Here is a sampling of links and notes about Carolina people and programs cited recently in the media:
International Coverage
New inhaled TB vaccine developed
The Times of India
Scientists at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) and Harvard have developed a novel inhaled tuberculosis vaccine that is easier to administer and store and just as effective as one commonly used globally.
Related Link:
http://www.dailyindia.com/show/225025.php/Scientists-develop-inhaled-
tuberculosis-vaccine
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/unc-harvard-develop-
inhaled-tb-vaccine.html
National Coverage
Suspect in N.C. slayings held on $3M bond
The Associated Press
A teenager accused of killing two college students in North Carolina was ordered held on a $3 million bond Friday. The 17-year-old is charged with murder in the slayings of Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato and University of North Carolina student body president Eve Carson.
Related Link:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU3IVnyNBpy8ooTN4OutE2rKG1pgD8VDIH000
2 deaths and one flawed system
The Los Angeles Times
On March 3, a 21-year-old convicted burglar named Demario James Atwater was supposed to be in court after he was caught carrying a gun while on probation. The hearing was rescheduled because of a courtroom mix-up. Two days later, Eve Carson, 22, the student body president at the University of North Carolina, was killed near campus, shot in the head. On Wednesday, police arrested Atwater and charged him with killing Carson.
Related Links:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iU3IVnyNBpy8ooTN4OutE2rKG1pgD8VE2QCG0
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/news/stories/2008/03/15/unc0315.html
Diabetics in limbo over conflicting blood sugar studies
USA Today
Donald McEwen was driving on I-480 when he saw an ad on the back of a bus recruiting people for a study on diabetes. …But John Buse, chief of endocrinology at the University of North Carolina, and others had hoped the ACCORD study would show that near-normal blood sugars could also protect diabetics from heart disease and stroke. That's why Buse and others were shocked when the study appeared to show the opposite.
Related Link:
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-sweetener17mar17,1,517680.story
Regional Coverage
Families' privacy crucial at even most newsworthy funerals (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (Georgia)
…In recent days, the AJC has written extensively about the senseless and untimely deaths of five people, four of them children and young adults. …A photographer was not allowed into Burk's funeral service, but a reporter attended and wrote about it in a Page 1 story Monday, along with details of Eve Carson's service. While there is often great interest in such deaths, I don't believe it is necessary to report on funerals, which should be a time for family and friends.
Related Link:
http://www.al.com/news/birminghamnews/index.ssf?/base/news
/1205655380103940.xml&coll=2
Students hope to kick drug makers off campuses
The Houston Chronicle
For new medical school students, the association with drug companies can begin with a ballpoint pen emblazoned with a firm's logo. By their second or third year, some students start to enjoy free lunches. …"If a student sees their professor taking lunch every day with a drug rep, the student will think it's OK, too. But it's not," said Anthony Fleg, a medical student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and national coordinator of the PharmFree campaign to block drug company representatives from academic campuses.
Sugarless gum aids gummed-up patients
The Chicago Sun-Times (Illinois)
Maybe this explains why only four out of five dentists recommend sugarless gum to patients who chew gum: Turns out the first ingredient in most sugarless gums is a laxative: sweet-tasting sorbitol. …University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill researchers recently found that patients who chewed sugarless gum after bladder surgery were able to do their business several hours sooner than those who did not.
Traces of drugs found in water
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A team of investigators has discovered traces of two pharmaceuticals in the treated wastewater Gwinnett County discharges into the Chattahoochee River upstream from the drinking water intakes for Atlanta and Cobb County. …Philip Singer, of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it would be "irresponsible" for him to name the drugs just a few months into his yearlong study, which began in December. A full report should be done by March or April of next year, Singer said.
Tiered pricing intended to save water, but will it?
The Athens Banner-Herald (Georgia)
The cost of water still will be less than metro Atlanta's average for most Athens residents under a proposed new pricing system that charges a higher rate the more water a person uses. …"You do see that it's effective, particularly for those systems that put it into place for a number of years," said Andrew Westbrook, project director at the University of North Carolina's Environmental Finance Center.
DPS to integrate disabled students
The Denver Post (Colorado)
Preschoolers with disabilities will be taught in classrooms alongside their nondisabled peers next fall under an inclusion program piloted at seven Denver schools. …Kids with disabilities in a high-quality inclusive program learn appropriate social interactions, communication skills and classroom behavior, said Samuel L. Odom, education professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Autistic man finds new hope through CVTC program
The News & Advance (Lynchburg, Va.)
Michael Francisco’s glance is unreadable, but his occasional smile is friendly. His fingers move deftly as he puts a line of gray metal screws into a small plastic bag as part of pre-vocational training. …The daily program is based on TEACCH, or “Treatment and Education of Autistic and Communication Handicapped Children,” used at the University of North Carolina.
State and Local Coverage
Safety first (Editorial)
The Rocky Mountain Telegram
This is a frightening time to be the parent of a student. School shootings are becoming tragic fixtures of American campuses, from elementary schools to the echoing halls of major universities. With the tragic death of University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill student body president Eve Carson, it's time for students, parents and schools to do their part to keep people safe.
Probation system fails terribly (Editorial)
The News & Record (Greensboro)
A state investigation will try to find out why Eve Carson murder suspect Demario James Atwater wasn’t locked up for probation violation before her death. While they’re at it, state officials should look into how many more potentially dangerous criminals are on the streets instead of in prison, and why.
Deadly errors? (Editorial)
The Charlotte Observer
Robert Guy got it exactly right. His department's handling of a parole suspension for convicted felon Demario James Atwater — now accused of first degree murder — showed a "lack of doing things timely, lack of quality supervision, all of the above," he said.
Called to account (Editorial)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Now the questions start piling up – beyond the unanswerable one about why promising young adults were brutally killed for what may have been the flimsiest of reasons, robbery. Two people are charged with killing Eve Carson, student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill, and one of them also in the slaying of Duke University graduate student Abhijit Mahato.
Some answers, more questions in murder case (Editorial)
The Chapel Hill News
It remains to be seen whether murder charges hold up against the two young men arrested in the slaying of Eve Carson, but by all indications the Chapel Hill Police Department deserves a lot of credit for its performance in the case.
It's time to make anger known (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
From all accounts, she was one of the best and brightest, the pearl of great price, the evening star in that glittering galaxy of youth. We are overwhelmed by grief and anger over still another senseless death, one of the young people taken before their time by auto accidents, suicides and vicious killers such as the one who wandered into the life Eve Carson.
The perils of racing to conclusions (Opinion-Editorial)
The Chapel Hill Herald
The brutal murder of UNC Student Body President Eve Carson and the arrest of two young men for her slaying have unleashed a welter of emotions — shock, sorrow, grief, anger. They've also unleashed a flurry of theories and attitudes.
Target them at an early age (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Durham News/The News & Observer (Raleigh)
he noise from the helicopter overhead nearly drowned out Gail Neely's voice as she told her seven kids to come inside for their twice-weekly meeting. …They knew the police helicopter was looking for Laurence Lovette Jr., a suspect in the killing of UNC student body president Eve Carson.
Accused student killer's case was 'handled poorly' (Opinion-Editorial Column)
The Fayetteville Observer
One of the men accused of killing University of North Carolina student leader Eve Carson should have gone before a judge for a probation violation months before Carson was slain. Demario James Atwater was on probation for a 2005 felony when he was convicted of a felony gun charge in June.
Carson Memorial To Be Held Tuesday
"WUNC News" WUNC-FM
Students at UNC-Chapel Hill are back in class today after a week of spring break. Since they’ve been gone, police have arrested and charged two suspects with murdering the school’s student body president, Eve Carson.
UNC-Chapel Hill Sets Up Eve Carson Memorial Fund
WNCN-TV (NBC/Raleigh)
The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has established a memorial fund in memory of murdered student body president Eve Carson, according to the university's website.
Sadness tinges high achievement
The Charlotte Observer
Southern Mecklenburg members of the newest class of Morehead-Cain Scholars at UNC Chapel Hill — the nation's first nonathletic merit scholarship — say this year's honor is bittersweet. As finalists for the scholarship, many met and talked with Eve Carson just days before the student body president and member of the prestigious scholarship program was slain near campus.
Scholars follow in Eve’s footsteps
The News & Record (Greensboro)
UNC-Chapel Hill’s new Morehead-Cain Scholars earn a special honor and inherit a particular responsibility. In a sense they’re replacing Eve Carson, the senior Morehead-Cain Scholar and student body president who was murdered March 5. The 79 new recipients include three from Guilford County: Christina Adams Olson of Page High School, Joseph Moore Terrell of High Point Central and Nancy Yimei Yang of Greensboro, a senior at the N.C. School of Science and Math in Durham.
Research links concussions to depression
The Chapel Hill Herald
Chris Dieterich, 49, a retired football player from Myrtle Beach, S.C., didn't think that playing professional football would change his life for the worse. …The study, headed by Kevin Guskiewicz, director of the Center for the Study of Retired Athletes at UNC, found a strong link between recurrent concussion and diagnosis of long-term depression.
Related Link:
http://www.heraldsun.com/orange/10-934042.cfm
UNC-CH, Harvard team up on inhaled TB vaccine
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
Scientists at UNC-Chapel Hill and Harvard University have developed a novel inhaled tuberculosis vaccine that eliminates the need for refrigeration and water that has made the current vaccine problematic in some regions. …"This is arguably the first step towards future potential vaccines that elicit greater immunity to tuberculosis," said Tony Hickey, a professor in the School of Pharmacy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/health-and-medicine/unc-harvard-develop-
inhaled-tb-vaccine.html
Woe be to the believers (Book Review)
The Charlotte Observer
God continues to be the topic of best-selling books, and Bart Ehrman, the James A. Gray Distinguished Professor of Religious Studies at UNC Chapel Hill, is an increasingly strident voice in opposition to God, or rather to belief in God, since he thinks there is no God.
Meet Emil Kang
"The State of Things" WUNC-FM
If Emil Kang had followed the path his Korean immigrant parents laid out for him, he'd probably be a physician by day and a violin virtuoso by night. …Today, he's charged with bringing culture to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Since 2004, Kang has been the school's executive arts director and, thanks to him, big names like Tony Bennett and Yo-Yo Ma have performed on the campus. He joins host Frank Stasio to talk about his ongoing vision for performing arts at UNC and his personal mission to use art to create community dialogue about social issues.
Note: "The State of Things" is the statewide public affairs program airing live at noon weekdays and rebroadcast at 9 p.m. Mondays-Thursdays.
A new season
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
The resident professional company at UNC-CH's Department of Dramatic Art unveils the first full lineup devised by Joseph Haj, the new producing artistic director.
UNC News Release:
http://uncnews.unc.edu/news/arts/playmakers-repertory-company-unveils-
2008-2009-season.html
Feeling the Spirits: Pilot Mountain, Dobson considering reaping a share of neighbors' profits from alcohol sales
The Winston-Salem Journal
Tourists in search of the mythical Mayberry on a trip to Mount Airy can end their day with a cocktail at any number of restaurants there. …All of them are close to the Triad, and there might be some economic and cultural links, said Ferrell Guillory, the director of the program on public life at UNC Chapel Hill’s Center for the Study of the American South
Issues and Trends
The Nontraditional President
Inside Higher Ed
…The American Council on Education’s 2007 report on the college presidency found that 13.1 percent of presidents came directly from prior positions outside higher education, a dip from 14.7 percent in 2001 (but an increase from 10.1 percent in 1986). …Among the “nontraditionals” are Erskine Bowles, president of the University of North Carolina system, formerly a private equity firm partner, U.S. Senate candidate and White House chief of staff in Bill Clinton’s administration.
Medical school reshapes Greenville
The News & Observer (Raleigh)
No one envisioned a sprawling medical center in Greenville when East Carolina University began its quest for a medical school 40 years ago. …Despite a history of rivalry, officials at ECU and UNC-CH say they are now working together on projects to improve health care, especially in rural areas.
Related Link:
http://www.reflector.com/opin/content/news/opinion/stories/
2008/03/17/ED_MedSchool.html