NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Chabon, the novelist, screenwriter and father of four, has a new responsibility.
He has been elected chairman of the board of the directors of the MacDowell Colony, the century-old artist residency program based in Peterborough, New Hampshire.
Chabon, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning "The Amazing …
PHOENIX (AP) — Diana Taurasi and Candice Dupree scored 20 points each, helping the Phoenix Mercury rally past a scary injury to guard Ketia Swanier to beat the Los Angeles Sparks 101-82 Tuesday night.
Phoenix opened the third quarter with a big run and kept it going after Swanier was helped off the court following an elbow to the head by Sparks guard Kristi Toliver. The Mercury turned a 10-point deficit into a 14-point lead in the quarter and never let up on the way to their sixth win in seven games.
Penny Taylor had 16 points and Kara Braxton added 14 for Phoenix.
Ebony Hoffman had 21 points and LaToya Pringle 12 for Los Angeles in its second game without former league …
"Don't look at us as gay Americans who have issues. Look at us as Americans who have been denied basic civil rights. This is how our second class citizenship should be viewed and it fits perfectly with Barack Obama's vision for a United States."
- Joan Garry, co-chair of the National LGBT Finance Committee for Obama for America, in a column titled "Constructive Impatience," offering the Obama transition team some advice about sending a message to LGBT Americans, Huffington Post, Dec. 30.
"Many people involved in political activism, such as the fight for gay equality, tend to think their personal welfare is not as important as the welfare of the overall community. But when a …
Three days, three records.
Alain Bernard set a world record in the 50-meter freestyle Sunday, after twice lowering the 100 freestyle mark in the previous two days at the European swimming championships.
The muscular Frenchman finished in 21.50 seconds to beat the time of 21.56 set last month by Eamon Sullivan of Australia. Sullivan lowered Alexander Popov's previous record of 21.64, set in Moscow on June 16, 2000.
"I had to stay calm for this semifinal," Bernard said. "I had an excellent start, which is not that usual for me. Then I thought I had to exploit my fantastic shape here in Eindhoven. I put all my power on at 35 …
Vestas A/S, the world's biggest maker of wind turbines, posted a 70 percent rise in first-quarter earnings but said it would lay off 1,900 workers, primarily in Denmark and Britian, because of sluggish demand in northern Europe.
Net profit in the first three months of the year was euro56 million (US$73 million), up from euro33 million in the same period last year. Sales increased to euro1.1 billion, from euro701 million a year ago.
Vestas said it shipped a total of 490 wind turbines, up 21 percent from the first …
Hey guys, your hypocrisy is showing.
First came Dan Quayle's unguarded admission that he wouldsupport an adult daughter's choice to have an abortion.
Then pro-choice Republicans, armed with polls showing them to bea 70 percent majority of the GOP, vowed to force a convention floorfight in Houston over their party platform's unrepresentativeanti-abortion plank.
That plank's critics extend to Barry Goldwater, the "foundingfather" of modern Republican conservatism, who warned that PresidentBush's intransigence could cost him the election. If he thinks hisanti-abortion plank will find "smooth going," Goldwater said in aJuly 29 letter to the head of the …
Active weather will continue in the eastern half of the nation Monday as low pressure in the Great Lakes moves eastward into the Northeast. Showers and thunderstorms will develop along an associated stationary front that will extend across the northern Mid-Atlantic.
Additional precipitation and clusters of thunderstorms are anticipated along and ahead of an associated cold front that will trail behind this system, extending through the Ohio Valley into the Central Plains. In addition to storms, strong humidity and daytime heating will lead to another day of hot temperatures and high heat indices from the Plains through the Eastern Valleys and the Mid-Atlantic.
Daytime highs in …
President Robert Mugabe took a sharp dig at his estranged governing partner Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai on Saturday, but said they were still allies in Zimbabwe's troubled coalition.
Speaking Saturday at the state funeral of a former guerrilla leader who fought for independence from Britain in 1980, Mugabe, speaking of Tsvangirai's temporary withdrawal from the Cabinet, said: "Even if some person is not mentally stable he is still your partner.
"We bound ourselves to work together even though we had disparate positions. We will continue talking, no matter what," Mugabe told mourners at the Heroes Acre cemetery west of the capital as …
Long ago, Ryne Sandberg got good advice.
"I was told way back when by (former Cubs manager) Jim Frey,`Why not swing for power and jog around the bases?' " Sandberg said.
But neither man figured the suggestion would carry Sandberg tohistory.When he took the advice again Saturday in his first at-batagainst Pittsburgh's Steve Cooke, the 2-2 pitch landed in the handsof a left-field bleacherite - and in baseball's record books.If winning nine Gold Gloves as a second baseman and the MVPaward in 1984 doesn't land Sandberg in baseball's Hall of Fame, thehomer should.It was his 267th as a second baseman, breaking the record heldby Hall of Famer Joe Morgan. It came one …
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Zachary Tronti scored on a 1-yard run in the second overtime and Brown won its season opener 33-30 over Stony Brook on Saturday.
Tronti, who also scored on a 4-yard run in the first overtime, played for the first time since a season-ending knee injury on Nov. 7. Tronti finished with 77 yards and two touchdowns on 21 carries.
The Seawolves (1-2) tied the game in the first overtime and started with the …
Three women and two babies drowned after falling into the Mediterranean as they approached southern Spain from Africa aboard a damaged inflatable boat, the Interior Ministry said Sunday.
Regional ministry representative Antonio Cruz said officials were alerted to the approach of the boat off the coast of Motril at 4 p.m. Saturday and launched a rescue operation.
Cruz said that when coast guards approached they saw a dinghy partially underwater with part of its inflatable sections punctured. When those aboard saw the rescue vessel a group stood up, causing the boat to rock and some people to fall into the water.
Their bodies were recovered from …
World Bank Institute head FRANNIE L�AUTIER gives new meaning to the word persistence. She had to overcome incredible obstacles to get an engineering degree in Tanzania.
It wasn't the kind of protest that Frannie L�autier was used to. Sure, she had had her share of negative reactions to the fact that she was a female engineering student-the only one in the University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania -in the early 1980s. Like some disgruntled classmates secretly cutting off the leg of her chair, causing her to collapse on the floor when she sat down, all because no girl could get marks that high. But when she arrived on a job site the summer after her third year in college, the workers on the highway construction project came up with a novel way to convey their displeasure. They stripped off all their clothes. "They said they would never work for a woman," L�autier recalls from her office at the World Bank in Washington, D.C. "They thought they would shock me into leaving."
They thought wrong. L�autier stayed on the job, helped by a supervisor who insisted that since she was qualified, she be given the right to work. When it came time for her to return to school, all the men gave her a big farewell party. "I guess they eventually came to accept me," she says.
L�autier has spent a lifetime marching to the beat of her own drum, carving out a path that has taken her from her rural roots on a coffee farm in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro to the World Bank, where she is a vice president and head of the World Bank Institute. Born to an engineer father and a stay-at-home mother, L�autier knew from a young age where her interests lay. "For a long time, my father didn't have a son so I went around with him fixing things on our farm, which I really enjoyed. I was never too keen on dolls," she adds. "I would make my own toys like trucks or tools that did something. I learned a lot living on the farm. My father designed a coffee pulper, and I helped him with the riveting. I watched all the mechanical movements and learned firsthand how it was able to squeeze the skin and not the seed."
Her marks in primary school were the highest in the Tanga region of Tanzania and earned her a spot in the top high school in the country. But her parents were reluctant to let her go, figuring that being the only girl in a school would be too difficult to handle for a 13-year-old. Instead, she went to the Korogwe School for Girls, where she studied math, biology, chemistry and physics-as well as two classes that were deemed more typical female vocations at the time: cookery and needlework.
After graduation she enrolled in the civil engineering program at the University of Dar es Salaam, where she proved herself such a stellar student that one of her professors hired her to teach one of his undergraduate courses while he was away on sabbatical. Still, adverse pressure from fellow students built up to such a point that she went back home and told her parents that she was leaving school. "They took me right back and said to me, 'You can do it. We're here to help.' I don't think I could have done it without them." Surprisingly, the whole experience at Dar es Salaam didn't leave a bitter taste in L�autier's mouth. "It made me tough," she admits. "I also had some professors who were very supportive and realized how hard it was for me. They would often ask how I was doing. It made a real difference to me."
COMING TO AMERICA
When it came time for graduate school, L�autier had her sights set on Oxford and a couple of other top universities in Europe. A visiting NASA scientist from the United States suggested that she apply to MIT. "Where is that?" she asked. "I had heard of Harvard, but that was about the only American university I knew." When he returned to the United States, he mailed her an application. L�autier applied and was accepted. The trouble was that her parents, with six other kids to look after by this time, couldn't afford to contribute any money. L�autier hadn't applied for financial assistance from MIT-she didn't realize that she could-so she set about raising the money herself. After eight months she had amassed a grand total of $17. She spent every evening visiting foreign embassies seeing if she could obtain any grants. No luck. Her own country had declined her request, figuring that she would probably never return once she obtained her degree. Eventually someone from the United Nations heard about her plight, and the organization agreed to pay for her first two semesters' tuition. Swiss Air kicked in with a free flight.
L�autier flew to Boston with her $17. By the time she had paid the cab from the airport, she was down to $5. "For the first week I lived on chocolates the Swiss had given me," she says with a laugh. Fortunately, a professor who was working on research for the Federal Highway Authority (FHWA) in construction and maintenance soon offered her a research position based on the knowledge she had gained back in Tanzania. "Our training back home was very practical," she notes. "We learned how to manage construction labor camps, what well-mixed concrete should look like, things like that. The theory we studied was theory you could immediately translate into practice."
Life in the United States was a huge culture shock. "I couldn't have imagined the difference in wealth," L�autier recalls. "But the biggest shock was the freedom to learn. I could take any subject I wanted. And the books! In the University of Dar es Salaam I would queue for one book shared by 60 students. In the library at MIT there were multiple copies of the same book. Books everywhere." And then there was her slide rule that she had used in her courses back home. "I came to MIT and they had one in a museum. It was like entering the space age."
After completing a Master of Science in Transportation, L�autier had planned to return to her homeland to teach a new generation of engineers, but her adviser urged her to stay at MIT and earn a Ph.D. She completed the degree in Infrastructure Systems, the first woman from Tanzania to earn a Ph.D. at the university. Her degree combined economics, civil engineering and remote sensing from electrical engineering. After graduating she taught at the university. The World Bank came recruiting and hired her on a consultant basis, then as a full-time employee in 1992, specializing in infrastructure, a vast and varied field that includes everything from energy and water systems to transportation and dams. From 1997 to 2000 she served as the sector director for infrastructure in South Asia and also as director for infrastructure for the World Bank Group. In December 2001, she was chosen to head the World Bank Institute, the branch of the World Bank that deals with capacity development: helping provide the knowledge, skills and expertise to improve the conditions in developing countries, which, after all, represent 5 billion of the 6 billion people on the planet.
L�autier is aware, more than most, that simply plying a country with lots of money offers no long-term solution to its economic and social problems. "If the money goes ahead and the skills and knowledge are lagging, we don't get sustainable results. You can bring foreign companies to create the infrastructure and leave nothing behind, and then maintenance and other issues become problems." This is a particularly pressing problem in her home continent, which she admits is never far from her mind. Africa has the least number of scientists and engineers in the world-80 per million as compared with 1,200 per million in advanced countries.
"The type of scientific knowledge and technology that can transform life immediately in areas like Africa tends to be very high science," she explains. "People assume that simple problems need simple solutions, but that's not true in places like Africa; it's the opposite. You need complex science to deal with problems like growing food in arid areas, getting drinkable water and preserving food for long periods without refrigeration." The World Bank brings a wealth of expertise to addressing these issues, with 1,200 Ph.D.s among its staff of 10,000, including economists, geologists, anthropologists, sociologists, medical doctors and engineers. She lauds efforts by the World Bank to create the African Virtual University, which offers undergraduate courses through more than 57 learning centers in 27 African countries, linking them with universities in Australia, Canada and the United States.
With her ultrabusy schedule, L�autier, at the age of 47, faces the challenges of many modern married couples-balancing the demands of work and home. "I'm very lucky. I have a very supportive family," she says. L�autier says that her husband, who works as a risk management analyst for an aluminum-producing company, takes a big role in the raising of their two children, a son, 11, and a daughter, 9. L�autier says she also benefits from technology. "When your business is global, where you are doesn't really make much difference any more. I can have a video conference from home or my office connecting to people in other countries."
In her spare time, L�autier likes to hike and mountain climb, although she admits, a little sheepishly, that she is the only one of her siblings who hasn't scaled Africa's highest peak, Mt. Kilimanjaro. She also writes stories for her children, carrying on a tradition that her father started when she was a child. "Every birthday, he would compose songs for us. He was a very talented musician, nationally known, so we grew up with a fantastic array of original songs."
She has also turned her talents to nonfiction writing, having recently co-edited the book "Cities in a Globalizing World: Governance, Performance and Sustainability." And when James Wolfensohn retired after 10 years at the helm of the World Bank, L�autier surprised him with a book that she had written on the concept of time in different cultures. The book is typical of the type of person L�autier is, says Wolfensohn from his vacation home in Jackson Hole, Wyo. "She is someone who spans many cultures, not only Western and Eastern, but Southern as well. She has overcome many obstacles but doesn't see them."
"The bank succeeds or fails by its ability to empower people in developing countries," Wolfensohn adds. "Therefore, it needs to have a multinational, multicultural workforce that can understand and support and strengthen the cultures in those countries. Frannie is a person with the capacity to compete with the very best in the West but someone who has not lost her sensitivities to the place she came from."
[Sidebar]
L�AUTIER has spent a lifetime marching to the beat of her own drum, carving out a path that has taken her from her rural roots on a coffee farm in the foothills of Mount Kilimanjaro to the World Bank, where she is a vice president and head of the World Bank Institute.
[Author Affiliation]
Pierre Home-Douglas is a freelance writer based in Montreal.
PIERRE HOME-DOUGLAS, who wrote the profile of Frannie L�autier, which begins on page 32, lives in Montreal and has worked as a writer, editor and freelance writer since the early 1980s. He has edited more than 40 books, such as "Night Sky," "Oceans, Reptiles and Amphibians" and "In Space" for publishers including Time-Life, Discovery Channel and Reader's Digest. He has also written extensively for newspapers and magazines in the United States and Canada.
A Malaysian convert to Islam urged his estranged Hindu wife who fled abroad with their sons to return Tuesday amid government efforts to end legal spats over religious conversions of children.
The case is one of the most dramatic in a string of disputes in which people who embraced Islam also changed their young children's religion despite protests from their non-Muslim spouses.
Malaysia's Cabinet announced last week that minors should no longer be converted without both parents' consent. The decision represents a bid to resolve disputes that have strained race relations in this Muslim-majority nation, but it cannot be legally enforced until amendments are made to the existing law.
In the first related court hearing since the Cabinet's decision, lawyers for Jeyaganesh Mogarajah and his estranged wife, Shamala Sathiyaseelan, submitted arguments in an appeals court Tuesday in a nearly seven-year-old dispute over Jeyaganesh's conversion of their two sons to Islam.
Jeyaganesh married Shamala in 1998 according to Hindu rites. He embraced Islam in November 2002 and converted their two sons, then aged 2 and 4, without his wife's knowledge or consent.
Shamala, 37, left for Australia with her sons in 2004 for fear that Islamic authorities might take them away from her because she wanted them raised Hindu. Her lawyers say she has since gone to another country and would only return if she wins a court battle to declare the conversion invalid.
On Thursday, Jeyaganesh, a 40-year-old anesthetist, said he was willing to compromise with his wife and let the children learn both Muslim and Hindu teachings if they return.
"I've not seen my kids for five years," Jeyaganesh told reporters at the court. "There's been zero contact. It's a total blank. I'd like to see how they are."
The case has become a symbol of mounting complaints of religious discrimination by non-Muslims. In recent years, several non-Muslim parents have failed to prevent estranged spouses from converting their children to Islam. Most of these cases end up in Islamic courts, which typically rule in favor of Muslims.
Shamala's lawyer, Ravi Nekoo, said his client won't return for fear that she would lose her sons.
"Her world has been torn apart. She's struggling to make ends meet in a foreign territory," Ravi said. "She only wanted a quiet life, she never wanted all this publicity."
A court gave Jeyaganesh and Shamala shared legal custody of the children in 2004, but ruled that Shamala would lose custody if there were "reasonable grounds" to believe that she would influence the children's religious beliefs, such as by making them eat pork or teaching them Hindu tenets.
Ethnic Malay Muslims comprise nearly two-thirds of Malaysia's population and dominate the government.
Jessica Simpson's courtship with country music seems to have had a shorter shelf life than her marriage.
After lackluster sales for her country debut, "Do You Know," Simpson and her Nashville record label have parted ways, leaving many wondering what's next for the 28-year-old entertainer.
"Right now it seems like she's taken a break from recording. There is nothing else on the books," said Ian Drew, senior music editor at Us Weekly magazine.
A spokeswoman for the one-time pop princess says Simpson remains part of the Sony Music Group on the Epic label, but is no longer working with the company's country division, Sony Music Nashville.
"She was on loan to Sony Nashville for her country album," said Lauren Auslander.
As for her future in country music? "We don't know yet," she said.
"Do You Know" started strong but faded fast. The lead single, "Come on Over," a flirtatious, steel guitar-laced slice of country pop, peaked at No. 18 last summer and the album debuted at No. 1. But the second single, "Remember That," stalled at No. 42, and the third, "Pray Out Loud," failed to chart.
To date, the disc, Simpson's fifth studio release, has sold around 178,000 copies _ a long way from her 3 million-selling 2003 disc, "In This Skin."
"Everywhere I saw her around the U.S. at different radio station events she was always well-received," said Lon Helton, editor and publisher of the industry trade publication "Country Aircheck." "For whatever reason, the music did not resonate."
Simpson came to country after her 2006 pop outing, "A Public Affair," fell flat. The Texas-born blonde touted the move as a return to her roots. She performed on the Grand Ole Opry, signed autographs at the Country Music Association's annual festival, and toured with country's multiplatinum trio Rascal Flatts.
But she got more publicity for her life outside of music, most of it far from positive. She was ridiculed when it seemed as if she had gained a few pounds, and the status of her romance with Dallas Cowboys football player Tony Romo was constantly scrutinized.
She was also criticized for a few erratic concert performances. At a February show in Michigan, Simpson apologized to fans after she forgot the lyrics to a song and asked her band to start over on another.
Some detractors viewed her country career as a calculated attempt to follow other pop stars who have found success on country radio.
"Working the country market is very different. You really have to work it at country. You have to spend your life on the road building an audience and she didn't really put the work in," Drew observed. "She walked the walk and talked the talk, but she didn't have the street cred that she needed to make it work."
But others say Simpson shouldn't bail too soon. She may just need more time to find an audience.
"It doesn't seem like she was even on the country music scene long enough to prove what she is capable of doing for this industry. She never got the chance," said Neely Yates, music director for country station 96.3 in Lubbock, Texas.
Helton wondered whether the singer was a victim of bad timing. Pop rockers Darius Rucker and Jewel were crossing over to country about the same time, which he called unusual in country music.
"What was the ability of the market to absorb and focus on more than one pop singer at a time coming over?" he asked.
The question now is whether Simpson will keep her record deal. After two disappointments, Epic may be ready to move on without her.
"She's never really sold a lot of records except for the album out at the height of 'Newlyweds,'" said Drew, referring to her popular reality TV show, "Newlyweds: Nick and Jessica," which chronicled her ill-fated marriage to Nick Lachey. "Other than that, she's never been able to sell much of anything."
But in a recent interview, Rascal Flatts' Gary Levox said Simpson is in a no-win situation with her critics: "She's in a spot where whatever she does, they pick her apart. They need to just leave her alone and just let her sing."
"She's a wonderfully gifted singer," added bandmate Jay DeMarcus. "All the other stuff overshadows what she's really about and it's unfortunate, because there's more to her there than just tabloid fodder."
___
On the Net:
Dubai has withdrawn as host of the 2013 swimming world championships.
Matar al-Tayer, deputy chairman of the Dubai Sports Council, told official Emirates news agency WAM on Saturday that the city-state has pulled out in agreement with swimming's world governing body.
It is not yet known which city will become host. Shanghai will stage the next worlds in 2011.
Dubai was selected last year to host the event after beating Moscow and Hamburg.
Despite the sweltering temperatures Tuesday night at Ravinia,singer-songwriter Lyle Lovett displayed calm coolness. After all,this Texas boy is used to the heat. He and his Large Band, whousually dress in natty suits, made only one concession to theweather. They shed their suit jackets, keeping the crisp white shirtsand ties.
But Lovett and band made no concessions when it came to theiralmost three-hour performance. Lovett knows how to keep hisappearances fresh and relevant. He wooed the sold-out crowd with hisendearingly crooked smile, quiet humor and a carefully chosen rosterof tunes from his diverse songbook.
A unique presence in country music, Lovett blends country, blues,gospel, swing and rock to create a diverse picture of a singer-songwriter at the top of his game. After touring last summer with asmaller band that featured mandolin master Sam Bush, Lovett returnedto Ravinia after an absence of several years with his 15-member LargeBand, featuring brass, cello and backup vocalists.
The show, the fastest sellout this season at Ravinia, opened witha gospel fueled rave-up of "Church," which turned the venue into aNorth Shore revival meeting. Lovett followed this with reliableversions of "Here I Am," "She Makes Me Feel Good," "Since the LastTime," "I've Been to Memphis," "Long Tall Texan," "She's No Lady" and"This Old Porch."
Lovett's musical ties range from the Texas swing of Bob Wills tothe poignant storytelling of Townes Van Zandt to the gospel standardsof the South. It is his ability to tie these genres into a cohesiveartistic vision that keeps his diehard fans entranced at one momentand dancing in the aisles the next.
But what was missing from Lovett, who is considered one of thebest songwriters of his generation, was something new and daring. Forhis last two releases, Lovett delivered a live disc, and before that,an album of covers by fellow Texas singer-songwriters. Fans atRavinia seemed content with the retread of older material, but from atalent such as Lovett, one gets itchy for the next entry in hisversatile songbook.
Nevertheless, Lovett is a great song stylist who knows how to usehis quirky vocal style to its best effect. Fleshing out the songswere the 15 members of the Large Band, who as a team andindividually, added a lush sheen to the performance.
Back-up singer Francine Reed added a polished blues wail toseveral songs and took centerstage for a staggering rendition of"Wild Women Don't Get the Blues." Pianist Tim Ray flowed easilybetween elegant stylings and hard-core honky-tonk. And, as he hasdone before, cellist John Hagen launched into an avant-garde cellointerlude that allowed the audience to see the instrument in anentirely new light.
BERLIN (AP) — Three members of West Germany's 1966 World Cup football team may have broken doping rules with cold treatment medicine, according to a letter seen by German magazine Der Spiegel.
The magazine is reporting in its current issue that historians at Berlin's Humboldt University uncovered a letter from Nov. 29, 1966, in which FIFA medical committee chairman Mihailo Andrejevic informed West German Athletics Federation president Max Danz of slight traces of an ephedrine-based medicine found in three players.
Ephedrine, a decongestant, is also a stimulant and was on FIFA's list of banned substances at the time.
"In the end, we only discovered very fine traces of a certain ephedrine-based medicine against colds in three players on the German team," wrote Andrejevic, who did not mention any values.
It is unclear if the doping breach was intentional or not. There were no sanctions made at the time.
FIFA conducted doping tests at the 1966 World Cup for the first time, but there were no reports of any positive tests.
West Germany lost to host England 4-2 in the final.
Humboldt's press office said it wasn't immediately aware of who had uncovered the letter.
Police arrested 102 protesters in downtown Minneapolis early Thursday following a concert by the rock group Rage Against the Machine, raising to more than 400 the number arrested in demonstrations related to the Republican National Convention.
Police blocked off an intersection as they processed those arrested. Young people sat on a sidewalk, their backs against a building, or stood quietly in line, their hands in plastic cuffs behind their backs.
Protesters calling for an end to the Iraq war urged others to join their march Thursday night outside the convention as John McCain accepts his party's presidential nomination on its fourth and final night.
The Anti-War Committee denounced the increased presence of police in riot gear and acts of "intimidation" in the streets of St. Paul.
In a warmup to the main protest, about 50 college and high school students staged an anti-war rally at the Capitol at midday Thursday. Eight police officers watched the rally from afar, with most leaning against their cars. None wore riot gear.
Organizers said they were trying to put on a safe, nonviolent event for the whole family. When a musician singing and playing a guitar uttered a profanity, she was chastised by the crowd and quickly promised to clean up her language.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty blamed the violence this week on a small group of "anarchists, nihilists, and goofballs who want to break stuff and hurt people."
"They need to be dealt with," Pawlenty said in an interview with WCCO-AM of Minneapolis. "When you want to break stuff and hurt people, you can't do that."
St. Paul was quieter on Wednesday, the convention's third day, when four women from the peace group CodePink were arrested after crawling under a fence a couple blocks from the Xcel Center where the convention is being held. They were released.
CodePink also took credit for disrupting Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin's speech on Wednesday night. The group said two of its members were given tickets to the speech by a Republican delegate who was frustrated with the party and Palin.
The CodePink members, Medea Benjamin and Jodie Evans, were escorted from the Xcel Center after yelling and displaying a banner. They said they were held until after her speech but not arrested.
Police said they broke up more serious plans to disrupt the convention.
Search warrants and other police documents made public this week claim that anarchists discussed plans to throw Molotov cocktails, sabotage the Xcel Energy Center or the St. Paul Downtown Airport, stretch metal chains across freeways and kidnap delegates.
___
Associated Press writer Jeff Baenen contributed to this report.
WASHINGTON - The House Tuesday gave solid but nonbinding endorsement to a variety of President Bush's tax cuts as Democrats sought adoption of a compromise $2.9 trillion budget plan for next year.
By a 364-57 vote, the House agreed to support $180 billion in tax cuts for 2011-12, enough to cover the extension of tax relief for married couples, people with children and people inheriting large estates.
The vote came on a GOP procedural motion as the House officially named negotiators to a House-Senate panel that is expected to hammer out a congressional budget plan for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
The underlying Democratic budget blueprint is also nonbinding, but sets the outlines for subsequent legislation such as the 12 annual appropriations bills expected to begin reaching the House and Senate floors later this month.
Most of President Bush's signature tax cuts, enacted in 2001 and 2003, expire at the end of 2010. A quirk in Senate rules forced the expiration date, and a central question facing Congress is which ones to extend before the deadline.
Republicans said the Democratic budget, by failing to account for renewing Bush's tax cuts, amounts to an endorsement of a huge tax increase.
Still, Republican-controlled Congresses never scheduled votes on renewing the full menu of GOP tax cuts - despite annual calls from Bush to do so. It's commonly conceded that decisions on extending the tax cuts won't be made until after the next election, closer to their expiration date.
In addition to the middle-class tax cuts favored in Tuesday's vote, the Bush tax bills cut rates on incomes, dividends and capital gains, among other provisions.
Many Democrats argue the Bush tax cuts are tilted too much in favor of the wealthy and that the U.S. budget picture has deteriorated significantly since their enactment. Republicans credit cuts in taxes on incomes and investments with strong economic growth since the early part of the decade.
The underlying budget plan sets goals for subsequent tax and spending legislation, but lawmakers are not bound to it. It does, however, make a statement about the priorities of majority Democrats and provides an early test of the party's ability to prove it can govern.
Another test comes as Democrats fashion 12 spending bills totaling more than $950 billion for the 2008 Pentagon, foreign aid and domestic agency budgets. Democrats have agreed to accept Bush's requests for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an approximately $50 billion increase in the Pentagon's core budget.
But an approximately 5 percent, $23 billion increase for domestic agency budgets promises a series of veto clashes with President Bush later this year.
Hoping to make history, the Senate set off on its major overhaul of the nation's health care system Wednesday, but its first steps were quickly overtaken by fresh cost concerns and partisan anger.
An ambitious timetable that called for completing committee action in early summer seemed in danger of slipping away.
The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee began work on a bill encompassing President Barack Obama's top legislative priority. It marked the first time since President Bill Clinton's ill-starred attempt in the early 1990s that Congress was tackling such a broad overhaul.
But the more important Senate Finance Committee announced it would delay action, as senators sought to retool their proposals to slash the cost by more than one-third, from an initial $1.6 trillion over 10 years, to less than $1 trillion. Of the five major panels working on health care, Finance has the best odds of coming up with a bipartisan proposal that could overcome gathering opposition.
And after a day given over entirely to speechmaking by senators and no actual legislative work, the lawmaker leading the health committee in the absence of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy indicated the panel might not reach its goal of completing a bill before Congress leaves town for its July 4th recess.
"Obviously I'd like to do that by then," said Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn. "But I'm not time-driven to the point where at all cost that has to be done that day." Kennedy is being treated for brain cancer.
Lobbyists representing every nook and cranny of the economy were on high alert _ even if they were on their best behavior.
Majority Democrats running the Finance Committee have told lobbyists that their views will be taken into account as long as their groups don't mount public campaigns against the legislation, numerous lobbyists say. So far, health industry groups have not launched aggressive attacks against Democrats' emerging plans.
"We have a lot of sweat equity in this process," said E. Neil Trautwein, chief health care lobbyist for the National Retail Federation, referring to hundreds of hours his group has spent with lawmakers as they prepared legislation. He predicted the bill would prove too costly and force lawmakers to pare it down _ or else.
"We need cost relief," he said. "But if comes to the point where we have to cut and run and build a coalition" to oppose the bill, "we'll take that step."
The American Medical Association backed off from a confrontation with the Obama administration over a government-run plan to compete with private insurance, declining to take a firm position at a Chicago meeting Wednesday.
But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said business isn't happy with the Senate health panel's bill. R. Bruce Josten, the group's top lobbyist, said he thinks a House version due soon could be even further to the left _ and thus even less acceptable.
"We view the Senate Finance Committee bill as the last best hope," Josten said.
Kennedy's health committee, which got to work Wednesday, is divided along ideological lines. It's expected to produce a bill that heavily reflects the wishes of Democrats, but may not be able to pass the full Senate.
"My intention is not to jam anything," Dodd told wary committee Republicans, who say the bill is incomplete, too costly and too one-sided.
"This bill contains policies designed to appease a particular ideology," said Sen. Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the ranking Republican on the panel.
The complex legislation attempts to slow punishing increases in health care costs, thus freeing up money to cover the nearly 50 million uninsured.
It would boost government subsidies for health insurance, and create new purchasing pools called "exchanges" for individuals and small businesses to buy coverage.
Most people who have employer-provided coverage would be able to keep their plan.
But health care touches every family, and that makes it very difficult to engineer any major changes.
The 1990s Clinton initiative collapsed and the latest attempt has hardly been smooth.
Underscoring the difficulty was word Wednesday that the Finance Committee, which had promised a draft as early as this week, has been forced to delay its deliberations, perhaps until after Congress' July 4th recess.
Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., said that proposed changes that sweetened government subsidies to the uninsured had unexpectedly boosted the cost, and now lawmakers must trim back.
Finance Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said the goal is a bill that costs less than $1 trillion over 10 years and is fully paid for. "We'll be ready when we're ready, but we're not there yet."
The panel's top Republican, Chuck Grassley of Iowa, cited three major sticking points: cost, whether to create a new public insurance plan to compete with private insurers and whether to require employers to offer health care or face fines.
The measure before Kennedy's committee would cost about $1 trillion over 10 years, but leave 37 million people uninsured, according to an analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The most contentious parts of the draft bill _ on whether to create a public plan and require employers to provide health care _ have yet to be finalized, so its true costs and benefits are not fully understood.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., last year's GOP presidential nominee, questioned how the committee could move ahead on legislation without hard figures on cost.
"How can we possibly, reasonably address this bill ... without accounting how to pay for it?" McCain asked at the start of the committee's session.
Nonetheless, political momentum for remaking the system is the strongest in decades.
"No issue is more of a moral imperative," Dodd said. "In the richest nation on the face of this Earth, you shouldn't have to be well-off to get well."
Kennedy's committee was scheduled to meet daily through next week on the 600-plus-page bill. There were 388 amendments to be considered, the vast majority from Republicans.
Majority Democrats in the House could make their bill public this week, with committee votes after Congress returns from its July 4 recess.
Major cuts in Medicare and Medicaid will pay for some of the new costs but senators disagreed among themselves over whether to tax employer-provided health benefits _ something Obama campaigned against. Also elusive was a compromise with Republicans on a new public insurance plan, which the GOP opposes.
Separately, two new health care plans were introduced Wednesday.
House Republicans introduced a proposal that would provide tax credits to help the uninsured buy coverage from private insurers.
And a bipartisan troika of former Senate leaders unveiled a $1.2 trillion plan, fully paid for, that would cover the uninsured. The plan by Democrat Tom Daschle and Republicans Howard Baker and Bob Dole would tax some health care benefits as if they were income. It would leave it up to the states whether or not to create public insurance plans.
___
AP Special Correspondent David Espo and Associated Press writers Alan Fram and Erica Werner contributed to this report.
___
On the Net:
Senate Finance Committee: http://help.senate.gov/
Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee: http://help.senate.gov/
BEIRUT (AP) — Taking inspiration from the rapid unraveling of the regime in Libya, thousands of Syrians poured into the streets Monday and taunted President Bashar Assad with shouts that his family's 40-year dynasty will be the next dictatorship to crumble.
Assad, who has tried in vain to crush the 5-month-old revolt, appears increasingly out of touch as he refuses to acknowledge the hundreds of thousands of people demanding his ouster, analysts say. Instead, he blames the unrest on Islamic extremists and thugs.
But many observers say Assad should heed the lessons of Libya.
"Gadhafi is gone; now it's your turn, Bashar!" protesters shouted in several cities across the country hours after Assad dismissed calls to step down during an interview on state TV. Security forces opened fire in the central city of Homs, killing at least one person.
"Leaders should know that they will be able to remain in power as long as they remain sensitive to the demands of the people," Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, according to Turkey's Anatolia news agency.
Turkey, a former close ally of Syria and an important trade partner, has grown increasingly frustrated with Damascus over its deadly crackdown. The violence has left Syria facing the most serious international isolation in decades, with widespread calls for Assad to step down.
Human rights groups say more than 2,000 people — most of them unarmed protesters — have been killed in the government's crackdown on the uprising.
Britain's Defense Secretary Liam Fox told BBC radio that Assad would "be thinking again in light of what has happened in Tripoli overnight."
"There is an unavoidable change in the area — and I think the message to those in that region is that if you do not allow change to be a process it can become an event," he said.
Syria presented a different case than other Arab nations swept by unrest this year.
A military intervention has been all but ruled out, given the quagmire in Libya and the lack of any strong opposition leader in Syria to rally behind. The U.S. and other nations have little leverage to threaten further isolation or economic punishment of Assad's pro-Iranian regime.
U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland dismissed the idea of arming the Syrian rebels. "I don't think anybody thinks that more guns into Syria is going to be the right answer right now," she said. :The Syrians themselves don't want that. So that's why our focus has been on political and economic pressure."
With neither side in the conflict showing any signs of backing down, many fear a drawn-out and bloody stalemate.
"What is so shocking is that the Syrian people have been really resilient, determined to continue to fight the regime for almost half a year and this is something, I believe, (Assad) did not count on," said Labib Kamhawi, a political analyst in Jordan.
Assad has had four public appearances since the uprising began in March, the latest one on Sunday night. His remarks have stayed remarkably similar even as the uprising gained momentum, with the president trying to convey a sense of confidence while insisting his security forces were fighting a foreign conspiracy to stir up sectarian strife.
He has also pledged reforms, but the opposition says the promises are empty.
Assad told state-run TV Sunday that he was not worried about security in his country and warned against any Libya-style foreign military intervention.
On Monday, the state news agency said Assad formed a committee to pave the way for the formation of political groups other than his Baath party, which has held a monopoly in Syria for decades. The opposition rejected Assad's remarks, saying they have lost confidence in his promises of reform while his forces open fire on peaceful protesters.
Also Monday, a witness said several thousand people converged on the main square in Homs known as Clock Square after they heard that a U.N. humanitarian team was to visit the city. He said security forces opened fire on the protesters, killing one and wounding several others.
"Simply, without any introductions, they started shooting at them," he said, asking that his name not be used for fear of government reprisals.
Syria granted a U.N. team permission to visit some of the centers of the protests and crackdown to assess humanitarian needs, but activists and a Western diplomat have accused the regime of trying to scrub away signs of the crackdown.
In Hama, another central city that has been a hotbed of dissent, pro-regime gunmen fired their guns in celebration after Assad's appearance, killing two people overnight.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and another activist group called the Local Coordination Committees confirmed the deaths. Both groups cited witness accounts.
In the southern village of Hirak, four people were wounded when security forces opened fire on protesters, according to the observatory.
Also Monday, a U.N. human rights expert says Arab nations agreed to demand that Syria allow an international probe within its borders to see whether crimes against humanity have been committed.
Jean Ziegler, a member of the U.N. Human Rights Council's advisory committee, told The Associated Press that Kuwait will make the demand on behalf of Arab nations.
___
AP writers Zeina Karam in Beirut, Dale Gavlak in Amman, Jordan, Matthew Lee in Washington and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.
___
Zeina Karam can be reached on http://twitter.com/zkaram
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A new species of the fist-sized babbler bird has been found in a network of underground caves in southwestern China, raising the prospect the country could become a hot spot for other discoveries, a conservation group said Thursday.
Ornithologists Zhou Fang and Jiang Aiwu first spotted the dark brown bird with white specks on its chest in 2005 and have since confirmed its identity as an undescribed species. They named it the Nonggang babbler, or Stachyris nonggangensis, for the region in China where it was found.
A formal description was published last year in The Auk, which is the quarterly journal of the Virginia-based American Ornithologists' Union.
"This is exciting evidence that there could be many more interesting discoveries awaiting ornithologists in China," said Nigel Collar of Birdlife International, which announced the discovery.
The new species resembles a wren-babbler in that it prefers running to flying, and seems to spend most of its time on the ground foraging for insects, Zhou said. About 100 Nonggang babblers have been identified so far in the Nonggang Natural Reserve in southwestern China.
A similar habitat straddles the border of northern Vietnam and southeast Yunnan, China, and it is possible the species may also be found there, Zhou said.
"The discovery shows that there are still some birds that haven't been (identified) yet in China, such a vast territory that is rich in biodiversity," Zhou said in a statement.
Xi Zhinong, the founder of conservation group Wild China, said similar finds are likely to become more common in China as laymen join professionals in the search for new species.
Because China was never explored like India and other countries that were colonized, and has regions that are difficult to access, researchers said they believe there are scores of small birds that remain to be identified.
"In recent years, more and more bird lovers and photographers are participating in the research of wild birds," Xi said. "The participation of those nonprofessionals has pushed forward the research of wildlife in China."
Birdlife's Mike Crosby noted that there are now 27 bird watching clubs across China.
"There is an emerging middle class in China with leisure time," said Crosby, who has worked extensively in the country.
But Zhou warned the country's rapid development could threaten many biologically rich areas like the karst formations _ a network of limestone sinkholes marked by underground streams and caverns _ before further discoveries are made.
"The fragility of the karst ecosystem and its destruction by people pose great threats to the bird's existence," he said.
No country, however rich, can afford the waste of its human resources. Demoralization caused by vast unemployment is our greatest extravagance. Morally, it is the greatest menace to our social order.
-Franklin D Roosevelt
On a recent visit to Washington, I visited the Roosevelt Memorial. Although I do not sympathize with President Roosevelt's interpretation of constitutional rights, I was struck by some of the values he championed, and I've quoted one of the most inspiring inscriptions as the epigraph to this editorial.
This quotation suggests that unemployment and work should be a national concern-that we should all attend to its effects. Roosevelt was referring to the national effects of the Great Depression; the recently released report of the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology (the Kirby and Keon Commission) highlights, among other areas, the effects of clinical depression and other mental disorders on the Canadian workforce.1 The Commission's report supports a national strategy to address mental health and addictions in the workplace.
With this report, Canada joins many other industrialized nations searching for a strategy to tackle this issue. However, the question of protecting worker health and safety is not as straightforward as it has been in the past. During the industrial revolution, when workers moved from agricultural trades to factories, books such as The Jungle1 exposed the horrendous conditions endured by many and called for workplace reform to protect workers' physical health and safety.
Currently, we live in a technological revolution. This revolution has, in the last decade, introduced globalization, new modes of communication, and changes in workforce demographics that have created new occupational health challenges.3 5 In this age, rather than using their physical strength and risking physical injury, workers are increasingly called on to use their minds. Instead of toiling in sweatshops, workers have been increasingly exposed to stressful work environments characterized by tighter deadlines and increased production targets set with seemingly little consideration for individual workloads,6-8 at the same time as companies downsize and restructure.4,5
Further, stress associated with work is compounded by the additional stress of other life events, and reactions to all these stressors are influenced by other underlying risk factors. Herein lies the difficulty in finding an answer. According to a traditional occupational disease model, worker health is jeopardized by continuous exposure to hazardous employmentrelated conditions.9 However, the most advanced etiologic models of adult mental illness include not only factors related to work environment but also genetic vulnerability, developmental factors, neurobiological factors, childhood experiences, life events, chronic situations (such as a stressful home life), and the presence of other disorders.10 Each dimension's relative weight, and how the dimensions interact, is not yet understood. Consequently, we have a complex picture with no clear focus.
Nevertheless, we are not without hope. In her paper published in this issue's In Review section, Dr Krupa1 ' reviews the current state of the evidence for interventions. She begins by emphasizing the importance of recognizing the complexity of work activities and demands. She also stresses the importance of distinguishing between disorder-related symptoms and the ability to fulfill work responsibilities; the answers to these questions will not be found solely in medical treatment. Her discussion focuses on interventions at the individual, employer, and workplace-organization levels. She notes that interventions aimed at both workers and employers offer the most promise.
It appears that, globally, countries are seeking to implement complex strategies for a complex problem by balancing the role of public benefits (that is, financial supports), programs, health services, and legislation with the role of the workplace and the worker. This section's companion paper, by Dr Dewa, Mr McDaid, and Dr Ettner,12 discusses who should pay for interventions, services, and programs to promote mental health in the workplace; it highlights the current fragmentation among payers, who include the public sector, employers, employees, and their families. Further, it asserts that such fragmentation makes it difficult to assign responsibility, including responsibility for success, to any single group-any decrease in the impact of mental illness will potentially be divided among all the payers. As a result, we are left with the potential for what economists refer to as "free riding." That is, all might benefit, but no one wants to be the first to act. Dewa et al offer suggestions for how to increase cooperation among all the stakeholder groups to achieve improved worker mental health.
Both papers in this section underscore the need for more research in the area of workplace interventions. We still do not know which interventions are most effective within a workplace setting. It is increasingly clear, however, that we cannot advance our knowledge without collaboration among the stakeholder groups. For example, the public sector must be willing both to fund and to participate in research. Employers (including those in the health care sector) should also consider funding research as well as being study participants. Workers must be willing to share their experiences. In turn, researchers must be willing to consider a research paradigm that responds to participant needs rather than focusing solely on their own research question. It is only by collaborating that we can truly effectively address the pressing national issue of workplace mental health.
[Reference]
References
1. Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology. Out of the shadows at last-transforming mental health, mental illness and addiction services in Canada. Ottawa (ON): The Senate; 2006.
2. Sinclair U. The jungle. Mineola (NY) : Dover Publications; 2001.
3. Rantanen J. Research challenges arising from changes in worklife. Scand J Work Environ Health. 1999;25(6):473-483.
4. Ostry AS, Barroetavena M, Hershler R, et al. Effect of de-industrialisation on working conditions and self reported health in a sample of manufacturing workers. J Epidemiol Community Health. 2002;56(7):506-509.
5. Bunting M. Willing slaves. Toronto (ON): HarperCollins; 2005.
6. Vezina M, Bourbonnais R, Brisson C, et al. Workplace prevention and promotion strategies. Healthc Pap. 2004;5(2):32-44.
7. Third European Survey on Working Conditions. 2001 [cited 2003 Nov 23]. Available from http://www.eurofound.ie/working/surveys.htm.
8. Bond JT, Galinsky E, Swanberg JE. The 1997 National Study of the Changing Work Force. Scand J Work Environ Health. 1998;25(Special):616-624.
9. Goldberg RJ, Steury S. Depression in the workplace: costs and barriers to treatment. Psychiatr Serv. 2001;52(12):1639-1643.
10. Kendler KS, Gardner CO, Prescott CA. Toward a comprehensive developmental model for major depression in women. Am J Psychiatry. 2002;159(7): 1133-1145.
11. Krupa T. Interventions to improve employment outcomes for workers who experience mental illness. Can J Psychiatry. 2006;52(6):339-345.
12. Dewa CS, McDaid D, Ettner SL. An international perspective on worker mental health problems: who bears the burden and how are costs addressed? Can J Psychiatry. 2006;52(6):346-356.
[Author Affiliation]
Carolyn S Dewa, MPH, PhD1
[Author Affiliation]
1 Health Economist-Senior Scientist, Health Systems Research and Consulting Unit, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Toronto, Ontario; Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario.
ABSTRACT
Background: Much of the literature on smoking behaviours has focused on adult populations and, more recently, on children and adolescents. A very small body of work has begun to emerge on smoking behaviours among post-secondary students.
Methods: Using the 1994-95 National Population Health Survey, we examined smoking prevalence, age of smoking initiation, and smoking cessation behaviours of post-secondary students, under 30 years old.
Results: Approximately 26% of post-secondary students smoke either occasionally or regularly. Among current smokers, some 27% began to smoke after the age of 17; among former smokers, 57% quit in their 20s.
Interpretation: Smoking prevalence is relatively high in adolescents, and many smokers begin to smoke at about the age they enter university or college. Further research is required to better understand smoking behaviour among this largely overlooked sub-group in the population.
A recent report called cigarette smoking a public health disaster, noting hat the medical treatment of illness and disease caused by cigarette smoking costs the Canadian health care system one billion dollars annually.1 While most tobacco use begins in adolescence, a small body of literature from the United States suggests that a surprising number of smokers begin to smoke in college. There, a national survey revealed that 29% of postsecondary students smoke at least sometimes and 22% smoke frequently.2 One in ten students report smoking their first cigarette after the age of 19,3 and a similar proportion indicate that they intend to start smoking while in college.4 Research further suggests that up to one quarter of post-secondary students who smoke, began smoking regularly after the age of 19.2,3
Only one Canadian study of smoking prevalence among post-secondary students is available in the published literature.5 This study reports that about 15% of students living in a university residence smoke daily. Given the relative paucity of literature in this important area of inquiry, particularly using Canadian data, we used a large national survey of Canadians to examine questions of tobacco use among post-secondary students. To the authors' knowledge, no study has examined smoking and smoking cessation behaviours among this subgroup of the population using a nationally representative sample.
METHOD
1994-95 National Population Health Survey (NPHS)
In this survey, 19,600 households across all ten provinces in Canada were contacted using a multi-stage, random sampling procedure. One person per household was selected to provide detailed personal information. Persons living in Native reserves, military bases, institutions and some remote parts of Ontario and Quebec were excluded. Of the 18,342 possible respondents aged 12 and over, 17,626 participated, resulting in a response rate of 96%.
Selecting Post-secondary Students
The 1994-95 NPHS asked respondents, "Are you currently attending a school, college or university?" Unfortunately, in this public use data set, we were unable to differentiate between students enrolled in public school, high school, college or university. Therefore, we included in our sample only those respondents (n=1,385) currently attending school, who reported that they had already attained a high school diploma the minimum requirement for entry into most post-secondary programs in this country. We also limited the upper age range for the sample to 25 to 29, and excluded respondents aged 12 to 14 to better reflect the age distribution of students enrolled in post-secondary institutions in this country (n=973). While these selection criteria may have excluded some respondents who enter college or university through non-traditional methods (e.g., mature student status), this number would be very small in a sample such as this. In spite of the limitations in the data, we believe this sample captures the majority of students enrolled in postsecondary programs.
Measures
Smoking Behaviours
A variety of questions regarding current and former smoking behaviours were available in this survey. The first question asked students whether or not they (currently) smoked at all, and if so, whether they were "daily smokers" or "occasional smokers." "Daily smokers" were asked to indicate how many cigarettes they smoked per day, and at what age they began smoking. "Occasional smokers" were asked whether they had ever been daily smokers, and if so, at what age their daily smoking began, how many cigarettes they smoked per day, and at what age they stopped smoking on a daily basis. The students who initially stated that they did not smoke at all, were asked whether they had ever previously smoked. Those who responded "yes" were asked the same set of questions that the occasional smokers were asked.
Demographics
Four demographic variables were included in the analyses. Age was available in this data set in five-year intervals; we included three dummy variables, 15 to 19, 20 to 24 and 25 to 29 years of age. Also included is a variable for gender (males and females). We were able to classify students in terms of their status with the institution (part time versus full time). Finally, we included a series of dummy variables representing marital status: married or common law, single, and other (including divorced, widowed and separated).
RESULTS
Smoking prevalence and behaviours
Table I shows the demographic distribution of the total sample (n=973). Not surprisingly, the majority (46.5%) of the sample are between the ages of 20 and 24. The gender distribution is relatively even, with males (51.2%) slightly outnumbering females. Most students were enrolled fulltime (82.4%) and were single at the time of the survey (82.5%). In total, 26.4% of the respondents reported smoking either daily or occasionally (see Figure 1).
When asked about their smoking status (see Table II), 17.9% of the students reported smoking daily and 8.5% reported smoking occasionally at the time of the survey. Those students who did not smoke (n=716) were asked if they had ever smoked at all. Almost one quarter (23.3%) reported having smoked at some time in their lives. Finally, when this group of former smokers, along with the students who identified themselves as current occasional smokers (n=249), were asked if they had ever been daily smokers, 35.3% reported having been daily smokers at some point.
JULY - AUGUST 2002
Table III shows the results for questions directed at current daily smokers (n=174). Among these smokers, 72.8% reported that they began smoking by the age of 17, while the remaining 27.2% started smoking when they were 18 or older. Their average consumption of cigarettes was 13.5 per day.
Table IV shows the results for questions directed at those students who previously smoked on a daily basis (n=88). Similar to current daily smokers, the majority of former daily smokers began to smoke by the age of 17 (approximately 70%). These students reported a lower average daily consumption of cigarettes when they were daily smokers (M=9.4). Among former daily smokers, 57.3% reported quitting between the ages of 20 and 29 years.
Multivariate modelling
In the final stage of the analysis, we further examined the relationship between current smoking status and the demographic variables using multivariate logistic regression techniques. We regressed a binary outcome variable for current smoking status (daily/occasional versus not at all) on dummy variables for age, gender, marital status and full- versus part-time student status (see Table V). The results of our analysis show that, in terms of predicting current smokers from non-smokers, none of these variables were statistically significant. There were no differences in current smoking behaviours between males and females, or across age, marital status or student status.
DISCUSSION
Consistent with previous research,1-5 we found that a significant number of postsecondary students (26.4%) reported daily or occasional use of tobacco. Our results are similar to an American study that found 29% of post-secondary students smoke.2 The percentage of students in this sample who smoke was higher than another study conducted in Canada,5 however this is likely due to the fact that the other study excluded college students and students not living in residence. Given that many residences have partial or complete bans on smoking,6 it might be expected that a lower prevalence of smoking would be found for that sample.
Also consistent with previous research, our results showed that a significant number of smokers began to smoke after the age of 17. In our sample, 20.5% of current smokers and 15.7% of former smokers recalled their age of smoking initiation to be 18 or 19 years old. Additionally, nearly 7% of current smokers and 15% of former smokers said they started smoking after the age of 19. Similarly, among former daily smokers, over 30% reported onset of smoking between the ages of 18 to 24. Although age upon entry to post-secondary institutions was not available in the current study, it seems likely that by the age of 18, most respondents would be in their first year of post-secondary studies. With 27% to 30% of respondents starting to smoke while in college or university, it is clear that smoking initiation is not limited to early- and mid-adolescence.
Results of this study further suggest that smoking cessation occurs during students' senior years of post-secondary studies or after leaving school. Among the respondents who were former daily smokers, 57% indicated that they quit smoking between the ages of 20 to 29. This finding, along with results showing relatively high rates of smoking among students, bring to light the need for further research into factors that influence university students to begin or stop smoking, strategies to assist smokers to quit smoking, and ways to prevent post-secondary students from beginning to smoke.
Reasons for smoking uptake among college and university students were not included in the current data. However, it has been proposed that smoking initiation among university students may be associated with increased use of alcohol, new social demands experienced by students upon entering university, and perceptions that smoking is a widespread, normative behaviour.7,8 Similarly, smokers may minimize the risks associated with smoking,9 and perceive smoking as offering benefits such as stress reduction.10 The extent to which these social conditioning processes contribute to smoking onset and maintenance of smoking in this age group requires further attention.
Issues of smoking cessation assistance on campuses also demand attention. Currently, tobacco control interventions for this segment of the population are extremely limited.11 Post-secondary students are typically offered interventions more suitable for adolescents, or older, heavily addicted adult smokers, with little research addressing whether these interventions appeal to, or are effective for this age group. In response to this gap in services, a tobacco control initiative is currently underway at eight post-secondary institutions in Ontario. Funded by the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, this collaborative initiative, "Leave The Pack Behind," offers post-secondary students a wide range of smoking-related interventions and services, and provides a venue for investigating students' reasons for smoking, needs and preferences related to smoking cessation interventions, and experiences with various interventions. Information generated from this project, and other ongoing research, will broaden our understanding of smoking among this largely overlooked subgroup of the population.
[Reference]
REFERENCES
[Reference]
1. Ontario Ministry of Health. Actions Will Speak Louder Than Words: Getting Serious About Tobacco Control in Ontario. A report to the Minister of Health from her expert panel on the renewal of the Ontario Tobacco Strategy, 1999.
[Reference]
2. Wechsler H, Rigotti N, Gledhill-Hoyt J, Lee H. Increased levels of cigarette use among college students: A cause for concern. JAMA 1998;280(19):1673-78.
3. Everett SA, Husten CG, Kann L, Warren CW, Sharp D, Crossett L. Smoking initiation and smoking patterns among US college students. JAm College Health 1999;48(2):55-60.
4. DeBernardo RL, Aldinger CE, Dawood OR, Hanson RE, Lee SJ, Rinaldi SR. An E-mail assessment of undergraduates' attitudes toward smoking. JAm College Health 1999;48(2):61-66.
5. Makrides L, Veinot P, Richard J, McKee E, Gallivan T. A cardiovascular health needs assessment of university students living in residence. Can J Public Health 1998;89(3):171-75.
6. Wechsler H, Lee JE, Rigotti NA. Cigarette use by college students in smoke-free housing. Am J Prev Med 2000;20(3):202-7.
7. MacLean L, Meyer M, Roberston-Palmer K, Diem E, Carroll G, Moses K, Zimmerman L. Young Adults and Smoking: A Qualitative Study Exploring Issues and Interventions. Community Health Research Unit no. M99-7, 2000; 1-42.
8. Page RM. College students' distorted perception of the prevalence of smoking. Psychological Reports 1998;82(2):474.
9. Ashley M, Bull S, Pederson L. Restrictive Measures on Smoking in Ontario: Similarities and Differences Between Smokers and Nonsmokers. Ontario Tobacco Research Unit Working Paper Series #1. Toronto, ON, 1994.
10. Pederson LL, Bull SB, Ashley MJ, MacDonald JK. Quitting smoking: Why, how, and what might help. Tobacco Control 1996;5(3):209-14.
11. Willcox ML. Tobacco control programmes for universities: A feasibility study. J Public Health Med 1997;19(l):37-44.
Received: July 11, 2001 Accepted: January 18, 2002
[Reference]
RESUME
[Reference]
Contexte : Une forte proportion des documents sur l'usage du tabac concerne la population adulte et, depuis peu, les enfants et les adolescents. De tres rares etudes commencent a paraitre sur l'usage du tabac chez les etudiants de niveau postsecondaire.
Methode : A I'aide de I'EnquC-te nationale sur la sang de la population de 1994-1995, nous avons examine la prevalence du tabagisme, l'age d'initiation au tabac et le renoncement au tabac chez les etudiants de moins de 30 ans de niveau postsecondaire.
Resultats : Environ 26 % des etudiants de niveau postsecondaire fument a l'occasion ou regulierement. Parmi les fumeurs actuels, environ 27 % ont commence apres I'age de 17 ans; parmi les anciens fumeurs, 57 % ont abandonne la cigarette clans la vingtaine.
Interpretation: La prevalence du tabagisme est relativement elevee chez les adolescents, et de nombreux fumeurs ont commence a fumer vers I'age de l'entree a l'universite ou au cegep. Il faudrait pousser les recherches pour mieux comprendre le phenomene du tabagisme dans ce sousgroupe tres souvent neglige.
[Author Affiliation]
John Cairney, PhD,1,2 Kelli-an Lawrance, PhD2
[Author Affiliation]
1. Canadian Centre for Studies of Children at Risk, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neuroscience, McMaster University, Hamilton, ON
2. Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON Correspondence and reprint requests: John Cairney or Kelli-an Lawrance, Department of Community Health Sciences, Brock University, 500 Glen ridge Ave, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Tel: 905-6885550, E-mail: jcairney@health.pec.brocku.ca
United States defenders Oguchi Onyewu, Jay DeMerit and Carlos Bocanegra are all battling injury ahead of the World Cup in South Africa.
Bocanegra, the team captain, had sports hernia surgery May 5 in Germany. DeMerit also has been struggling with an abdominal strain. Onyewu hasn't played a game since last October after injuring his left knee.
The coaching staff, and the players themselves, are eager to see what level of game fitness each is at as the United States plays the Czech Republic on Tuesday and Turkey on Saturday before heading to South Africa. The Americans have a friendly against Australia on June 5, and their World Cup opener is one week later against England.
"I don't think the games are any rougher than anybody knows," Onyewu said Sunday on the final day of training camp at Princeton University. "There will be injuries; you know that leading up to this."
Bocanegra's was the most recent, and coach Bob Bradley only revealed on Saturday that the team captain had surgery two weeks ago. The central back, who turns 31 on Tuesday, hopes to be in the lineup in Hartford, Connecticut, for his birthday.
"I don't think it's a big issue," he said Sunday. "I thought it would be best to get the little procedure done as soon as possible. I was running three days after.
"It's a 15-to-20 minute procedure. There was no use to keep going and going when there was pain."
Bocanegra was hurt on March 28 while playing for Rennes of the French league. He was kicked just above the left knee, and for several days couldn't flex his leg. He compensated for the pain by putting stress on other areas of his body, and that caused abdominal problems.
He tried to play, but sat out a match on May 2 and then had the surgery after consulting with club doctors and other players _ including former national team member Ante Razov _ who underwent the procedure performed by Dr. Ulrike Muschaweck in Munich. She "stitches the muscles back together individually," Bocanegra said.
"Quite a few players in the American game have gone over to do this procedure," he added. "It's not a big deal. In the past few days of training, I was able to go full out."
U.S. team trainer Pierre Barrieu said "Carlos has done very well" during a week of vigorous training.
"There's no question we have a little situation at centerback with all three," Barrieu said. "Jay has progressed real well. We must remember that Gooch (Onyewu) has not played a game in seven months. We've done everything to give him the intense work volume he needs and he seems to be doing well.
"So for the center-back position, I'd say it's been a positive week."
Now comes a few days of sorting out the back line _ as well as the remainder of the squad. Bradley must trim from 30 players to 23 and is hoping to announce the final squad on Wednesday.
While taking into consideration the various maladies of his defenders, Bradley must determine the value of experience, too. Bocanegra, Onyewu and Steve Cherundolo have been mainstays for the United States. Less tested on the biggest stages are Chad Marshall, Heath Pearce, Jonathan Bornstein, Jonathan Spector and Clarence Goodson. But most of them have remained healthy throughout the grind of the World Cup buildup.
"I think we have such good team chemistry," Onyewu said, "and every player has a good understanding of the capabilities of each other, whatever the combination."
That should be comforting for Bradley. It doesn't make his final decisions any easier.
