News Sources: US Bridges under Review

US officials have ordered a review of all bridges similar to the one that collapsed in Minnesota recently, killing at least five people. More than 700 structures will be looked at after it emerged that the bridge in Minneapolis had been classified as "structurally deficient". Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following:

Clive Dym - Fletcher Jones Professor of Engineering Design, Harvey Mudd College - Dym's research has focused on the development of knowledge-based (expert) systems for engineering design and analysis. Previously, he worked on a wide variety of problems in applied mechanics and acoustics. He has published more than 100 journal articles, papers and technical reports, and edited two books and written seven.

David A. Aschauer - Elmer W. Campbell Professor of Economics, Bates College - Leading authority on infrastructure and author of controversial Aschauer Curve, which purports to show positive correlation between public spending on infrastructure and economic growth. Formerly a senior economist with the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, he has conducted numerous studies and presented findings to the World Bank and U.S. Senate. Received the distinguished service award from the Transportation Research Board.

Paul Shrivastava - Professor of management, Bucknell University - An expert on industrial safety, corporate environmental practices, environmental management, strategic management and planning, and crisis prevention. He is a former editor-in-chief of the international journal Industrial and Environmental Crisis Quarterly.

Mr. Cell? Please Hold for Mr. Nucleus

Bowdoin College Biologist Bruce Kohorn has spent more than a decade wending his way through his own personal fascination with what determines the size and shape of a plant cell. Recently, he won a four-year grant from the National Science Foundation to reveal the step-by-step communication between the cell wall and its nucleus.

The Tesco Invasion

Tesco, the third largest food retailer in the world after Wal-Mart and Carrefour, is preparing to enter the U.S. market next year, opening 100 stores under the name Fresh & Easy. Tesco has been adept at marketing itself as a socially responsible corporation. However, a new study by Occidental College's Urban & Environmental Policy Institute reveals significant gaps between what Tesco has promised in the areas of food access, workplace issues, health and environmental concerns and how it has actually achieved its current position as one of the top multinational operations.

News Sources: Murdoch Buys Wall Street Journal

Rupert Murdoch has succeeded in his quest to buy Dow Jones and its flagship publication, The Wall Street Journal, for $5.8 billion. Critics of the deal worry whether Murdoch's influence will cause the influential WSJ to change its coverage along the lines of Murdoch's tabloid newspaper holdings like the New York Post. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the followingt (click on names for contact information):

Jon Bekken - Associate Professsor of Communications, Albright College - Bekken has written extensively on issues surrounding newspapers and the press including current and historical labor issues.

Timothy E. Cook - Fairleigh S. Dickinson, Jr. Professor of Political Science, Williams College - Cook is the author of Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution, and Making Laws and Making News.

Deborah Vance - Assistant Professor of Communication, McDaniel College - Vance is an expert in media ownership and Internet communities.

On Trusting the Generals

In his 1,000 days as President, John F. Kennedy learned not to trust the generals, who were repeatedly ready to push America beyond where Kennedy thought it safe to go. But DePauw's Ken Bode says President George W. Bush seems to have learned the opposite lesson from an Iraq war that has now gone on for twice the length of the entire Kennedy presidency. Bode says that's why we are witnessing a public relations surge by the Pentagon that is timed to coincide with Gen. David Petraeus' Sept. 15 report and designed to persuade The Decider to extend the Iraq war once again.

College Rankings: Building a Better Mouse Trap

When comes to ranking colleges, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn't work, because students and families care about different things. Vassar College president Catharine Bond Hill suggests developing an alternative system that would allow students and families to make decisions about the variables they care about the most and weight them accordingly.

News Sources: Congress Considers Healthcare Bills

Sweeping health-care legislation that would affect benefits for millions of children and senior citizens -- as well as the bank accounts of doctors and insurance companies -- comes up for floor votes this week in Congress. Lawmakers will consider proposals to renew a popular federal-state program that provides health insurance for about 6 million children. A bipartisan Senate has compromise that would expand coverage of the State Children's Health Insurance Plan to about 3 million more children. In the House, Democrats are pushing a more ambitious bill that would make major changes to Medicare, the health-care program for older and disabled Americans. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Merton Finkler - Professor of Economics, Lawrence University - Finkler is a specialist in the economics of health care. A former Robert Wood Johnson Faculty Fellow in health care finance, he has served as consultant to California's Kaiser Permanente Medical Group since 1987. He also runs Innovative Health Associates, a private consulting firm specializing in long-term care and managed care evaluation and strategy.

Jack Taylor - Joseph S. Bruno Professor of Retailing, Birmingham-Southern College - Taylor is a nationally recognized expert on such topics as retailing, marketing, marketing of health insurance and related health services.

Thomas Dee - Associate Professor of Economics, Swarthmore College - Dee employs economic and statistical techniques to study policy-relevant behaviors related to health. Dee is director of Swarthmore's public policy program and a faculty research fellow with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER).

Farmers Talking Across the Border

Farmers and rural residents in both Mexico and the United States have concerns about the industrialization and globalization of agriculture and the negative impacts of current trade policy. Alma College has started its Open Table Project in two very different yet specific rural communities - Michigan and Chihuahua - to provide a forum for a global perspective on the such concerns.

'Turn Down the Volume' on College Sports

The educational and life experiences of young people in the college sports system are impoverished across the board by our year-round focus on athletic performance, says Centre College president John Roush. He says most athletes fail to graduate in four years - if they graduate at all - and even those who do have no time for developmental experiences like student-faculty research, internships or study abroad. But Roush, a former football coach and a lifelong supporter of athletics, says the solution is not to throw the radio out the window, but, in the words of NCAA president Myles Brand, to "turn down the volume."