Oct. 11, 2007
Carolina in the News
International Coverage
Professor, ex-student to celebrate Nobel win with bubbly
The Globe and Mail (Toronto, Canada)
… Oliver Smithies, who shared this year's prize in medicine, landed his first job in 1953 at the Connaught Medical Laboratory at the University of Toronto. He stayed until 1960.
Regional Coverage
NAACP, professor: Race part of case
McClatchy News
A UNC-Chapel Hill law professor who works with the university's innocence project sharply criticized Tuesday a Wilson prosecutor's handling of a rape and murder case and called on lawyers statewide to help lobby for changes in ethics rules governing prosecutors.
Enrollment declines again in District 203
The Daily Herald (Springfield, Ill.)
… The district hired John Kasarda from the University of North Carolina last year to study enrollment and make predictions to help guide its facilities committee in how to proceed with renovations.
State & Local Coverage
Nobel Prize confirms value of UNC research (Editorial)
The News & Record (Greensboro)
What’s better than a national basketball championship at UNC-Chapel Hill? Nothing, according to the Tar Heel faithful. But a Nobel Prize for medicine surely is more important. Dr. Oliver Smithies, Excellence professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at the UNC-CH School of Medicine, was named a co-winner Monday of the 2007 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine.
UNC awarded $5.6M for genomics ethics center
The Triangle Business Journal
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill will receive $5.6 million in grants over the next five years to establish a center that will examine the ethical, legal and social implications of genome research. UNC received the money from the National Human Genome Research Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Athletics in perspective (Letter to the Editor)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Your Oct. 6 article "UNC-CH ranks first in private sports gifts" cites a Chronicle of Higher Education story that reported our 2007 total for private commitments to athletics, $51 million, as the nation's highest. … James Moeser, Chancellor of UNC-Chapel Hill.
Related link: http://www.newsobserver.com/opinion/columns/story/733022.html
Strokes strike even when it seems unlikely
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Progress Energy chief executive Robert McGehee's sudden death this week from stroke stunned those who knew him either personally or by reputation. The energetic 64-year-old whose waist size hadn't increased since high school didn't seem to fit the typical profile for stroke. … Hemorrhagic strokes often strike without warning, said Dr. Souvik Sen, a neurologist and director of the stroke division at UNC Hospitals in Chapel Hill.
Professor: Hispanics vital to economy
The Chapel Hill Herald
Instead of focusing on Hispanic immigrants' fiscal cost to the state, look at their contributions to the economy, a local demographer says. James Johnson, the William Kenan Jr. distinguished professor of entrepreneurship at UNC's Kenan-Flagler business school, discussed his research regarding Hispanic demographic and economic impacts on the state during a forum Wednesday hosted by the League of Women Voters of Orange-Durham-Chatham.
Issues & Trends
Ideas abound for UNC
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The University of North Carolina Tomorrow Commission made a stop Wednesday at N.C. State University, where it hosted one of several regional forums to hear ideas on what the public wants from the state's university campuses.
Related links: http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-888538.cfm?
http://www.smokymountainnews.com/issues/10_07/10_10_07/fr_unc_system.html
Defense signals insanity plea
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Mohammed Taheri-Azar has admitted to driving a rented Jeep through UNC-Chapel Hill's campus 19 months ago, when he hit nine people before turning himself in. … But a notice filed Wednesday in Orange County Superior Court says Taheri-Azar and his attorney, public defender James Williams, will "offer at trial a defense of insanity, mental infirmity and/or diminished capacity."