typically zany behavior for flash mobs, which became a minor...

Numbers in the news.
October 13, 2003... 30% How much Universal Music Group said it would cut the price of some CDs to battle music piracy on the Internet. SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES 87 billion Dollars President Bush plans to request from Congress in military and...

More humane fast food.(Business)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... The animal welfare movement has won over some new allies: fastfood chains. McDonalds, Burger King, KFC, and Wendy's have all underwrittcn research and hired animal welfare specialists to help them devise new standards ensuring more-humane...

When songs get stuck in your head.(Science)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... There's nothing nicer than a tune playing in your head--until you can't turn it off. The phenomenon has spanned the ages. In 1882, Mark Twain wrote of an annoying "jingling rhyme" that became indelibly lodged in his mind until he passed the...

The cyber-music war.(Soundbites)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... When your product is being regularly stoten, there comes a time when you have to take appropriate action. --Cary Sherman, Recording Industry Association of America, on lawsuits against music rite swappers. [RIAA.com, Sept. 8) File...

Reality TV's new continent.(Africa)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... Reatity TV has a new home. Big Brother Africa has an estimated 30 million viewers, making it the most popular, and the most controversial, show in Africa. The show throws together strangers as housemates and lets viewers watch the sparks fly....

Doing her part to honor the troops.(Q&A)(Jessica Porter)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... Nineteen-yea1 old. Jessica Porter of Hudson, Florida, on-founded a project called Operation Homefront Quilts to make quilts for all the families of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. With the death toll still rising--and each quilt taking up to 12...

SAT math scores reach 35-year high.(Education)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... The scores of high school seniors on the SAT math exam have climbed to their highest level in 35 years. The average math SAT score of 519 for seniors graduating in 2003 represented a 16-point gain over the last decade; the average verbal score...

Bill of Rights at last finds its way home.(The Law)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... In April 1865, at the end of the Civil. War, a Union soldier snatched a copy of the Bit[ of Rights from North Carolina's Statehouse and marched home to Ohio with it. Now, 138 years later, North CaroLina appears tobe getting it back. The...

Smoking bans catch.(Europe)(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... The antismoking movement is gaining ground in Western Europe, where smoking has been as much a personal statement as a habit. In January, IreLand is expected to become the first European country to ban smoking in pubs. Norway and the...

Church & state: a 200-year debate continues: when Joshua Davey lost a state scholarship because he majored in theology, he took his case all the way to Supreme Court.(National)
October 13, 2003... Joshua Davey met the requirements for Washington state's college-scholarship program: He graduated in the top 15 percent of his class at University High School in Spokane in 1999, and also came from a family with a modest income. But there...

Russia's 21st-century teens: they may act, think, and look like American teenagers, but they're also deeply patriotic and see the world in a very Russian way.(International)
October 13, 2003... Seventeen-year old Dmitry Tagin lives in a Moscow neighborhood of low-to middlein come concrete apartments. His mother is a housewife; his father an auto mechanic. He likes Russian hard rock and he opposes his government's military policies....

Terror's ultimate weapon: suicide bombings have become the tactic of choice for terrorists. Their toll--in terms of death and psychological impact--is devastating.(International)
October 13, 2003... From Jerusalem to Jakarta and from Bali to Baghdad, the suicide bomber is clearly the weapon of choice for international terrorists. Terrorist groups now rely almost exclusively on this horrific tactic to carry out their attacks. As...

Where did my classes go? With budget cuts forcing public colleges to drop classes and raise tuition, graduating isn't as easy as it used to be.(Education Times)
October 13, 2003... The moment registration opens, Michele D. Hannah dives for courses with a fury produced by desperation. "When will I get the classes I need to graduate?" wonders Hannah, class of "I-have-no-idea," at the University of Iowa. Classes have...

Fighting the 'Red Menace': fearing Communism's spread from overseas, the U.S. government waged a decades-long battle at home.(Times Past)
October 13, 2003... For much of the 20th century, America was preoccupied with a threat that seemed to loom within its borders, at the same time it challenged nations around the world: Communism. To prevent Communists from infiltrating American life, the...

Should the U.S. halt human space flight? The Columbia accident has revived the debate on whether the rewards of human space exploration are worth the risks.(Debate)
October 13, 2003... YES Anything we want to do in space we can do more efficiently, more economically, and more safely with automated spacecraft than with astronauts. It is now impractical and unsafe to send humans into space. The space shuttle is the world's...

Cartoons.
October 13, 2003... I ROBBED A LIQUOR STORE. WHAT'RE YOU IN FOR? AGGRAVATED ASSAULT WHAT'RE YOU IN FOR? FILE-SHARING "SHAKE YA TAILFEATHER" BY NELLY AND P. DIDDY. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DO YOU REALIZED THE LAST TIME MARS WAS THIS CLOSE TO EARTH...

'We didn't plan to be gun-control activists'.(Voices)
October 13, 2003... People say you can't fight City Hall. But after spending five years urging the Los Angeles City Council to pass gun-control legislation, we have learned it's worth a try. We didn't plan to be gun-control activists. We were in fourth grade...

Russia's teens enjoy new freedoms, but social and economic ills abound.(Graph Exercise)
October 13, 2003... Today's young Russians have been freed from the dictatorial rule that older generations of Russians endured in the Soviet Union under Communism between 1917 and 1991. But along with new political freedoms a host of social and economic problems...

Upfront quiz show.(Brief Article)
October 13, 2003... Use with articles throughout the issue. Divide the class into 2-4 teams. Read the statements below, which are answers to questions. In this game, modeled after the TV show Jeopardy!, students must give their answers in the form of questions....