News Values

1. Timeliness: UT Regents likely to spend $45.8 million
This article is a timeliness article because it is a newsworthy story that concerns all of the people living in Austin and going to Regents.
GALVESTON — University of Texas System regents are expected on Thursday to tap the system’s endowment for $45.8 million to underwrite three high-priority initiatives, including creating a statewide telemedicine network that would allow patients in rural areas to get specialty care without driving hundreds of miles. 

   The Board of Regents, meeting in Galveston, is also poised to approve spending intended to boost research at four universities, as well as to recruit and retain outstanding faculty members at all 14 health and academic campuses. 

   The three initiatives are among the top priorities of system Chancellor Bill McRaven , which makes it all but certain that the board will grant approval during its meeting at the UT Medical Branch in Galveston. The initiatives would be underwritten by the Permanent University Fund, a multi-billion-dollar higher education endowment overseen by the board. 

   The proposed UT System Virtual Health Network would be seeded with $10.8 million in endowment proceeds over four years for equipment and technical support. It would build on the system’s existing telemedicine capabilities for providing specialty care through advanced video conferencing. UTMB physicians have practiced telemedicine for more than 20 years, delivering health services remotely to Texas prison inmates, offshore oil workers, researchers in Antarctica and others. UTMB has logged an annual average of 99,000 physician-to-patient telemedicine encounters in recent years. 

   Raymond Greenberg, the system’s executive vice chancellor for health affairs, said in an interview that the proposed network would make it possible for a specialist in one location to see a patient accompanied by his primary care doctor or other health care provider in another location. The specialist can hear the patient’s heartbeat and can have the health care provider perform tests and some hands-on examination, Greenberg said. 

   “Texas should really be the poster child for telemedicine with its huge geographic distances and concentrations of where the specialists are,” Greenberg said. 

   The UT System’s six health campuses would participate in the network, and, when they come on line, so would new medical schools at UT-Austin and UT-Rio Grande Valley. The health campuses of the Texas A&M University System, the Texas Tech University System and the University of North Texas System could also participate, he said. 

   The faculty funding initiative would provide $30 million in endowment-backed bond proceeds for recruiting and retaining professors. That would be on top of $30 million previously approved by the regents in the current budget under the program, dubbed Faculty STARs, for Science and Technology Acquisition and Retention. 

   The initiative, established by the regents in 2004, focused initially on established researchers, but expanded in 2010 to include entry-level candidates, dubbed Rising STARs. The money may be used only for lab renovations and research equipment. Under the proposal before the regents, $20 million would be allocated for entry-level faculty members and $10 million for senior researchers. 

   The latest UT System records show that 210 faculty members were recruited in the first seven years of the STARs program at a cost to the system of $143 million. Those researchers generated $1.3 billion in federal and other funding for research, for a net return on investment of about $1 billion after accounting for partial matching recruitment funds from the campuses, said Patricia Hurn, vice chancellor for research and innovation. System officials are gathering data for an updated report to be presented in August, she said. 

   (On a separate track, Gov. Greg Abbott announced Wednesday that his office is accepting applications from public universities for grants matched by the universities from the $38 million Governor’s University Research Initiative. The initiative, approved last year by the Legislature, gives top priority to recruiting Nobel laureates and members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine.) 

   The UT regents are expected to allocate $5 million in endowment-backed bonds to improve laboratories and other research infrastructure at UT-Dallas, UT-Arlington, UT-El Paso and UT-San Antonio, all classified by the state as emerging research universities. The funding is intended to stimulate private donations, with larger donations garnering a larger match from the UT System. Since the program was established in 2010, the UT board has doled out $40 million, with UT-Dallas earning the biggest share, $27.9 million.
Found in the Austin American Statesman

2. Proximity: Family- Teen killed by cop normal
This story is a proximity story because it happened in northeast Austin, which is close to the pale of publication.
Three days after an unarmed Pflugerville-area high school student was shot and killed by police in Northeast Austin, family members said they are baffled about what led up to the shooting. 

   Recordings of police scanner traffic leading up to the shooting of 17-year-old David Joseph, obtained by the American-Statesman on Wednesday, suggest that the teen was shot twice in the chest by Austin police officer Geoffrey Freeman. 

   In the recordings, archived by broadcastify.com  , an Austin police dispatcher tells officers that callers reported a disturbance at an apartment complex in the 300 block of East Yager Lane at 9:57 a.m. Monday and that the suspect was unarmed. 

   Joseph, according to authorities, was naked when officer Freeman encountered him nearby a short time later in the 12000 block of Natures Bend. When Freeman exited his vehicle, Joseph charged at him and the officer opened fire, officials say. The confrontation lasted a matter of seconds, Austin police Chief of Staff Brian Manley has said. 

   Officers not involved in the investigation are asking whether the unarmed teen was in a drug-induced violent state when authorities say he charged Freeman. Others believe Joseph could have been suffering from a mental health crisis when the altercation occurred. 

   However, on the morning of the shooting, Joseph’s two older brothers spoke with him before leaving their home. They told their family lawyer that Joseph showed no signs that he was on drugs or experiencing a mental health episode when they last saw him. 

   “They didn’t notice anything at all wrong with David shortly before the police killed him,” family attorney Scott Medlock said. 

   Joseph also had no history of mental health issues, Medlock said. 

   Austin police union President Ken Casaday said a naked person on PCP fighting police is a common tale among officers. 

   “Just in my personal experiences, I’ve seen individuals high on PCP or in an altered mental state that take three guys my size — I’m 6-3 — to take down one of these guys,” Casaday said. “You would not believe it. People like that have superhuman strength.” 

   The Travis County medical examiner’s office is performing toxicology tests as a part of Joseph’s autopsy. The tests will be able to determine what, if any, drugs were in his system when he died. However, results typically take 30 days or more. 

   The ongoing investigation will likely take months to conclude as police scrutinize every fraction of a second between the moment Freeman opened the door of his patrol car and when he opened fire on Joseph. Investigators are working to determine if Freeman acted appropriately when he shot at the teen. 

   Freeman has yet to provide a full statement to investigators. He is expected to come in for a police interview this week. Attorneys from the Combined Law Enforcement Associations of Texas will represent Freeman in the both investigations, the group said Tuesday. 

   “We’ll be making sure he’s treated fairly and has due process,” Casaday said. 

   In a statement Tuesday, Joseph’s family said they want a “full and fair investigation” into his death. 

   “We do not know what led to his meeting with officer Freeman,” the family said. “But we know that our David should not have been taken away from us. No family should have to suffer like we are today.” 

Found in the Austin American Statesman

3. Prominence: Not so lonely at the top 
This story is a proximity article because it talks about Jordan Spieth and the fame that he is rising to, showing the newsworthiness of an individual.
PEBBLE BEACH, CALIF. — Jordan Spieth had to work his way through about 100 people who blocked his path to the first tee at Pebble Beach. They held out tournament tickets, caps, glossy photos and Masters flags for him to sign, and some asked him to stop for pictures. 

   Unusual about this day is what happened after he finally reached the tee and drilled a 3-iron down the middle. 

   The crowd followed along for the next four hours. 

   The golf course that Robert Louis Stevenson described as “the most felicitous meeting of land and sea” is magnificent under warm sunshine and a blue sky, so it was not a waste of anyone’s time, even for a practice round. They wanted to see Spieth, the No. 1 player who is still trying to get used to the attention. 

   A year ago, the Dallas native and former University of Texas All-American was No. 9 in the world and still had only one PGA Tour victory on his ledger. 

   Now he’s the Masters and U.S. Open champion who last year made the most spirited run at the Grand Slam since Jack Nicklaus in 1972. He is the 22-year-old who earned $22 million last year, including his bonus for winning the FedEx Cup. He is the first American since Tiger Woods to reach the top of the world ranking. 

   And he has his own bobble head, which corporate partner AT&T is giving away to the first 8,000 fans Saturday. 

   Fans tried to follow him onto the fairways and were waiting for him as he walked off the green. Spieth finally asked if the selfies could wait until after he was done. 

   “Honestly, it’s something I have not gotten used to,” Spieth said. “Who knows how long it will take? It makes you appreciate some of these other guys who have gone before you and have been able to do it.” 

   Fame among fans is one thing. 

   The real challenge for Spieth this year is being a target for the other players and the scrutiny he now faces from the press and the public. 

   He already is getting more attention than he wants for his global travels over the last four months — South Korea, Shanghai, Australia, the Bahamas, Hawaii, Abu Dhabi and Singapore. Spieth spoke of being tired in Abu Dhabi, which fueled opinions that he was chasing appearance money instead of preparing to win another green jacket. 

   Winning five times on the PGA Tour, including two majors, and reaching No. 1 in the world inevitably comes with a bull’seye on his back. And it probably got even bigger when Spieth started the new year with an eight-shot victory at Kapalua in which he became only the second player in PGA Tour history to reach 30-under par in a 72-hole event. 

   Spieth, however, saw that as easing the burden. 

   “It was the first one of the year, all the questions of a new year ... and then actually going out and getting the job done, that was big,” he said. Next up is the first critical chunk of the season, which starts at the Pebble Beach Pro-Am. Spieth is playing four of the next five weeks and seven of the next nine events through the Masters. 

   Five weeks into the year, no one has really asserted himself as a serious challenger. 

   Rickie Fowler is off to his best start with a victory in Abu Dhabi and a playoff loss Sunday in the Phoenix Open, which was his tournament to win until he lost a two-shot lead with two holes to play. But even Fowler has said he won’t be considered part of the elite until he wins a major. 

   PGA champion Jason Day has played only twice, finishing 15 shots behind Spieth in Hawaii and missing the cut at Torrey Pines while struggling with the flu. Rory McIlroy had a pair of top 10s in the Middle East, where he typically thrives. He is expected to join Spieth next week at Riviera. 

   But the attention remains squarely on Spieth, and he understands that. He also knows from experience how quickly it can change, which is why this talk about a “Big Three” makes him uncomfortable. 

   “I think it needs time,” he said. “We had one season. Yeah, it was exciting and fun. But the point is, it’s so early. There’s so much yet to see.”
Article found in the Austin American Statesman

4. Impact: Bell rings for mental health
This story is an impact article because it talks about advocating for mentally ill people and how that affects the audience, people with mental illnesses and their friends and family.
 Almost invariably, those who are the most devoted to the cause of improved mental health care eagerly share personal stories on the subject. 

   “Somebody I knew in college had a nervous breakdown,” says Mary Ellen Nudd, 68, who has performed a number of roles for Mental Health America of Texas, a statewide advocacy group, since 1973. “What the heck was that? That led to wanting to know more about mental health and mental illnesses.” 

   For her part, Lynn Lasky Clark, 48, now president and CEO of the group, discovered the lack of resources when her brother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in his early 20s. 

   “I’ve grown up with it,” Clark says. “Mental illness and substance abuse on both sides of the family. Suicides in the family.” 

   Clifford Beers, the man who, in 1909, founded the national group that evolved into Mental Health America, had been confined to a Connecticut state asylum. 

   “When he was released, Beers went on to become a successful businessman,” Clark says. “But he wanted to do something about it. That’s why our highest national award, named for Beers, goes to somebody with mental illness. That’s always our focus 

   — the people who are actually affected.” 

   Melting down the shackles 

   To personalize the story further, when this reporter opened a 1985 pamphlet on the 50th anniversary of the Texas group, which lobbies for mental health legislation, I found a 1934 list of the charter directors for what was then called the Texas Society for Mental Hygiene. 

   Among the Austin delegates: “Mrs. Val M. Keating, Texas Relief Commission.” She was my maternal grandmother. And yes, like so many families, we have dealt with our share of mental illness. 

   Margaret C. Berry’s 1985 history records the incrementally better ways that Texans have dealt with mental illness in their midst. 

   Considered a vast improvement in what was still a frontier region, the State Lunatic Asylum opened in Austin in 1860. In 1917, a State Epileptic Colony was added, and then a State Colony for the Feeble-Minded. 

   Progress advanced during the governorships of Pat Neff and Miriam “Ma” Ferguson, so at least the names of the institutions were changed to “state hospitals” and “state schools.” As late as 1931, a separate “psychopathic” hospital was opened in Galveston for “Early-State and Hopeful Cases.” 

   Still, at the time, patients could be chained and shackled like dangerous prisoners. 

   A small group of reform activists, led by Violet Greenhill, a child welfare specialist, met at the State Capitol on May 12, 1934. This group became the Texas Society for Mental Hygiene on Nov. 19 of that year. Incorporated in 1935, it was able to squeeze $500,000 — a lot of money at the time — out of the legislature for mental hospitals. 

   Several bellwether achievements along the way: The monumental addition of the Hogg Foundation for Mental Health’s partnership with the University of Texas in the 1940s, the National Mental Health Act of 1946 and the Community Mental Health Act of 1963. 

   Several prominent names show up again and again in these stories, among them Helen Farabee, first wife of the late State Sen. Ray Fara-bee; Gov. Ann Richards; the Rev. James Allen, rector of St. David’s Episcopal Church; and famed philanthropists Mary Elizabeth Holdsworth Butt (of the H.E.B. family), namesake for an award from the Texas group; and Ima Hogg, whose brother’s estate made the Hogg Foundation possible. 

   How about this nugget? In 1956, the Austin American-Statesman received the national Mental Health Bell Award for outstanding newspaper coverage of the fight against mental illness. 

   The Mental Health Bell, a sort of Liberty Bell cast in 1953 from the melted-down chains and shackles that restrained the mentally ill, remains a symbol of the movement. 

   Making policies personal 

   Mary Ellen Nudd grew up in Illinois and graduated from schools there and in Texas. She joined the Peace Corps and, in 1973, served as an intern with what is now called Mental Health America of Texas. Retired, Nudd serves as a consultant on education programs and suicide prevention. She is amused by the group’s periodic name shifts. 

   “It’s like changing tires,” she says with a laugh. “You have to do this.” 

   Compared to attitudes prevalent during her early days in the field, there is now more public knowledge that mental disorders are illnesses and should be scientifically diagnosed and treated. 

   “Sadly, one big reason is that mental health and suicide in our military has made governments more aware,” Nudd says. “The military is now addressing this head-on.” 

   She also saw the push, after President John F. Kennedy’s advocacy in the early 1960s, to move more patients to community centers. Critics have long made a link between that movement and increases in homelessness and in the treatment — or lack thereof — of the mentally ill in the criminal justice system. 

   “We gradually moved people out of state hospitals,” she recalls. “Because back then you had to be hospitalized to receive services. You either keep people locked up and safe. Or, when possible, you serve them in the community, giving them tools, including medication. That’s always a balancing act between doctors and the justice system.” 

   Lynn Lasky Clark grew up in Houston and studied at UT and the University of Houston. A specialist in policy matters, she has also worked for the National Alliance on Mental Illness, whose efforts overlap somewhat with those of her current outfit. 

   “It’s really kind of all in the family,” Clark says. “We all work together, but do different things.” 

   Her staff of 14 to 15 operates with a budget of $2.5 million. Clark also has seen a sharp rise in bipartisan attention to mental health issues. 

   “Some of that is the education by advocacy groups,” she says. “Working with families, legislators hear from their constituents . There is so much to know if you are a legislator; you don’t understand it until you hear the personal stories and connections. Also the tragedies that we see all too often.” 

   Among the advances are improved and expanded Parents As Teachers programs, suicide prevention and grassroots help for families. Federal funding is available to states for home visitation programs in needy areas. Teachers, law enforcement and medical personnel are working more closely together than before. And, Clark points out, there is such a great cost to not taking care of the problems. 

   “We know that they can recover,” she says of the ill. “It’s a matter of providing the treatments and enough services for people to be successful. They are able to go to work, pay taxes, buy houses.” 

   And for all the policy talk, it all goes back to those personal stories. “I learned early in life the challenges of finding not only a diagnosis but also treatment and housing, all the things that someone with a disorder would need,” Clark says. “I knew policies would have to change. I’m very blessed to work in this field to help people like my brother.” 

Found in the Austin American Statesman

5. Conflict: Nigeria vexed by Boko Haram's use of women as suicide bombers

This is a conflict story because women in Nigeria are being used as suicide bombers, which is a conflict between the Boko Haram and the people of Nigeria.

DAKAR, Senegal — Of all the mysteries surrounding Boko Haram, the marauding militant jihadist group that has terrorized Nigeria and its neighbors, the use of women and girls as suicide bombers is among the most vexing.

That was demonstrated this week when Boko Haram sent three girls to a government-run camp in northern Nigeria that was supposed to be a haven for people who had been chased from their homes under threat or attack by the group.

Those three at the camp in Dikwa are among an increasing deployment of women and girls who have served as suicide bombers in recent Boko Haram attacks. The United Nations estimates that since June 2014, Boko Haram has deployed 100 abducted women and girls for attacks once carried out by men. The group has also used boys as young as 8 for suicide missions.

In Dikwa, the girls posed as refugees from the violence, spending Monday night at the camp. At dawn on Tuesday, two blew themselves up, killing 58 people and wounding 78. The third girl did not detonate her device. The authorities said she had recognized her parents and siblings among those seeking shelter at the camp and had surrendered.

The authorities said the third girl had also told them that Boko Haram was planning further attacks on the camp, a rapidly growing space that in September housed 7,500 people but had reached a peak of 80,000 by the end of January.

As of Thursday, the girl’s precise motives were unclear.

Many experts on Boko Haram say the women and girls who are deployed have been brainwashed or are simply unaware that the devices they are carrying can kill them. Leila Zerrougui, the United Nations special representative on children and armed conflict, has said explosives worn by bombers are often remotely detonated.

Others say at least some of the women and girls, forcibly married to Boko Haram members, support the group’s cause of insurgency against secularism and for the creation of a strict Islamic state.

Female bombers have proved particularly lethal largely because they can move about without arousing suspicion. Their religious gowns double as hiding places for explosives.

The camp at Dikwa is currently sheltering about 52,000 people, most of whom are women and girls. Food is sparse there, and sanitation issues are growing.

Government officials have been returning camp residents to their homes as a stepped-up military push has rooted Boko Haram members from many villages that had been their strongholds.

A senior American military official said the Nigerian military is not pushing aggressively enough in the northern state of Borno, where Boko Haram originated, despite an intensified campaign by President Muhammadu Buhari. The group is hunkered down in the Sambisa Forest and doing mostly what it pleases there, which includes carrying out cross-border attacks where women have also been deployed as bombers.

In northern Nigeria, local government officials said as many as 1,000 women and girls were recently rescued from the village of Boboshe and taken to the Dikwa camp. They told officials they had been used as sex slaves.

In the past, women rescued from Boko Haram have said they were raped repeatedly, with some reporting that they thought they were being impregnated to create a new generation of Boko Haram fighters. In 2014, more than 200 girls were kidnapped from a school in Chibok, a mass abduction that generated international outrage.

Mr. Buhari recently acknowledged that the military has no idea of the whereabouts of those girls.

Found at: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/12/world/africa/nigeria-vexed-by-boko-harams-use-of-women-as-suicide-bombers.html?ref=world&_r=0

6. Human Interest: State health officials prepare for jump in Zika cases
This article is a human interest story because there are many people that could get seriously sick if they get bit by a mosquito infected with this illness, causing many problems as the temperatures rise and mosquitoes appear.
State health officials said Wednesday that they are preparing for an expected increase in Zika infection cases and warned the public to avoid mosquitoes as temperatures rise. 

   At least 12 cases of the mosquito-borne virus have been confirmed in the state, including a third in Dallas announced Wednesday and one in Travis County reported last week. All but one of the 12 infected people traveled to Latin America or the Caribbean where the virus, which has been linked to newborns with shrunken heads — microcephaly — and developmental delays as well as paralysis, is spreading. One person in Dallas contracted the virus through sexual contact with a person who visited South America. 

   John Hellerstedt, commissioner of the state’s health department, told members of the Texas House Public Health Committee that there is no evidence that mosquitoes in Texas carry the Zika virus. 

   Even so, the state will start testing people suspected of having the virus by mid-February instead of shipping such specimens off to the federal government, he said. 

   “People can take measures that will protect themselves and their families to a very, very high degree,” Hellerstedt said. Federal experts expect that eventually the virus “will become locally transmitted by mosquito populations in the United States. I think that’s a really important thing to be prepared for,” he said. 

   Currently, specimens from those possibly infected are sent to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. Austin area officials have said that it takes about a week to 10 days to get results. Testing in state will offer results quicker, according to Texas health officials. 

   Researchers at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston are looking into whether Texas mosquitoes can transmit the virus, how pregnant mice are affected and more importantly, a cure for the virus, James Le Duc, director of the branch’s Galveston National Laboratory, told lawmakers Wednesday. The laboratory is one of the few in the world that has the original strain of the Zika virus discovered in Uganda in 1947. 

   Hellerstedt also said that officials are analyzing the state’s birth defect registry to see whether there is a link between past microcephaly cases and possible Zika cases. 

   Although the threat now is fairly minimal, health officials warn that the reported cases of Texans contracting Zika will likely rise as the weather becomes warmer and more people travel abroad. If the Zika becomes more widespread in Texas, officials warn people to clear any standing water that might breed mosquitoes, use insect repellent, wear long sleeves and stay indoors during the day when the known Zika-carrying mosquito tends to be more active. 

   Hellerstedt said that the known Zika-carrying mosquito species isn’t easily killed by aerial sprays, so it must be killed at a close range in a confined area. 

   Eighty percent of those infected with the virus exhibit few to no symptoms, health officials say. Symptoms include fever, rashes, joint pain and red eyes. 

   The outbreak abroad prompted the World Health Organization to declare a public health emergency last week. 

   On Monday, President Barack Obama asked Congress for $1.8 billion to combat Zika globally and in the U.S. through vaccine and microcephaly research and by expanding mosquito control programs. 

   Carrie Williams, spokeswoman for the state’s health department, said that officials hope to get a portion of that money if Congress approves Obama’s request.
Found at the Austin American Statesman

7. Novelty: David Bowie learned he was to be a grandfather shortly before his death
This is a novelty story because a lot of people liked David Bowie, and he was a strange and interesting man and many people would be interested in this story.

David Bowie would have been a grandfather come June.

Bowie's eldest son, Duncan Jones, announced Wednesday that he and his partner Rodene Roquillo were expecting a child, and that they had told the news to Bowie at Christmas, a month before the singer's death.

Jones, a filmmaker and the only child from Bowie's marriage to his first wife Angie Bowie, revealed the news in a tweet featuring the card he made for Bowie. The card has an illustration of an unborn child with the words, "I'm waiting."

"1 month since dad died today," Jones wrote in the tweet. "Made this card for him at Christmas. Due in June. Circle of life. Love you, granddad."

Roquillo followed up the announcement with a cheeky tweet of her own, saying, "Shame on you who just thought I was really fat and didn't say anything."

Bowie's widow Iman offered congratulations to the couple on Twitter, continuing her return to social media after a brief respite following her husband's death in January.

Jones and Roquillo's child would be Bowie's first grandchild.

The musical icon behind hit songs such as Heroes, Changes and Space Oddity, Bowie died at the age of 69 on Jan. 10 after an 18-month battle with cancer. He had released his final album, Blackstar, days before his death. He was survived by his wife, Imam, and his two children, Jones from his first wife and Alexandria from Iman.

Article found at http://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2016/02/11/david-bowie-grandfather-duncan-jones-rodene-jones/80225680/