News Sources: Shooting Down a Satellite

The military will try to shoot down a crippled spy satellite in the next two weeks, senior officials said Thursday. The officials laid out a high-tech plan to intercept the satellite over the Pacific just before it tumbles uncontrollably to Earth carrying toxic fuel. The ramifications of the operation are diplomatic, as well as military and scientific, in part because the United States criticized China last year when Beijing tested an antisatellite system with an old weather satellite as a target and in part because of renewed Russian concerns about "star wars" technology. 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 and universities, including the following (click on names for contact information):

George E. Hudson - Professor of Political Science, Wittenberg University - Hudson is an authority on the former Soviet Union and modern Russia and use of military as an instrument of foreign policy. He was an adviser to Department of Defense and consultant to National Security Council. Was member of U.S. team which negotiated with Soviets for convential arms reductions in 1979.

Douglas Stuart - Professor of Political Science, Dickinson College - Stuart is an adjunct professor at the U.S. Army War College. His areas of research specialization include U.S. European security relations, and Asian security and arms control.

Bin Yu - Assistant Professor of Political Science, Wittenberg University - Bin is president of Chinese Scholars of Political Science and International Studies and a MacArthur fellow at the Center of International Security and Arms Control and research fellow at Center of International Studies, Beijing.

Competing to Speak

Each year, Westmont College hosts one of the best-funded speech competitions in the country - a month-long tournament in which students compete in areas of Debate, Great Speeches, Persuasive Speeches, and Biblical Recitation.

Do Talk Show Hosts Get Too Much Credit?

Is the power of political talk-show hosts overrated? Jeffrey McCall, professor of communication at DePauw University, says a recent study showed that well over 80 percent of talk radio listeners say that their voting choices are not influenced by talk radio. "I believe that most talk radio listeners are independent thinkers who don't just want to get in line with the thinking of even their favorite talk hosts," McCall says.

News Sources: U.S. Population Growth by 2050

The U.S. population will reach 438 million in 2050, with 82 percent of the growth coming from immigrants and their U.S.-born descendants, according to a new study. During the next half century, the Latino and Asian populations will triple and the non-Hispanic white population will grow by 4 percent, said the study by the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan group in Washington. Reporters looking for experts to interview on this topic can find them online at the colegenews.org database of news sources and subject matter experts from America's leading liberal arts colleges and universities, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Katya Gibel Azoulay - Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Africana Studies, Grinnell College - Azoulay's primary research interest is with race and racial identities. She has a unique perspective on race, including the demographics of minorities in elections, and is the author of Black, Jewish and Interracial: Its Not the Color of Your Skin but the Race of Your Kin and Other Myths of Identity.

James Martin-Schramm - Professor of Religion, Luther College - Martin-Schramm can discuss world population, overpopulation, Protestant ethical position on world population, population and consumption of resources. He wrote and presented NGO Protestant Position Paper to United Nations Conference on World Population.

Ellen Percy Kraly - Associate Professor of Geography, Colgate University - Kraly's studies on emigration are displayed in exhibits on Ellis Island and frequently cited in national publications. Consultant to the United Nations Statistical Office and U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform on immigration and the environment. Currently working on a federally funded study of undocumented migrants in the U.S. workforce.

Robots to Invade Connecticut

Trinity College is preparing to host one of the world’s best known international robotics competitions. The 15th annual Trinity College Fire Fighting Home Robot Contest will bring 120 teams of robot enthusiasts and engineers of all ages from as far away as China and Israel to the College’s Hartford campus April 12 and 13.

Lincoln Prize Winners Announced

Gettysburg College has announced this year's winners of the Lincoln Prize, one of the nation's most generous awards in the field of American history. This year's honorees are James Oakes and Elizabeth Brown Pryor for two books that offer new insights into the lives of three of the Civil War era's most compelling figures: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass and Robert E. Lee.

News Sources: Army Seeks Death Penalty for 9/11 Planners

The Pentagon on Monday charged the alleged planner of the September 11 attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and five others with murder and conspiracy and asked that they be executed if convicted. 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 and universities, including the following (click on names for contact information):

Christopher Pyle - Professor of Politics, Mount Holyoke College - Pyle is a noted expert on both USA Patriot Acts and issues pertaining to civil liberties in the midst of the war on terror. He is a former U.S. Army intelligence officer and the author of Military Surveillance of Civilian Politics.

Austin Sarat - William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst College - Sarat studies legal theory and is especially interested in the death penalty, to which he is opposed.

Martha Crenshaw - John E. Andrus Professor of Government, Wesleyan University - Crenshaw gained an international reputation for her studies of political terrorism. She has testified before Congress, and he has served as a consultant to the Department of State, the U.S. Naval and Army War Colleges, the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Defense Nuclear Agency. She has authored three books, including Terrorism, Legitimacy, and Power: The Consequences of Political Violence.

Is Flirting Ethical?

Flirting is an art form, but the game can be dangerous. Gettysburg College philosophy professor Steve Gimbel says there is nothing wrong with the act of flirting, but context matters.

Love Now vs. Ancient Rome

Today's valentines focus on sharing, caring, love and friendship. The beloved is portrayed as gentle, sensitive, tender and compassionate. But the ancient Romans had quite a different take on love, says Hamilton College Classics Professor Barbara Gold. Love for them was painful, like a disease.