News Sources: Bush's Global Warming Initiative

President Bush told a global climate change conference Friday that the United States will do its part to improve the environment by taking on greenhouse gas emissions. He proposed the creation of an “international clean technology fund,” to be supported by contributions from governments around the world, that would help finance clean-energy projects in developing countries. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson Jr. will lead discussions with other countries on starting that fund. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online a the collegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges, including: (click on names for contact information):

Karin Warren - Chair of Environmental Studies, Randolph College - Warren is a specialist in climate and global change, energy and environmental policy, and mathematical modeling/quantitative methods. She has researched ecosystem response to climate manipulation, and worked with developing and testing mathematical models. Her courses include environmental studies, energy and society, environmental policy, global change and earth interactions.

Gary Yohe - Professor of Economics, Wesleyan University - Yohe is a prominent consultant on the social and economic impact of global warming. His work includes a mathematically-based model making it possible to assess the impact of climatic change under different scenarios and to evaluate possible countermeasures. He was a participant at the Second World Climate Conference.

Adam Wade Burnett - Associate Professor of Geography, Colgate University - Burnett is an expert in global change, environmental issues and synoptic climatology. He is the author of articles on Northern Hemisphere climate change and its causes. He teaches weather and climate, geographic information systems, environmental studies and cartography.

Non-News-News

What kind of message does the media send with its wall-to-wall coverage of celebrity incidents like Paris Hilton's incarceration? DePauw University's Jeffrey McCall fears the message is: "This is the most important thing we have to tell you."

New Sensor Provides Tool against Terrorism

Paul Edmiston has developed an electronic sensor that can almost flawlessly detect miniscule traces of TNT and other explosives, even in environments where other chemicals are present. The invention by the associate professor of chemistry at The College of Wooster could have a major impact on America's War on Terror.

News Sources: Episcopalian-Anglican Accord

In an overwhelming vote, the bishops of the U.S. Episcopal Church have taken steps to head off schism in the worldwide Anglican community and to shore up unity within the American church. At the close of a six-day meeting in New Orleans, they promised to "exercise restraint" by not consecrating more gay bishops or authorizing rites for the blessing of same-sex unions. 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 (click on names for contact information):

William C. Placher -Professor of Philosophy and Religion, Wabash College - Placher is recognized as one of the great contemporary theologians. He is the author of The Domestication of Transcendence: Where Modern Thinking About God Went Wrong and A History of Christian Theology. He was a member of the committees to draft a statement of reform and a new catechism for the Presbyterian Church, USA in 1983.

Eric Michael Mazur - Associate professor of religion, Bucknell University - Mazur is the author of author of The Americanization of Religious Minorities: Confronting the Constitutional Order and a contributing co-editor of God in the Details: American Religion in Popular Culture. He co-chairs the Church-State Studies Group of the American Academy of Religion and serves on the editorial board of the on-line Journal of Religion and Popular Culture.

David Wulff - Professor of Psychology, Wheaton College - Wulff is an expert on the psychology of religion and the author of Psychology of Religion, Classic and Contemporary, now in its second edition. He is the book review editor for the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion and president of Division 36, Psychology of Religion, of the American Psychological Association.

Researching Interracial Romance Novels

Romance novels typically have been written by white women, featuring white protagonists. But since the 1980s, women of color have begun writing romances, with black-white lovers featuring prominently. Bowdoin College English professor Guy Mark Foster says the genre is uniquely suited for an examination of race, culture and sexuality—with its recurring themes of forbidden love overcoming great obstacles.

Local TV News Audiences Value Quality over Hype

The largest study of local television news ever undertaken bucks the conventional wisdom on what viewers want to watch. Wellesley College's Marion Just, one of the researchers who conducted the five-year study. says the study shows viewers aren't as interested as commonly believed in hyped story lines that emphasize danger, dirt, doom and gloom. She says local TV news could improve ratings by following the rules of good journalism -- putting in the effort to get good stories, finding and balancing sources, seeking out experts, and making stories relevant to the local audience.

News Sources: GM Workers Go on Strike

Workers at General Motors Corp. plants across the U.S. have walked out on strike after talks with the main auto union failed to reach a new pay accord. It's the first U.S.-wide strike during auto contract negotiations since 1976. The negotiations apparently stalled over the union's quest to protect jobs by getting the company to guarantee that new vehicles would be built in U.S. factories. 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):

Candace Howes - Associate Professor of Economics, Connecticut College - Howes is an auto industry analyst for the United Auto Workers, who published a monograph for the Economic Policy Institute on the effect of Japanese direct investment on employment and wages in the U.S. (University of Michigan Press, 2000) and a book on industrial competitiveness and economic performance.

Gary Chaison - Professor of Industrial Relations, Clark University - Chaison is one of the most widely regarded scholars on unions worldwide and an expert in collective bargaining, labor movements and union organizing extensively. He has been quoted on the UPS strike and UAW/United Steelworkers merger, and has written Union Mergers in Hard Times-A View from Five Countries.

Janet C. Goulet -Professor of Economics, Wittenberg University - Goulet is former director of Center for Labor Management Cooperation and is an expert on labor-management cooperation in economic development. She has served as an arbitrator for the Ohio Employee Relations Board, the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service and the American Arbitration Association. She has been published in the Journal of Behavioral Economics.

Chasing Vanishing Languages

More than half of the world's 7,000 languages are expected to die out by the end of the century, often taking with them irreplaceable knowledge about the natural world. David Harrison, a linguistics professor at Pennsylvania's Swarthmore College, has identified five "hotspots" where languages are vanishing most rapidly. He has traveled the world to interview the last speakers of critically endangered languages as part of the National Geographic Society's Enduring Voices Project.

'Poisonous' Air in Washington

The race for the White House is "wide open," but the atmosphere in Washington is "poisonous," the host of NBC's "Meet the Press" told Bucknell University students. Tim Russert said that, with 390 of the 435 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives deemed "safe" seats, "There is no incentive to reach across the aisle and try to achieve common good."