New York Times Upfront articles from September 2007

New York Times Upfront archives from September 2007

Divers.(NEWS & TRENDS)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] DIVERS have begun removing 2 million tires that were dumped off Florida's east coast in the 1970s. Intended to form an artificial reef and marine habitat, the tires have blocked coral growth and harmed fish and other...

Too much good news?(NEWS & TRENDS)(Russian News Service)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] RUSSIA Journalists at a Russian radio network were shocked this spring by orders from their new bosses: At least 50 percent of their reports about Russia, they were told, must be positive. Russian News Service...

Eco-friendly soccer.(ENVIRONMENT)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The Colorado Rapids U-23 team, based in Boulder, has a new slogan: "The World's First Carbon Neutral Soccer Team." This means that all carbon emissions produced by the team [white driving, cooking, etc.] will be...

do u txt whl drvng?(LAW)(driving while texting law)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... Drivers who tap out text messages the wheel in Washington State now risk a fine of $101. Governor Christine Gregoire has signed the nation's first law to ban "D.W.T."--driving white texting--with a cell phone or other mobile device. The new law...

Telltale tails.(dogs)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dog lovers may think that a vigorously wagging tail means "I am sooo happy to see you," but it turns out to be more complicated than that. The direction of the wag also counts. A recent study at two Italian...

Numbers in the news.(NEWS & TRENDS)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... 84% VOTER TURNOUT IN France for this year's presidential election; for the 2004 U.S. presidential election, turnout was 64 percent. SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES 1,000 ESTIMATED NUMBER OF years that it takes for a plastic grocery bag to...

Higher & higher: there are dozens of skyscrapers under construction or being planned around the world that are 1,000 feet or taller. Here's how three of those buildings compare with some of the tallest skyscrapers built to date.(SKY WATCH)(Table)
September 3, 2007... HIGHER & HIGHER There are dozens of skyscrapers under construction or being planned around the world that are 1,000 feet or taller. Here's how three of those buildings compare with some of the tallest skyscrapers built to date. ...

Rocking the Gondola.(ITALY)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For more than a thousand years, Venice has had gondolas--the long, narrow boats that serve as taxis on the city's canals--but never a female gondolier. Now, after a decade of struggle, Alexandra Hai has become a...

10 supreme court cases every teen should know: Part 1: the nation highest court has had plenty to say about everything from free speech at school to teenagers' rights in the legal system.(NATIONAL)
September 3, 2007... LESSON PLAN 1 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] BEFORE READING Photocopy the Bill of Rights and distribute to students. CRITICAL THINKING After reviewing the Tinker case, divide the class into two teams of "lawyers." * Ask each...

Life in the shadows: as one of 12 million illegal, immigrants in the United States, Veronica struggles to protect her family's middle-class life in Texas.(NATIONAL)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] LESSON PLAN 2 DEBATE Ask students to take sides on one of the key questions in the current immigration debate: whether or not illegal immigrants in the U.S. should be allowed to pursue a path to Legal...

In Washington, a fierce debate over immigration.(NATIONAL)(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... President Bush an d Congress have been talking about immigration reform for Ill years. This spring, they came up with a compromise they hoped lawmakers with a range of views could support; instead, it came under attack from all sides. The...

Isn't the election next year? The 2008 presidential election is more than a year away, but the campaign--and the debate over the issues facing America--are already in full swing.(Cover story)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LESSON PLAN 3 CRITICAL THINKING Note that the United States is unique among Western democracies in having such Long election campaigns. * Discuss these questions: Does America's size--so much Larger...

Courting the youth vote.
September 3, 2007... The presidential, campaigns are putting a Lot of energy into courting the youth vote. Links to online hangouts like YouTube, MySpace, and Facebook are all over the candidates' home pages, and some campaigns have hired youth-vote coordinators to...

Haircuts or turbans: many young Sikhs are forgoing turbans and cutting their long hair--leaving spiritual leaders dismayed.(INTERNATIONAL)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When he was 14, Jugraj Singh abandoned his turban and had a lifetime's growth of hair cut off. Like many young Sikhs in India, Singh found his turban--the most conspicuous emblem of the Sikh faith--a bother. It got...

The perfect weapon: thousands of child soldiers have been forced into battle in some of Africa's most violent conflicts.(INTERNATIONAL)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] When he was 13 years old, Ishmael Beah was given an AK-47, ' drugged up, and taught to kill. It was 1993, and his native country, Sierra Leone, was in the midst of a civil war. Rebel soldiers had attacked his village...

Taking the war out of a child soldier.
September 3, 2007... Last November, Salifou Yankene, 18, stepped off a plane at Kennedy Airport in New York and asked for asylum. "I want to make refugee," said the former child soldier from the ivory Coast. He arrived knowing no one, and, like many of the...

1957 the integration of Central High: fifty years ago this fall, President Eisenhower sent federal troops into Arkansas to enforce the desegregation of Little Rock's Central High School.(TIMES PAST)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] LESSON PLAN 4 [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CRITICAL THINKING The article and the timeline demonstrate how America's treatment of blacks and other minorities has changed in the Last century and a half. *...

Guns new & used: is it too easy to get a gun in America?(DEBATE)
September 3, 2007... YES Every day, eight American children and teenagers die from gun violence. More than 29,000 people are killed by guns in the U.S. each year. One major reason for these deaths is easy access to guns. There are an astounding 200 million...

Going green talk or action? Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman on what the U.S. needs to do about energy and the environment.(OPINION)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Surely the most glaring contrast in American political, life today is the number of words, speeches, and magazine covers devoted to "going green," "combating climate change," and gaining "energy security"--and the...

Applying to college: a look back: like many seniors, Kiran Gandhi spent a stressful year caught up in the college-application process.(VOICES)
September 3, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] This month, I started as a freshman at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., and I could not be more excited. A year ago, I had other ideas. But I learned that applying to college doesn't always turn out the...

[Cartoon].(Cartoon)
September 3, 2007... THEY START EARLIER EVERY SEASON! CHRISTMAS SALES? NO... PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARIES. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ROB ROGERS * Pittsburgh Post-Gazette * UNITED FEATURES SYNDICATE I WANT CHEAP GAS AND I WANT TO DRIVE AS MUCH OR MORE...

Illegal immigrants on the job.(GRAPH NATIONAL)(Brief article)(Graph)
September 3, 2007... There are currently an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Like Veronica and Jose in the article "Life in the Shadows," the majority came to the U.S. in search of economic opportunity. A common perception of...

Game show.(Brief article)
September 3, 2007... * 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 the...

An anthropologist excavates a mass grave recently discovered near Scharfenberg, Germany.(NEWS & TRENDS)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... AN ANTHROPOLOGIST excavates a mass grave recently discovered near Scharfenberg, Germany. It contains the remains of about 100 soldiers killed in a battle between Swedish and Saxon troops on Oct. 5, 1636. The battle was part of the Thirty Years'...

Righteous rats.(BEHAVIOR)(rats' behavior)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Rats may be more caring and selfless than their reputation as "low-down dirty rats" suggests. It turns out that rats can be very kind to each other--even to rats they haven't met before. Swiss researchers put pairs...

You just can't win.(GAMES)(Chinook)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... The game of checkers has been solved. Scientists at the University of Alberta in Canada have developed an unbeatable computer program named Chinook. The best any opponent can do against it is achieve a draw (try it at www....

They're not buying it.(RECYCLING)(freeganism)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Why buy a Lamp, a chair, or a head of Lettuce when you can find a perfectly good one in the trash? This is the philosophy of the urban scavengers who car themselves freegans. They try to minimize their participation...

Pickled red.(FOOD)(Kool-Aid red pickle recipe)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... Imagine a dill pickle that s red when it should be green and sweet when it should be sour. Kool-Aid is the explanation, and kids from Texas to Mississippi are scarfing down these specially pickled pickles. No one knows exactly how the fad...

Forgiving a goddess.(NEPAL)(Sajani Shakya)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Even a goddess can get fired. Sajani Shakya, 10, had been designated one of about a dozen living goddesses in Nepal who are considered earthly manifestations of the Hindu deity Kali. In July, Sajani visited...

Hard Work U.(COLLEGE)(Cortege of the Ozarks )(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] Like many undergraduates, students at the Cortege of the Ozarks in Point Lookout, Missouri, work white at school. But what's different about "Hard Work U." is that all 1,345 students are required to work 15 hours a...

12%.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)
September 17, 2007... PERCENTAGE of employers who say they consult social-networking sites like MySpace and Facebook when making hiring decisions. SOURCE: REUTERS

8 million.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)
September 17, 2007... NUMBER OF IRAQIS -- nearly a third of the population--who are without adequate food, water, shelter, or sanitation. (See p. 8.) SOURCE: CNN

19 million.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)(recalled toys)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... NUMBER OF TOYS MADE in China that were recently recalled by Matter, the world's largest toy company, due to lead paint and magnets that pose health hazards. SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

4%.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)(internet access in Africa)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... PERCENTAGE OF AFRICA'S population with Internet access. A $33 million undersea fiber-optic cable project could help 250 million more Africans get online by 2009. SOURCE: TIME

66.(NUMBERS IN THE NEWS)(hotdogs eaten by Joey Chestnut)(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... NUMBER OF HOT DOGS consumed in 12 minutes by Joey Chestnut, 23, to win the annual Nathan's hot dog-eating contest on July 4 at Coney Island in Brooklyn, N.Y. SOURCE: THE NEW YORK TIMES

Japan: why the jury is still out: can the jury system work in Japan, where speaking up and expressing opinions go against deeply held cultural values?(INTERNATIONAL)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] For two days at a mock trial in Nagano, Japan, three judges and six jurors sit stiffly around an oval table, deliberating whether the defendant intended to kill a taxi driver in a botched robbery. But the jurors...

Stolen futures: when they started college four years ago, Iraq's freshmen had big ambitions. By graduation day, their dreams of a successful life--at least in Iraq--had been shattered.(INTERNATIONAL)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] They started college just before or after the American invasion in 2003 with dreams of new friends and parties, brilliant teachers, and advanced degrees that would lead to good careers, marriage, and children....

Brother act: in the year since Fidel Castro fell ill, Cuba has been in limbo. His brother, Raul, is acting President, but Fidel is still making his presence felt.(INTERNATIONAL)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATIONS OMITTED] 1 Cuba's economic collapse is evident in the decrepit neighborhoods of Havana. 2 Rater Castro has been acting President for more than a year. 3 Fide| Castro, in a photo released in August 2006, a month after...

10 Supreme Court cases every teen should know: more of the Court's most important rulings on freedom of speech and privacy at school, and other issues affecting teenagers: Part 2.(NATIONAL)
September 17, 2007... Part 1 of this article (Upfront, Sept. 3, 2007) addressed five Supreme Court cases dealing with issues both in and out of the classroom, including students' right to protest, school prayer, and how the legal system treats teenagers. Part 2...

Back in the game: with American Indians reasserting their heritage through lacrosse--a game invented by their ancestors--they're helping to make it one of the country's fastest-growing sports.(NATIONAL)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Tim Glass's mother tells him that he was born with a lacrosse stick in his hand, because his ancestors invented the game. Tim, 14, and his two younger brothers sometimes practice their chosen sport in T-shirts that...

Hot topic.(global warming)(Cover story)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Everyone seems to be talking--or singing, or making a movie--about global warming. But despite rising awareness, misconceptions abound about what scientists prefer to call climate change. Take our pop quiz and find...

1957 Sputnik launches the space race: at the height of the Cold War, the Soviet Union sent the first satellite into space. A stunned America reacted by jump-starting its space program, leading to the historic moon landing 12 years later.(TIMES PAST)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] It weighed 184 pounds and was about as big as a basketball. But as historian Daniel J. Boorstin would later write, "Never before had so small and so harmless an object created such consternation." The object was...

Should the U.S. have a national health-care system? Health care is likely to be one of the key issues in next year's election.(DEBATE)
September 17, 2007... YES We have two healthcare systems in America. People with good insurance get excellent care. But most families are just one bad break, like a lost job or a serious illness, away from crisis. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] I believe we should...

Minding their own business: why does the United States produce so many successful young entrepreneurs?(OPINION)
September 17, 2007... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Bill Gates founded Microsoft when he was 19. Facebook was the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard University sophomore at the time. And a recent study showed that the United States has a higher business startup...

A mother daughter culture clash: Chandra Touch has struggled to make her mother, a Cambodian immigrant, understand her American Lifestyle and ambitions.(VOICES)
September 17, 2007... For the last three years, I was a varsity cheerleader for the Portland High Bulldogs. I loved being involved in big school events like homecoming and pep rallies. But like a lot of things I did in high school, my mom just didn't get it. ...

Cartoons.(Cartoon)
September 17, 2007... ATTENTION SPAN... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] HERE WE ARE DURING OUR DELAY AT THE CHICAGO AIRPORT AND THERE'S US DELAYED IN DENVER AND HERE'S US DURING OUR NEWARK DELAY.... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] ... WE NEED ADDITIONAL TROOPS TO...

Greenhouse gases: by the numbers.(GRAPH > ENVIRONMENT)
September 17, 2007... Greenhouse gases, pegged by scientists as a chief cause of climate change, are a mix of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. They're produced by the burning of gasoline, heating oil, coat, and other fossil fuels....

Game show.(Brief article)
September 17, 2007... * 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 the...