College presidents seek debate on lower drinking age;
critics say highway deaths would rise
(AP) via Newsday.com

"College presidents from about 100 of the nation's best-known universities, including Duke, Dartmouth and Ohio State, are calling on lawmakers to consider lowering the drinking age from 21 to 18, saying current laws actually encourage dangerous binge drinking on campus. The movement called the Amethyst Initiative began quietly recruiting presidents more than a year ago to provoke national debate about the drinking age."

This AP story is something my reporting students should be able to follow up for a local angle next month.

If the Newsday version of the story has "expired" from the archives by then, they should be able to find another copy elsewhere. I hope the Newsday version is still around, though, because it already had 84 comments the day it ran. The readers' comments are or were here. Thanks to the Web, the comments are (or purport to be) from well beyond Newsday's New York circulation area.

The Washington Post version of the story had half that many comments,but since it's an original (not AP), maybe it and its comments will be around longer.

ugig