Dashboard

NEW YORK CITY

Gamers rush to buy Halo 3

GREEN BAY, WIS.

Favre ties touchdown-pass record

HAVANA

Castro resurfaces in taped television interview

LIMA

Former President extradited to Peru

MUNICH

Oktoberfest kicks off

BEIRUT

Bomb kills anti-Syrian lawmaker and others

LITTLE ROCK, ARK.

Emancipation Proclamation on loan

THE MAP

Education Report Card

The good news, according to the Department of Education, is that 48 states and the District of Columbia either improved academically or held steady in all categories since the most recent set of national tests in 2005. (Only Rhode Island and North Dakota missed the mark.) Reading scores among fourth-grade students edged up a few points to reach a historic high, as did math scores for both fourth- and eighth-graders. But there wasn't much narrowing of the achievement gaps between white and minority students. And there are still far too many kids scoring below basic levels in math and reading, as detailed in the maps above. [This article contains a diagram. Please see hardcopy or pdf.]

BEHIND THE NUMBERS

Homeland Hype

Congress says it will stop granting such a big minimum of Homeland Security funding to states deemed at low risk of terrorist attack. But take a look at the difference between the old and new spending formulas:

(.75% x TOTAL STATE GRANT PROGRAM)

(.375% x TOTAL STATE GRANT PROGRAM + URBAN AREA SECURITY INITIATIVE)

LESS FILLING ... This summer Democrats hailed the passage of new Homeland Security legislation that halves the minimum percentage of federal funding that low-risk states receive, from 0.75% to 0.375%.

... MORE GREAT TASTE But the smaller percentage is now applied to a larger pot of money--one that combines a state grant program with the Urban Area Security Initiative. That ensures that low-risk states will still end up with a big pile of cash.

LEXICON

cybrid embryo

DEFINITION sy-brid em-bree-oh n. An entity in its early stages of development that consists of a human nucleus inserted into another species' egg that has been emptied of its original genetic material.

CONTEXT Scientists in the U.S. and China have created cybrids--also known as cytoplasmic hybrids--with cow and rabbit eggs for use in stem-cell research. Cybrid proponents argue that there is virtually no difference between utilizing animal and human eggs in this field of study.

USAGE Faced with a shortage of human egg donors, Britain's Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority recently decided to permit the use of cybrid embryos in research that one day could aid in the treatment of such diseases as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Although cybrids confined to petri dishes won't lead to births of humans with bunny ears, some opponents cite the slippery-slope argument, while many consider any kind of human embryonic research morally repugnant.

ARTIFACT

Lincoln's New Look

GIVE ME FIVE The redesigned $5 bill sports two new watermarks, a relocated security strip and purple ink--all to thwart counterfeiters.

OOPS The government had not been planning to redesign the $5 bill until crooks--who noticed that the watermark and security strip were very similar to those on the $100--started bleaching Abrahams and reprinting them as Benjamins.

WHY PURPLE? Pastel colors are harder for counterfeiters to reproduce. On the back of the bill, there is now a big 5 printed in bright purple to aid the visually impaired.

MARRIAGE NOTE

The Divorcing Kind

NOT-SO-ETERNAL LOVE New U.S. Census Bureau data show that the divorce rate, after rising sharply in the early 1970s, has remained relatively stable--not to mention high. Fewer than half the couples who first got married in the late 1970s made it to their 25th anniversary. Of the women who first got hitched in the late 1980s, only 57% reached their 15th anniversary, compared with 79% of brides in the late 1950s.

EIGHT IS ENOUGH On average, couples whose first marriages didn't last got separated within seven years and divorced within eight. Second unions likewise ended in divorce after seven years for women and fewer than nine for men.