It seems difficult to read the news lately without seeing stories about crimes against children or crimes involving children. A national story was recently released about a woman who adopted 11 foster children and collected subsidies for them who was arrested in Florida and charged with abusing and neglecting the teenagers and young adults living under her care.
The New York Times had a picture to go with the story which helped give a face to the name. It also included information about the adoption processes and how Judith Leekin evaded the system by using false identites.
The Pioneer Press also had an AP story about Leekin on their site. The AP story did not include as much information about the woman’s experience with the adoption agencies as the New York Times did.
Neither story had much information about the background of Leekin, who adopted these children under various aliases or what she did with the subsidies given to her from the Administration of Children’s Services.

The Star Tribune referred to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, to find out how many similar pool accidents have been reported. 74 cases of body entrapment -- 13 of which resulted in death -- since 1990. Most of the deaths occurred when a child's hair became entangled in drain grates, resulting in drowning. This information gave the accident context.

The Star Tribune’s article explained Abigail Taylor’s current condition and what the road to recovery will be like. There was also more information about the victims family and what happened at the scene of the accident.

Such an incident would spur further investigation. A follow-up story was published Friday regarding the safety of public pools. Pool officials in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Anoka County and elsewhere sought to assure the public and said that most modern wading pools have been designed to prevent children from getting stuck in drains.

There was also an update on Abigail’s condition.

The coverage on this story seemed to be thorough and there were multiple sources used and viewpoints stated.

The one thing I found missing from the story was the kind of supervision the 6-year-old was under when she got injured in the pool. Where were her parents or the lifegaurd?

The Star Tribune’s story “iPhone sales may have been double estimates, analyst says� was basically about the numbers and figures from this weekend’s iPhone sales. The main point seemed to be about how Apple scored big on sales this weekend as the units sold seemed to double the estimates according to an anaylst. Sales (as well as hype) are also expected to grow over the summer. However, the actual numbers were not yet available. It was mentioned at the end of the article that Apple had not returned calls for comments about their phones sales over the weekend. It seemed a little strange to have an article about the weekend’s sales, but to only have estimates and not any concrete figures. Perhaps the news value was that Apple had not yet released these figures? Weak.

The Pioneer Press’s story about the iPhone, “iPhone raises eyebrows� was brief, but raised an issue more exciting than sales figures. Apparently the technology industries of South Korea and Japan are finding that they’ve underestimated Apple’s threat. The general “fear� is that the iPhone will revolutionize the wireless communication industry as the iPod revolutionized the music industry. I find it hard to believe that South Korea and Japan’s technology industry will be trumped by the iPhone, but it was interesting to hear that Apple has them on their toes.

“How bad is your commute?� drew on findings from a recent study performed by the University of North Carolina, Charlotte. It was reported that the only state with a denser rush hour commute is California. The positive part of this story? Minnesota has the No. 1 ranking in the condition of its rural interstates, a low fatality rate and 13th-place overall performance ranking. It was also mentioned that he annual North Carolina report "generates a fair amount of controversy among state DOTs," said Bob Johns, director of the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota. "It's sort of like the U.S. News and World Report for college rankings." As controversial as this study might be, I don’t think it’s innacurate to say that driving in the Twin Cities is a less than pleasant experience.

There was a slice of optimism in the piece “Biking to work? So are 4,700 in Minneapolis.� However, after reading “How bad is your commute?� its no wonder that people who have the option of avoiding driving in traffic choose to bike. The U.S. Census Bureau stated that the only state that has people who bike to work more than Minneapolis are residents of Portland Oregon.

From these articles and numbers it seems like we have the second worst rush-hour commute in the nation and also the second highest bike-riding rank. Coincidence? I think not. It makes sense that people would rather bike to work rather than burn three dollar gasoline sitting in dense traffic while trying to travel only a few miles. It also helps that even though the city is not very driver-friendly, it is conducive to bikers w as it has a network of trails and bike lanes on city streets. Life might even get rosier for bikers. It was mentioned in the “Biking to work?� article that riders might have more options in the future. Earlier this month, the Transit for Livable Communities awarded a $7.3 million grant to communities in the Twin Cities to increase the number of miles of bikeways in the city.

What stands out to me in each article about Twin Cities transportation (and also my daily commute) is that we have undeniable rapidly growing congestion, no matter how the story is spun. However, a lot of the congestion seems to be caused by construction projects every couple of blocks that are intended to decrease congestion (for instance, lane reductions and detours) Perhaps in the next ten or twenty years when it is all complete, roads will have cleared up significantly and our present agony will have all been well worth it. Or everyone will be riding a bike.

This tragic yet bizarre story was covered by local and national media. The Star Tribune’s article from AP offered more background information about the victims and the home life of Benoit and his wife than did the New York Times. He had been known on the WWE wrestling circuit as a family man. It was explained that the couple was married in 2000 and his wife Nancy filed for divorce in 2003. She was also his stage manager.

The New York Times tended to focus more on the causes of this incident and included more information about steroid use by Benoit. It is believed that he may have killed his wife and son as a result of “roid rage.� Sources in the article also mentioned that he had suffered from several concussions during his career and that these head injuries may have been related to his aggression.

Carpools Rejected
Both the Star Tribune and the Pioneer Press both have recently published similar findings about Twin Cities communters- they are most likely to travel alone to work. Each paper cited the U.S. Census Bureau which found that "Midwestern drivers are the least likely car poolers." Why aren't there more transit users and carpoolers if gas prices are so expensive ?

The Pioneer Press provided a slightly longer story and more explanation for these statistics than the Star Tribune. In the Pioneer Press's article Steve Dornfeld, Metropolitan Council public affairs director explains "We've got a lot of families with two employed spouses probably driving alone and in two different directions." He also points out most of the recent job growth has taken place in the suburbs and that people are "almost forced to commute by car." The Pioneer Press also mentions that despite the comparatively lower share of car pools, the Twin Cities area is experiencing growth - about 4 percent this year.

Each paper also highlighted different numbers from this census. The Star Tribune mentioned these facts:
In 2005, nearly nine out of 10 workers across the country drove to work, and 77 percent of them commuted alone, according to the Census Bureau's new American Community Survey. That year, transit use increased by only 0.1 percent. As for the Twin Cities, the Star Tribune noted Ihat in 2006, transit use in the Twin Cities rose 6 percent mainly as a result of higher gas prices according to Met ropolitan Council research manager Todd Graham. That's a shift of about 7,500 workers from cars to transit, a number that's half of 1 percent of the total number of people driving, he said. When you put it that way, it doesn't sound like very impressive numbers.

It doesn't seem difficult to be objective when telling this story as the numbers are coming straight from the census. However, it is interesting to see what statistics each paper thinks is more significant. It is also interesting to see the reasons behind the statistics. Both papers seem to conclude that the numbers of carpoolers and transit users are increasing, but very slowly. Will these numbers impact people's commuting habits at all? Maybe we'll see it in the next census.

As my blogging skills are still in progress, these are the links to the stories.
Pioneer Press: http://www.twincities.com/ci_6134882
Star Tribune: http://www.startribune.com/462/story/1244623.html

The New York Times also mentioned in the sentence right after the lead that this was worst loss of life for American firefighters since the terrorist attacks of 9/11. I found that this fact immediately gave context to this event. Later in the article, it was mentioned that this was the deadliest blaze in the city’s history. Also, before this fire, 47 firefighters had died in the line of duty this year. This article seemed to be more factual to me as it included fewer quotations and more numbers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/us/19cnd-charleston.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

http://www.startribune.com/484/story/1254364.html