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Week 19, 2006
THE BEST SELLERS (recent popular articles):
1) St Louis Post-Dispatch: Unwed couple face boot [Une ville du Missouri veut interdire de séjour une famille dont le crime c'est que les parents ne sont pas mariés.]
2) The Economist: Health care for everyone [Aux USA, le Massachussetts innove en imposant l'assurance santé pour tous.]

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THE REGULARS: Summary
3) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: Tom Takes New York [L'extase devant Tom Cruise en promo pour Mission Impossible.]
4) Puzzle: Will [Un casse-tête.]
5) AUDIO/Marketplace: Summer jobs [Emission radio avec transcription, cette fois-ci une émission sur l'économie et les affaires sur les difficultés pour les employeurs US de trouver des étudiants pour les emplois d'été.]

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1) St Louis Post-Dispatch: Unwed couple face boot [Une ville du Missouri veut interdire de séjour une famille dont le crime c'est que les parents ne sont pas mariés.]
http://www.stltoday.com/

Unwed couple, kids face boot by Black Jack
By Eun Kyung Kim
ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH
21/02/2006

Olivia Shelltrack finally has her dream home. Her family moved into the five-bedroom, three-bath frame house in Black Jack last month. But now she fears she and her fiance face uprooting their children because of a city ordinance that says her household fails to meet Black Jack's definition of a family. Shelltrack and Fondray Loving, her boyfriend of 13 years, were denied an occupancy permit because of an ordinance forbidding three or more individuals from living together if they are not related by "blood, marriage or adoption." The couple have three children, ages 8, 10 and 15, although Loving is not the biological father of the oldest child. "I was basically told, you can have one child living in your house if you're not married, but more than that, you can't," she said.

The couple appealed the denial of an occupancy permit last week at a hearing before Black Jack's board of adjustment. Shelltrack said board members asked her and Loving personal questions about their relationship, their children and their previous home in Minneapolis, from where they moved, for nearly an hour. Then the board denied the couple's appeal. The case now goes before Black Jack's municipal court. At the hearing, Shelltrack said, one board of adjustment member, Norma Mitchell, even pointed at her and asked, "I don't understand why you as a woman didn't exercise your right to marry that man," before being hushed by another board member. Mitchell refused to comment. She referred all calls to Black Jack Mayor Norman McCourt, who defended the ordinance. "This is about the definition of family, not if they're married or not," he said. "It's what cities do to maintain the housing and to hold down overcrowding."

The ordinance has been challenged before. In 1999, the unwed parents of triplets challenged the city's denial of an occupancy permit. It is unclear how that case was resolved.

Shelltrack said she and her family live in a 2,300-square-foot home, providing plenty of space for her family. But McCourt said the city can't differentiate its treatment to residents. "You have laws on the books to preclude any situation," he said. "That's why it's there. It's kind of like a speed limit. You say you go 30 miles an hour. If everybody drives 30 miles an hour, why keep it on the books? It's the same situation."

In 1985, the city of Ladue sued a couple for violating a city ordinance prohibiting an unmarried man and woman from living together if they were not "related by blood, marriage or adoption." A year later, the Missouri Court of Appeals upheld the ruling against the couple, who had lived in the home since 1981.

Many municipalities in the region do have "these ridiculous ordinances about what's considered family," said Katina Combs, a fair housing specialist with the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing Opportunity Council. The federal Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination involving race, religion, color, national origin, gender, disability and families with children, Combs said. Most states often will include additional protected classes, such as marital status. Illinois is one such state. Missouri is not.

"I have to believe in my heart that the people who live in Black Jack wouldn't try to make us leave the city and our home that we own simply because we have too many children out of wedlock," Shelltrack said. "We've had a stable home as long as they've been alive. We are a family. (My kids) are not children of an unmarried couple, they're children of two loving parents," said Shelltrack.

Shelltrack, 31, could appeal Black Jack's decision to the St. Louis County Circuit Court, but she said that would involve legal fees that she and Loving can't afford because of the money they poured into buying their home. She said, however, the couple has filed a complaint with the U.S. Housing and Urban Department. "I refuse to run down to the courthouse and get married just so I can live in my own home," she said. "I love my house. I love the area. I love the schools. We wouldn't have bought the house if we didn't think it was what we wanted."

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2) The Economist: Health care for everyone [Aux USA, le Massachussetts innove en imposant l'assurance santé pour tous.]
http://www.economist.com

Massachusetts: Health care for everyone

Apr 6th 2006 | WASHINGTON, DC

Hillary Clinton couldn't do it. Can Mitt Romney?

AS WAS discovered by Hillary Clinton a decade ago, it is politically impossible to fix America's health-care system all at once. Congress is too angrily divided, and the federal government lacks the muscle to impose a grand vision on unwilling states. The riddle of how to provide health insurance for the 46m Americans who lack it will have to be solved by trial and error in the states. This week, Massachusetts offered an intriguing proposal.

The state legislature passed a bill that would make health insurance compulsory. Just as everyone who drives a car must insure it, so everyone with a body must insure that, too. The only exceptions are those who can prove they are so rich that they can pay for major surgery themselves. The bill had near-universal support. Governor Mitt Romney, on whose proposal it is based, says he will sign it.

To make the plan work, Massachusetts will offer a mix of penalties and subsidies. Individuals will be allowed to buy health insurance with pre-tax dollars, just as firms currently can. Those who don't will be penalised through the tax code, and then fined. At the same time, private insurers will receive subsidies to offer bare-bones insurance to those who cannot afford fancier packages.

Of the 6.2m people in Massachusetts, about 500,000 lack insurance. They fall into three overlapping groups. Some are poor enough to qualify for Medicaid, but have not enrolled. Some are not quite poor enough for Medicaid, but get no insurance from their employers and cannot afford to buy it themselves. Others could afford it, but just don't buy it, perhaps because they are young and healthy.

Massachusetts has already done a good job of reducing the size of the first group. A new computer system uses the Social Security numbers of those who show up at hospital to see if they qualify for Medicaid, and automatically enrolls them if they do. The other two groups will be shrunk by imposing a levy on firms with more than ten employees that do not offer health insurance, and by forcing everyone who still lacks insurance after that to get some.

With more healthy people in the pool, average premiums should fall, or at least rise less quickly. The burden on emergency rooms should be reduced, because insured people are more likely to go to a doctor before a problem becomes critical. Overall, the plan will cost no more than the state currently spends on the uninsured—about $1 billion a year, says an optimistic Mr Romney.

A novel aspect of the plan is the creation of a health insurance “exchange”, to relieve small firms of the need to conduct complex negotiations with insurers. Employees will be able to choose any plan approved by the state-backed exchange, and their premiums will be deducted from their pay cheques.

If the scheme works, other states will copy it. But that will depend on how much it ends up costing. No one wants to use the word “rationing”, but this is what happens in every country with universal health coverage. That said, Mr Romney's plan has more chance of success than Hillarycare ever did—which could help Mr Romney in 2008, when he will be seeking the Republican presidential nomination and then, perhaps, facing Senator Clinton.

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3) Le texte plus abordable de la semaine/Scholastic: Tom Takes New York [L'extase devant Tom Cruise en promo pour Mission Impossible.]
http://www.scholastic.com

Tom Takes New York
By Erika DeJesus
Scholastic Kids Press Corps

May 5, 2006—There was a light drizzle falling even though the sun was out. You could hear the cars honking and cops yelling to move traffic along. Hundreds of high school kids were screaming with excitement while radio station Z-100 blasted the Mission Impossible theme song from large black speakers tied to street signs. It was all designed to build anticipation for Mission Impossible III (MI 3) and the arrival of its star, Tom Cruise.

The street along the Hudson River in downtown New York City was crowded with people, including some 350 city high school students with free tickets to see the summer's opening blockbuster movie. MI 3 premiered in four different theaters in New York on Wednesday as part of the fifth annual Tribeca Film Festival.

As a member of the Scholastic Kids Press Corps, I was there for the excitement at the Tribeca Performing Arts Center, where Cruise was expected to arrive on a motorcycle. As I stood in the press pen, I couldn't believe that in a matter of minutes I would be face-to-face with one of the biggest superstars in the world!

All of a sudden we heard helicopter blades beating the air. Kids in the background started yelling, "He's going to jump from a helicopter." All eyes were trained anxiously on the chopper hovering over the river between New York and New Jersey. My heart began to beat faster and faster. Then, we heard the roar of a motorcycle, and I could see Tom Cruise heading for us on the West Side Highway, followed by police cars with blinking lights. He stopped his motorcycle right in front of the red carpet laid out especially for his arrival, just a few feet from where my colleague, Emmet Smith, and I were standing with our camera crew.

Instantly, everyone moved into action. Cameramen joined the screaming fans, yelling out, "Tom, over here!" The high school kids, all dressed in black and red MI 3 T-shirts, held out notebooks for autographs. Camera phones popped up over the heads of the crowd on the ends of outstretched hands.

Cruise worked his way around the red carpet before finally making it to us. As he started to walk toward the kids on the other side of the sidewalk, Emmet and I joined in the shouting, trying to get the superstar in his black leather jacket to look our way. After making it through the crowd of burly security guards who surrounded him, he approached us with a big, beautiful smile on his face. He shook our hands as we introduced ourselves.

Tom (yes, I think I can call him that now!) told us that working on MI 3 was exciting. "It was a blast. I had so much fun," he said. "I love my cast and the director [J.J. Abrams]. It was just really exciting. I love making movies. I get so excited every day when I'm working. I'll never forget the experience I had working with all these people."

Tom told us that he had always wanted to kick off the summer with a great movie, and MI 3 was it. In Tom's own words, "It's the best Mission I've made." We wished him well and congratulated him on the birth of his daughter. "Thank you so much," he said. "That's really nice of you."

He then made his way down the line of students, signing autographs and posing for pictures in front of camera phones and shiny silver digital cameras of every shape and size.

Once he made his way from the arts-center entrance to the corner of Chambers and West, he jumped into a shiny orange Mustang Saleen and peeled out, waving to us as he drove away. He was on his way to the South Cove boat launch for another premiere.

At the cove, a 51-foot Sea Ray Sundancer was waiting to take him up the Hudson River to the neighborhood known as Harlem for his third premiere of the day. This one was at the Magic Johnson Theaters on 125th Street in Harlem. Cruise arrived driving a Maybach 62.

After making his third stop, he caught the D train at the subway station around the corner to get to the Ziegfeld Theater, his fourth and last premiere of the day. So, what did he think of his subway ride? Probably that it was peaceful, since he was the only one in the subway car! (Security kept everyone else out.)

He ended his wild ride through New York by jumping on top of an SUV in front of the Ziegfeld, where two other Scholastic News Reporters were waiting for him—along with hundreds of other members of the press.

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5) AUDIO/Marketplace: Summer jobs [Emission radio avec transcription, cette fois-ci une émission sur l'économie et les affaires sur les difficultés pour les employeurs US de trouver des étudiants pour les emplois d'été.]
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/shows/2006/05/05/PM200605053.html

KAI RYSSDAL: Back when I was in college, you got a summer job because you needed the money. Painting houses, life-guarding, mowing lawns. . . whatever it took. Now, though, college kids have to use their summers for career development. Something substantive. It's a tighter job market for them, too. Which means they can have their pick of jobs. Marketplace's Lisa Napoli reports on one company with a special need for youthful energy.

LISA NAPOLI: Add the letters B-A to M-I-C-K-E-Y, and what do you get? College credit for working at Disneyland.

The Mouse House is having a hard time filling 4,000 summer jobs at its California theme parks, which have doubled their staff in the past decade. So Disney's promising not just ten bucks an hour to work there this summer, but credits and even classes.

Jamie O'Boyle of the Center for Cultural Studies and Analysis, says the Magic Kingdom is just keeping up with a changing world:

JAMIE O'BOYLE: When they first opened up in the 50s, a summer job was just something that a kid did over the vacation and it kept them busy and gave them a little pocket money, but it wasn't part of your career track. Today the choices you're making in high school and college are all resume items.

Disney's not the only employer facing a shortage of younger workers at a time when unemployment is low and 18-year-olds have options. Michele Gonzalez McEvoy of Summerjobs.com says companies have been campaigning for good workers for the past few years now:

MICHELE GONZALEZ MCEVOY: We've suggested and what seems to work best for them is sell their positions a little bit more.

Besides, filling the low-level jobs of today with the best talent is a way for companies to plan for tomorrow. This summer's hot dog vendor could be an executive someday. Bob Morrison is the co-author of "Workforce Crisis."

BOB MORRISON: Giving the impending talent and education shortages as the baby boom reaches retirement age, corporations are going to have to be in the education business as they never have before.

Disney's approaching 50 colleges with the program.

In Los Angeles, I'm Lisa Napoli for Marketplace.

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6) USA Today: Tech advances make car-sharing programs simple [La technologie rend les dispositifs de partage de voitures plus performants.]
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/products/services/2004-12-30-carshares_x.htm

Tech advances make car-sharing programs simple
By Mark Jewell, Associated Press

BOSTON — When I moved to this pedestrian-friendly city with plentiful public transit and pricey parking, I said goodbye to auto repair bills, insurance premiums and gas pumps. Recently divorced, without kids to ferry around, I realized my dream of living car-free.

But I still need wheels for the occasional errand or day trip. Enter Zipcar, a car-sharing service based in Cambridge. My options today are far greater than they would've been just five years ago, thanks to the marriage of Internet and voice-line technology with wireless communications. Customers make reservations via computer or telephone, and the company uses remote-access systems to control who can use the car when.

The two biggest car-sharing companies, Zipcar and Seattle-based Flexcar, are still pretty small. Zipcar offers more than 400 cars to its 30,000 typically well-educated and young customers in congested Boston, Washington and New York. It plans to hit at least three more U.S. metropolitan areas in 2005 with hopes of reaching a total of 25 North American markets within five years. Flexcar has 350 vehicles serving 25,000 members in more than 20 cities from Seattle to Washington, D.C.

Both services rent cars around the clock in increments of a half-hour or longer. Prices in Boston range from $8.50 an hour to $12.50, depending on the vehicle model. Gas is included. That's not bad when you also factor in the insurance, maintenance and repair costs that come with ownership. Car-sharing services also offer daily rates as low as $60, though conventional rentals are more economical to rent for more than a day at a time.

I signed up five months ago, choosing among several plans tailored toward either occasional or frequent drivers. I paid a $25 application fee and a $100 refundable membership deposit. Zipcar then checked my driving record. In less than a week, I received a membership card that serves as my key and can be used in any Zipcar city.

To make a reservation, I simply visit Zipcar's Web site and am immediately directed to my personal Zipcar page — my computer retains my logon information. If a computer's not handy, I can phone in the reservation. Online, I get a list of five cars in assigned parking spaces within a few blocks of my apartment. I can also sort the list by rates or the cars I rent most frequently. I also see a round-the-clock schedule indicating which cars are available when.

I always found a car within walking distance when I needed one, and my steady road partner — a Ford Focus that Zipcar has named "Focus Fabiana" — lives in a parking space a couple blocks away. During the most popular driving times, she could be sharing her affections with another Zipcar customer, leaving me to resort to a Honda a couple blocks farther afield, with the handle "Element Ephraim."

When my time comes, I walk to the parking spot — an online map tells me how to get there — and pull out my membership card. I place the card over a radio-frequency reader beneath the windshield, and the doors unlock immediately and keylessly. Zipcar's computer had already sent a message to a hidden dashboard computer telling the car to unlock itself only when my personal card went across the reader during my reservation period. Had I arrived too early, entry would have been denied. Inside my Zipcar, the key is hanging from a cord near the ignition — which would appear to be an unwise place to leave a key in the city. But the ignition unlocks only after I presented my card, so nobody else can break in and start the car.

Flexcar's system works a little differently. Its card unlocks the doors, but the customer enters a personal ID into a dashboard display to enable ignition — a step that Zipcar handles during the reservation process, rather than after entry. As a result, Flexcar customers can enter a car using their card anytime, without needing reservations, provided nobody else has reserved the car.

After I start my Zipcar, I can drive as far as I want and refuel using a Zipcar card at the company's expense — gas is factored into the hourly rates, along with insurance. These days, I reserve cars for an extra half-hour to be on the safe side, even though I have to pay for the time if I return the car early. I learned the hard way about the $25 minimum late fee when I got stuck in traffic and couldn't get back in time.

Zipcar and Flexcar can both wirelessly track when the car's engine has been turned off to determine whether to assess a late fee. Pretty clever. Both companies are continually refining their technologies. In partnership with wireless carrier Cingular, Zipcar is boosting the data capacity of its wireless platform so it can offer Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity inside its cars. When that day comes, I hope I will resist the temptation to surf the Web while simultaneously dodging traffic. However many extras come along, for me the big appeal of car sharing is simple: mobility without being tied down to car ownership.

If car-sharing comes to your town, consider trying it. You might find greater freedom in not owning a car.

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7) CNN: Geography Greek to young Americans [Les jeunes Américains sont nuls en géo.]
http://www.cnn.com/2006/EDUCATION/05/02/geog.test/index.html

Study: Geography Greek to young Americans
Tuesday, May 2, 2006; Posted: 4:18 p.m. EDT (20:18 GMT)

GEOGRAPHY SURVEY
# Thirty-three percent of respondents couldn't pinpoint Louisiana on a map.
# Fewer than three in 10 think it important to know the locations of countries in the news and just 14 percent believe speaking another language is a necessary skill.
# Two-thirds didn't know that the earthquake that killed 70,000 people in October 2005 occurred in Pakistan.
# Six in 10 could not find Iraq on a map of the Middle East.
# Forty-seven percent could not find the Indian subcontinent on a map of Asia.
# Seventy-five percent were unable to locate Israel on a map of the Middle East.
# Nearly three-quarters incorrectly named English as the most widely spoken native language.
# Six in 10 did not know the border between North and South Korea is the most heavily fortified in the world.
# Thirty percent thought the most heavily fortified border was between the United States and Mexico.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After more than three years of combat and nearly 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Iraq, nearly two-thirds of Americans aged 18 to 24 still cannot find Iraq on a map, a study released Tuesday showed. The study found that less than six months after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, 33 percent could not point out Louisiana on a U.S. map.

The National Geographic-Roper Public Affairs 2006 Geographic Literacy Study paints a dismal picture of the geographic knowledge of the most recent graduates of the U.S. education system. "Taken together, these results suggest that young people in the United States ... are unprepared for an increasingly global future," said the study's final report. "Far too many lack even the most basic skills for navigating the international economy or understanding the relationships among people and places that provide critical context for world events."

The study, which surveyed 510 young Americans from December 17 to January 20, showed that 88 percent of those questioned could not find Afghanistan on a map of Asia despite widespread coverage of the U.S.-led overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 and the political rebirth of the country. In the Middle East, 63 percent could not find Iraq or Saudi Arabia on a map, and 75 percent could not point out Iran or Israel. Forty-four percent couldn't find any one of those four countries.

Inside the United States, "half or fewer of young men and women 18-24 can identify the states of New York or Ohio on a map [50 percent and 43 percent, respectively]," the study said.

On the positive side, the study noted, seven in 10 young Americans correctly located China on a map, even though they had a number of misconceptions about that country. Forty-five percent said China's population is only twice that of the United States. It's actually four times larger than the U.S. population.

When the poll was conducted in 2002, "Americans scored second to last on overall geographic knowledge, trailing Canada, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and Sweden," the report said. The release of the 2006 study coincides with the launch of the National Geographic-led campaign called "My Wonderful World." A statement on the program said it was designed to "inspire parents and educators to give their kids the power of global knowledge."

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8) Slate: So You Want To Immigrate to the United States [Le dispositif d'immigration aux Etats-Unis.]
http://www.slate.com/id/1786/

So You Want To Immigrate to the United States
By June Thomas
Posted Sunday, Jan. 18, 1998, at 3:30 AM ET

The United States, a nation of immigrants, has a love-hate relationship with newcomers. Despite its reputation as an international melting pot, only 7.9 percent of the country's population was born overseas, compared with 22.7 percent of Australia's, 18.5 percent of Switzerland's, and 16.1 percent of Canada's.

Not surprisingly, the immigration system is set up to benefit the United States--only a small percentage of the people who would like to come here are allowed in, and only a tiny fraction of the ones who make that cut are allowed to stay indefinitely. In the 1996 fiscal year, almost 23 million foreigners entered the United States on tourist visas, 418,117 on student visas, and 227,440 as temporary workers with extremely restricted temporary work visas (most are seasonal workers--only 65,000 people are allowed in annually as "persons in a specialty occupation"). In FY 1996, 915,900 people received an immigrant visa (a "green card"--it's actually pink), which makes them eligible for permanent residence and most of the benefits of citizenship, with the important exception of the right to vote.

*Who Gets a Green Card?
In 1996, 596,000 people--65 percent of all green-card recipients--were "family-sponsored immigrants." About half were immediate relatives of U.S. citizens (spouses: 56 percent; parents: 22 percent; and children: 21 percent), and the rest were "family-sponsored preference immigrants"--spouses and children of alien residents, siblings (and their families) of naturalized citizens and their families, and adult sons and daughters (and their families) of naturalized citizens.

Homosexuality ceased to be grounds for exclusion from the United States in 1991, but since gay and lesbian couples cannot legally marry in this country, there is currently no legal way for them to benefit from family-preference laws.

Employment-based preferences account for an annual minimum of 140,000 entrants of whom a maximum of 10,000 may be unskilled workers. There are basically five categories of work-related "preferences": skilled workers, priority workers (including "multinational executives or managers" and "outstanding professors or researchers"), "professionals with advanced degrees," investors or employment creators, and unskilled workers.

Since 1991, there has been an annual lottery for "diversity" immigrants, designed to allow citizens of countries with low levels of emigration to the United States to jump the queue. (Such countries are currently defined as those with fewer than 50,000 emigrants to the United States in the previous five years.) The 1999 lottery, with 55,000 green cards up for grabs, closed Nov. 24, 1997. (This page provides more details.) The dates for next year's diversity-visa lottery haven't yet been determined.

Within these complex categories, there are national quotas to ensure that no country can take up more than 7 percent of the annual green-card allocation (though some family-reunification categories are exempted from this limit).

*What's the Difference Between a Resident Alien and a U.S. Citizen?
Until recently, millions of green-card holders were content to live in the United States as resident aliens. But of late, lawmakers have indicated a change of attitude toward legal immigrants, and this has affected the number of applications for citizenship. A 1996 federal welfare law separated rights from entitlements, denying legal immigrants access to government housing and welfare while still requiring them to pay taxes. This loss of benefits has almost certainly precipitated the jump from the long-standing annual average of 300,000 citizenship applications to 1.6 million in 1996. (Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates show that 5.8 million of the 10.5 million green-card holders resident in the United States in 1996 were eligible to apply for U.S. citizenship.)

*I Won the Lottery. How Do I Become a Citizen?
Candidates for citizenship must 1) be 18 or older; 2) have resided in the United States continuously for five years--or three years if married to a U.S. citizen--(short absences are OK); 3) demonstrate the ability to speak English, and a basic knowledge of American history and government (click here to see if you pass the test); and 4) be of "good moral character." Candidates must submit a set of fingerprints for review by the FBI.

The increase in citizenship applications has led to longer processing periods and, according to critics, to some immigrants being wrongly naturalized. In May 1997, an INS audit of the 1.1 million people who were granted citizenship between September 1995 and September 1996 revealed 4,946 cases "in which criminal arrest should have disqualified an applicant or in which an applicant lied about his or her criminal history." A more recent press release from the INS suggests that the agency has made a "dramatic turnaround" as a result of new policies initiated last June.

*Evading the System
According to INS estimates, 300,000 illegal immigrants come to the United States each year, and there were 5 million illegal immigrants living in the country in 1996. About 2.1 million of this group are "nonimmigrant overstays," that is, people who entered the country legally on a temporary basis and didn't go home. Most illegal immigrants, an estimated 2.7 million, come from Mexico, but only 16 percent of Mexican illegal immigrants are overstays, compared with 26 percent of those from other parts of Central America and 91 percent from all other countries. The INS deported 111,794 "criminal and other illegal aliens" in 1997, and recent changes in the law, summarized here, establish new grounds for denying admission to the United States. For example, nonimmigrant overstays can now be denied readmission for up to 10 years.

Access to jobs attracts illegal immigrants. Although the INS negotiated its largest work-site settlement last year, when a Texas restaurant chain agreed to pay a $1.7-million fine for hiring and employing illegal immigrant workers, critics claim that Congress doesn't do enough to punish employers who make extensive use of illegal labor. Unscrupulous employers see these workers as more manageable and less likely to complain. Despite regulations that punish employers who knowingly employ them, pressure from business groups like the National Federation of Independent Business and the National Restaurant Association scuttled an attempt to include computer verification of employee eligibility in the 1996 immigration bill.

*What About Refugees?
A fact sheet prepared by the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration outlines the U.S. refugee policy. Around 120,000 refugees are allowed into the country each year if they flee their country "due to persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution because of race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or membership in a particular social group." Recent changes in the law prohibit asylum applications from persons who have been in the United States for more than a year. Cuban pitchers are also offered refuge--unless they can get a better deal in the Bahamas, of course.

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9) Boston Globe: As waistlines grow, women's clothing sizes shrink incredibly [Pendant que les Américaines grossissent, les tailles de leurs vêtements diminuent.]
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/05/05/0_is_the_new_8/

0 is the new 8: As waistlines grow, women's clothing sizes shrink incredibly

By Kate M. Jackson, Globe Correspondent | May 5, 2006

Inside the dressing room at Ann Taylor, Wendy Chao found herself at a loss.

''I tried on a size 0 skirt and it was too big," said Chao, a 30-year-old graduate student of molecular biology at Harvard University. ''To me, a size 0 is antimatter; it's something devoid of any physical reality."

Chao was already mystified by how she'd shrunk from a size 8 in high school to a size 2 today, despite gaining 15 pounds in the interim. But now at size 0, she realized something curious was afoot.

''As far as I can see, size means nothing," she said. ''I am different sizes at different stores, but they're all remarkably smaller than what I wore as a scrawny teenager. In my closet, I have everything from a size 0 to a size 12." She added that a size 8 skirt she bought from Ann Taylor in 2000 is ''identical in cut" to the size 0 she bought at the store late last year.

The incongruity in Chao's closet is far from a fluke: While Americans have statistically gotten larger, women's clothing has gotten smaller -- that is, if the numbers on the size labels are to be believed. It's no secret that retailers have been playing to women's vanity for years by downsizing the sizes on garment labels, but the practice has reached an extreme in recent months with the introduction of the sizes ''double zero" and ''extra, extra small." If vanity sizing continues on this path, analysts say, it is only a matter of time before clothing sizes are available in negative integers.

In many ways we're already there, said Bridgette Raes, an image and style consultant in New York who notes that the sizes double zero and extra, extra small available at stores like Banana Republic and Old Navy are essentially negative sizes. Instead of putting a -2 size on the label, manufacturers use 00, which is the same thing.

J. Jill introduced its ''extra, extra small" size last year in response to its petite customers' demands for smaller sizes, said Lauren Cooke, a public relations manager for the company.

''We've always had size 'extra small,' but our clothing tends to be cut more generously because we cater to women over 35," she said, noting that an extra small at J. Jill is the equivalent of a size 2 or 4 at other stores. Their extra, extra small is equivalent to a size 0.

The downward evolution of sizes illustrates the extent to which retailers, apparel anufacturers, and designers are conforming to American women's obsession with wanting to be thin -- even if it's only in their minds, said Natalie Weathers, an assistant professor of fashion industry management at Philadelphia University.

In addition, the small sizes help retailers attract the junior-sized buyers -- typically girls in their teens -- to adult stores.

Vanity sizing has been a common practice in expensive women's clothing for decades, but Weathers said the practice has crept into the mass market because a wider spectrum of women -- teenagers through baby boomers -- are more preoccupied with size than ever before.

''We live in a world now where 14-year-olds shop at Victoria's Secret," said Weathers. ''On the other side, we're always hearing how 50 is the new 30." And the gap between what's reality for most women and fantasy also seems to be bigger. While more than 60 percent of American women are overweight, women on television and on the big screen are getting skinnier and skinnier. In fact, after producers of ''Desperate Housewives" learned their star Eva Longoria is a size 00, they wrote a reference to her clothing size into an episode.

While images of Hollywood certainly feed the frenzy, there are other factors at work, said April Ainsworth, owner of VintageVixen.com, an online vintage clothing retailer. With some exceptions, manufacturers are simply making women's clothing larger and labeling them with smaller sizes. As a result, what was a size 8 in the 1950s had become a 4 by the 1970s and 00 today. The size labels just keep getting smaller, so it's no surprise they're diving below zero now, Ainsworth said.

If this trend continues, some petite women may find their own shopping options limited as the smaller sizes available at some of their favorite stores actually become too large for them. Just ask Kelly O'Rourke, 27, of Roslindale. She loved shopping at such stores as Ann Taylor, the Gap, and J. Crew because their petite lines were cut to her silhouette. However, she said she recently found that sizes 0 and 2 are too big for her at some of these retailers. ''It's frustrating to me as a petite woman when I try on a size 2 suit and it's swimming on me because it really has the measurements of a size 6," she said.

The picture is further complicated by the fact that sizing varies among brands and stores, making it difficult for many women to know exactly what size they are. The problem has only become more acute since January 1983 when the US Department of Commerce dropped a uniform sizing system for women on the grounds that it no longer reflected the size and shape of the average consumer.

''Sizing has always shifted to match consumers' changing behaviors," said Kathleen Fassanella, a pattern maker and author who writes an apparel manufacturing blog called Fashion Incubator. ''For instance, when women stopped wearing corsets, manufacturers had to completely redesign their patterns due to the great dissatisfaction of women who were no longer wearing the undergarments." But because women have gotten larger, Fassanella said, their clothing is cut larger today -- though many of the labels won't tell you that.

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IN A new, $78m research facility in Rhode Island, FM Global routinely blows up, batters and burns all sorts of materials and structures. The company is one of the handful that dominate the market for insuring large industrial and commercial property. Its penchant for testing things to destruction is a sign of its unusual approach to underwriting risks, based on preventing losses rather than on minute analysis of probabilities. Indeed, it employs 1,400 engineers, more than all its competitors together, and no actuaries.

This may be unusual, but it is also remarkably successful. Barring a disaster, FM Global is likely to conclude a second year with a combined ratio (operating costs and claims losses divided by premiums) of only 70%. For almost 20 years, most property-and-casualty insurers have put up with combined ratios of more than 100% and tried to bridge the gap by investing premiums. A ratio of 90% is regarded as heroic. Anything less verges on being too good to be true.

Up to a point, FM Global's superb results are due to luck. The company buys little reinsurance, which is likely to make its figures better in good years but worse in bad ones. Its success may therefore indicate that property insurers' long lean spell has finally ended. Even so, it may simply be that FM Global is very good at the most basic and elusive underwriting skill: separating good risks from bad.

The bear market in property insurance dates back to the mid-1980s. Conditions worsened in the 1990s, prompting many of the largest participants, such as Kemper and Industrial Risk Insurer, to cut their exposure or get out altogether. These difficult times led to the creation of FM Global out of three companies, already closely linked. The combined salesforces were reduced by two-thirds and costs by 28%.

However, in 2000 prices finally began to rise. They went up further after the attacks of September 11th 2001, says FM Global's chief executive, Shivan Subramaniam. In sum, they climbed by 60-75% before levelling off recently. This year the company's premium income will be nearly $4 billion, three times the tally in 1999. About two-thirds of this gain has come from higher rates and clients' growth, and the rest from new business.

However, FM Global's peculiar approach to underwriting may well have helped too. Its army of engineers evaluates clients and pushes them to make their buildings safer, on the premise that most losses are avoidable. This strategy of emphasising loss prevention rather than statistical analysis stems from the company's origins. In 1835 Zachariah Allen, a textile manufacturer in Rhode Island, became famous for designing an unusually fire-resistant mill, which is still studied in university architecture classes. To take full advantage of his design, Allen founded an insurance company. He reasoned that it could charge lower premiums than its competitors and yet thrive, because it would face a lower likelihood of loss.

The model was later repeated for other insurance companies, each focusing on a distinct type of mill: initially cotton and wool, then rubber, iron, and steel. By 1910 there were 42 such insurers, loosely affiliated in what became known as the Factory Mutual System. A huge, jointly owned research operation served all the members. Successful clients adopted the member firms' recommendations; others found this too burdensome and bought insurance elsewhere.

Consolidation steadily whittled down the membership of the Factory Mutual System until the final mergers in 1999. The vast research core remains. The new facility, which FM Global claims has the capacity to stage the world's largest controlled fires, was opened this autumn.

The company thinks that businesses could still do more to avoid costly accidents. Mr Subramaniam estimates that in the early 1990s perhaps 90% of all losses could have been eliminated by better design. This number has since shrunk, but only to 80%. There is therefore plenty of room for improvement, which might make everyone from insurers to clients and their employees better off.

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11) Times of London: All-female garage tackles the parts men can't understand [Un nouveau garage à Montpellier où tout le personnel est feminin.]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-2005025,00.html

All-female garage tackles the parts men can't understand
From Adam Sage in Paris

A BEAUTICIAN and two former air hostesses are among 15 women selected to work in France’s first garage run by women, which is being hailed as the solution for a car industry that is having trouble finding male mechanics clever enough to understand its high-tech vehicles.

The women, aged between 21 and 38, began a pioneering training course in Montpellier, southern France, this month learning the jobs that will be necessary when they set up their own dealership. Seven are studying to become mechanics, two to be bodywork specialists, two to handle spare parts, two to act as saleswomen and two to take care of the accountancy and paperwork.

After a 22-month course they will form a team that will take over a local garage. “There are a lot of women who are interested in this profession,” said Hervé Malige, director of the Base 34 Training Centre in Montpellier, which is running the course. “But they tend to become discouraged because it’s a very macho environment. We want to create a shockwave that changes that mentality.” He said that 120 women had applied for the course and 15 were chosen based on an interview, a test on a broken-down vehicle and their ability to work together. The group also includes a nurse, a secretary, a bus driver and a wine-maker. Several of the women are university graduates.

M Malige, who is the son of a garage owner, said that he was looking for investors to fund the dealership that lies at the end of the training scheme. “There is a lot of interest and I’m confident that we can get the financing.” He added: “The head of the garage will either be someone who emerges during the course and is chosen for the role, or an outside appointment by the investors. Of course, it’s possible that some of the 15 will drop out before the 22 months are over. If that happens, they will be replaced.”

Women buy a third of the cars sold in France and represent just under half of all drivers. M Malige believes that the garage is likely to be a success. “I think a lot of people might instinctively trust a woman more. And perhaps female customers will feel more at ease with someone who doesn’t treat them like a dumb blonde who doesn’t understand anything,” he said.

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12) The Economist: God's media mogul [Le milliardaire US qui veut apporter la morale aux médias de son pays.]
http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=5213672
Face value

God's media mogul
Nov 24th 2005
From The Economist print edition

Philip Anschutz, an oil and telecoms billionaire, wants to bring morals to Hollywood

HAVING amassed a fortune when still young, many businessmen turn their attention in later life to charitable works for the benefit of society. Few, however, have as ambitious a vision as Philip Anschutz, a religious billionaire whose aim is no less than to uplift American culture. Mr Anschutz has set up a studio to make moral films for families of a kind he says Hollywood neglects. His most expensive effort yet will be released on December 9th: “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, a $150m adaptation of a book by C.S. Lewis.

“Four or five years ago I decided to stop cursing the darkness—I had been complaining about movies and their content for years—and instead to do something about it by getting into the film business,” Mr Anschutz explained in a speech last year. He reckons that making family fare free of sex and violence is a shrewd business strategy too, and a way to cope with the notoriously hit-or-miss nature of the film industry. Of the top 50 moneymaking films of all time, he points out, only five are rated for adults only—but Hollywood has made only 389 films open to all the family, out of the 2,146 produced since 2000.

A 66-year-old conservative Republican from Colorado who never gives interviews, Mr Anschutz made his first fortune drilling for oil. He later bought up railways, laid fibre-optic cable along the tracks and built Qwest, a public telecoms company. When Qwest announced improper accounting in 2002, in the midst of a series of corporate scandals, angry shareholders proved nothing against Mr Anschutz, although he attracted criticism for having soldQwest shares in 2001. He holds his movie interests privately, along with a number of sports teams, live-entertainment venues and America's largest chain of cinemas.

To the gratification of Hollywood insiders, who relish the sight of a rich man coming to town with notions about film-making, Mr Anschutz has had mixed financial results from his movies so far. He is spending his own money and has yet to score a really big hit. A smallish film about one of his favourite musicians, Ray Charles, performed well and won awards. Another, “Around the World in 80 Days”, cost more than $100m and flopped. “He hasn't proven himself yet,” says an executive at a big Hollywood studio. “He's had no outright commercial successes and there have been some failures.”

With “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”, however, Mr Anschutz is likely to demonstrate that he is more than just a wealthy eccentric. The film is expected to make hundreds of millions of dollars, partly because it has enormous appeal to Christians. It could also be the first of a valuable franchise, as Lewis wrote six more books in the Narnia series. Big studios used to stay away from overtly religious films for fear of alienating a part of the audience, until “The Passion of the Christ”, a film in 2004 about Christ's crucifixion. Its box office takings—$370m so far—prompted a hasty conversion in Hollywood, and religious themes are firmly in fashion.

Mr Lewis's book describes Christ's crucifixion in an allegory, through a lion who dies and returns to life. Mr Anschutz's production company, Walden Media, has brought in Disney to share half of the cost and profits from “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” and to do its marketing. To get church congregations out to see it, the two companies have hired Motive Marketing, a specialist promotion company whose efforts with churches helped make “The Passion of the Christ” a hit.

Now churches are waiting to see how religious the film will dare to be. It is possible, after all, for a child to read the book and not spot its message. Christian blogs worriedly discussed recent comments from the English actress who plays the book's evil witch, Tilda Swinton, who said the book is based as much on ancient myth as on the story of Christ. Dick Cook, head of Disney's film studio, points out that only 5% of the film's marketing budget has gone on outreach to churches.

Get them when they're young

As well as its film-making division in Los Angeles, Walden Media runs an office in Boston which tries to persuade teachers to use its films in classrooms. It is a partner in a school campaign in Florida to get children to read, and the latest book in the programme is—surprise!—“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”. Hollywood is especially impressed by Walden Media's education strategy. Studio executives see it as a clever way to get children and parents to buy its products. Authors also often like the idea of cross-promoting films and books. Now Walden Media is trying to bring its education concept to Britain, where Mr Anschutz wants to expand. He has bought the Millennium Dome in London and plans to make several films in Britain.

Mr Anschutz's very latest media venture is free newspapers. He bought the San Francisco Examiner in 2004, later launched a Washington edition and has trademarked the Examiner name in more than 60 cities. In October he announced he will start another Examiner in Baltimore in 2006. Mr Anschutz's innovation in free newspapers is to deliver them to high-income homes, rather than distribute them randomly to commuters.

The Examiners' editorials have taken right-of-centre positions, robustly defending Samuel Alito's nomination to the Supreme Court, for example. But because the company that runs the papers, Clarity Media, is privately held and releases no numbers, it is difficult to gauge how Mr Anschutz's latest venture is striking the balance between the profit motive and the general desire to improve the moral climate in the United States.

“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” faces strong competition from two other films coming out at around the same time: the latest Harry Potter instalment and a remake of “King Kong”. But if the film performs as well as many expect, it will be a blessing for Mr Anschutz, his media companies—and his values.

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