News Bytes

New York’s Grand Central Terminal presents BMW Art Cars

Starting March 25, 2009 the Grand Central Terminal in New York will present an arts installation. One part of this installation is a collection of four BMW art cars, designed by the artists Andy Warhol, Frank Stella, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg. The second part is a project by street artist Robin Rhode, who fixed some special paint dispensers behind the wheels of a BMW Z4 Roadster to create a painting the size of a football field, parts of which will be presented in 30x40 inch format. Frank Stella and Jake Scott of RSA Films, who both supported Rhode with his project, and Rhode himself will be present at the installation preview on March 24, 2009. The installation can be visited from March 25 to April 6 between 7am and 11pm and is located in the Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Terminal.

Baby Boom Record in the entire history of the US

More babies were born in the year 2007 than ever before in the history of the US. According to a recently published annual statistics report, this one even topped the great baby boom of 50 years ago. It states that more than 4.3 million babies were born in 2007, leading to an increase in population. The mothers, however, were still teenagers in many cases, a development that gave many people reason for concern. The report further states that roughly 40 percent of American women who gave birth in 2007 were unmarried, a quarter of them teenagers.

The highest birthrate was found to be among women of Latin-American origin. According to regional analyses, the Mormon State Utah had the highest birthrate, the State of Vermont on the East Coast the lowest. Based on the report, each American woman gives birth to 2.1 children during her lifetime. This is the highest number since the early seventies. However, compared to the previous ten years, the 2007 increase was not particularly high. Experts don’t believe that the baby boom will continue over the next years.

Internet is most popular source of information in the US

The annual report on the State of the News Media could not be any worse for American newspaper publishing companies: in 2008 Americans for the first time got more information off the internet than out of printed newspapers. News are still important and in demand among American citizens, but a decreasing number of people is still willing to pay for them. These are some of the central findings published in the 800-pages state of the news media report by the distinguished Pew Research Center in Washington.

The sixth annual state of the news media report is the “bleakest” so far, according to the researchers. But, so they continued, with regard to the severe economic crisis, 2009 is probably going to be the worst year ever for the US newspaper industry. Magazines, radio and local television stations as well had to accept heavy losses in 2008. The winners, apart from the internet, are primarily news stations.

New Mexico is the 15^th US state to abolish the death penalty

New Mexico is now the 15^th state in the US that has abolished the death penalty. Governor Bill Richardson signed the bill and explained that something as final as the death penalty could only work in a perfect judicial system – but that in the US innocent people had repeatedly been put on death row. The maximum penalty from now on will be lifelong imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Richardson said he didn’t trust the current criminal justice system to be the final arbiter when it came to deciding who should die for their crimes: “If the State is going to undertake this awesome responsibility, the system to impose this ultimate penalty must be perfect and can never be wrong.” Reality was however, he continued, that the system was not perfect, DNA tests had proved that. Death penalty still exists in 35 of the 50 states of the US.