12 - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, March 29, 1995 p e French city adds dialect to street signs STRASBOURG, France (AP) - Strasbourg has put a regional lan- guage on street signs, after overcom- ing some local opposition to using the Alsatian dialect. Fifty signs in French and Alsatian were put up this month in central Strasbourg, and officials said 50 more will be added each year in the Rhine city bordering Germany. The sign for Place de la Cathedrale now also carries the name "Muenschterplatz," the quai des Baterlies "Schifflitstade" and the rue de la Douane the "Kaufhusgass." While French is still the official language, Alsatian, a derivative of German, is widely spoken in the Alsace region. Some older residents objected to the new signs with names resembling those used during the two German occupations of the region in the past century. After long discouraging regional languages, the French government has increasingly accepted their use in re- cent years. Bilingual signs have also been put. up in the Alsatian town of Colmar as well as in Brittany, the Basque region and in southern France near the Span- ish Mediterranean border, where Occitan is spoken. Police arrest Mafia boss PALERMO, Sicily (AP) - After 15 years on the run from police and mob hitmen, ex-Mafia boss Michele Micalizzi is back in custody, authori- ties said yesterday. Police tracked the 46-year-old Si- cilian clan leader to a villa in Taormina and arrested him Saturday, but news of the arrest was not made public until yesterday. Micalizzi, who was last seen in pub- lic in 1980, was a target in an internal feud between factions of the Corleone- based crime family. Micalizzi and his brother narrowly escaped a mob am- bush in 1982 in Palermo. Supreme Court divided over drug tests for athletes 0 AP PHOTO Big Boy gets a booboo This Big Boy statue was cut into seven pieces March 17, then dumped off at several Toledo, Ohio, Big Boy rest- aurants. Eight men admitted yesterday to stealing the 300-pound statue and dismembering him with a hacksaw. e o a i Definig minorities 1stpriority In afirm-Iati'veV action discussion Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON - Who is a mi- nority? Today, in an era of affirmative action, when the answer to that ques- tion can have an impact on college admissions, jobs, promotions and government contracts, just who should be counted has become an emotion-charged issue. In this vast and polychromatic nation, the simple question of who is a minority has never had a simple answer. Definitions of what groups make up the minority - and who holds power as part of the majority - have shifted over time. When affirmative action pro- grams began in the mid-1960s, im- migration was low, the population was nearly all white and, in most parts of the country, Blacks were the only minority group - most of them with much lower incomes than the average white. But now, the nation has changed dramatically: There are high levels of immigration, several major racial groups and an expansive minority middle class. News Analysis Those changes have heightened and complicated the affirmative ac- tion debate. The population of Asian Americans has gone from roughly 1 million in the 1960s to at least 8.5 million. The Latino population grew from 3.5 million to roughly 23 mil- lion. Racial and ethnic groups offi- cially counted as "minorities" make up roughly a third of the U.S. popula- tion - up from just more than 10 percent three decades ago. Since women are included in most such programs, "when you add it all up, about two-thirds of the American population is eligible" for one form of affirmative action or another, said Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D- N.Y.). "That's a lot of minority. And I think what began as an effort to redress the legitimate concerns and needs of African Americans has expanded to other things entirely unexpected." Even the Black population has changed. Once, almost every Black American was descended from Ameri- can slaves. But in New York City, for example, roughly 25 percent of Blacks are immigrants or the children of im- migrants - mostly from Africa and the Caribbean, says Harvard sociol- ogy Prof. Mary Waters. How did the current definitions of "minority" arise? In the beginning, it was not much of an issue and received little debate, according to historians and officials involved in the early policy-making. The focus was on the plight of Black Americans. But aware of longstanding discrimination against Puerto Ricans in northeastern cities, Mexican Ameri- cans in the Southwest and Chinese and Japanese - primarily in Califor- nia - lawmakers also sought to pro- tect those groups. In the early 1960s, federal officials established four categories for equal opportunity programs - "Negroes, Spanish-surnamed, Oriental and In- dian." With adjustments to reflect changing fashions in language, those groups remain the basic categories for most affirmative action programs. The programs vary widely. Set- WASHINGTON (AP) - A lively debate about students' privacy rights and the war on drugs seemed to leave the Supreme Court deeply divided yesterday over mandatory drug tests in public schools. In a case closely watched by edu- cators nationwide, an Oregon school district and the Clinton administra- tion urged the justices to allow such tests for all student-athletes in schools where drug use is deemed a problem. But a teen-ager's lawyer said his client wrongly was barred from his junior high football team for refusing to undergo urinalysis because such tests amount to unreasonable searches. "This is being compelled by the government. They're watching you do it. They're taking your urine. They're testing it to see what secrets are therein," Portland lawyer Thomas Christ contended. The court's decision, expected by late June, could deal with student-ath- letes only. But, depending on how broadly the justices rule, the decision conceivably could affect all schoolchil- dren-even those in elementary school. Justice Department lawyer Rich- ard Seamon, when pressed on the scope of his argument, said, "It is not our position that drug-testing of all students would be invalid under all circumstances." , From the courtroom audience, 15- year-old James Acton watched silently. James was a star seventh-grader at Washington Grade School in the small logging town of Vernonia in 1991 when he was confronted by the drug- test requirement. Vernonia officials since 1989 had used drug tests for all student-athletes because they suspected some of being leaders in an "out-of-control" drug culture. The Actons sued, and eventually the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the drug-testing policy. James, now a sophomore at Vernonia High School, joined his school's bas- ketball team after the school district was forced to make drug-testing vol- untary. Court rules that compames can trademark colors Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON- A company can trademark a "color, pure and simple" if the shade identifies the product brand in the public's mind, the Supreme Court said yesterday. The 9-0 ruling is a victory for the makers of leading brand-name products. It means, for example, that companies such as Owens- Corning can market its pink Fiber- glass insulation exclusively, while Nutrasweet can seek similar trade- mark protection for its pale blue packets of artificial sweetener. At the same time, the decision is a setback for store brand products that often imitate the basic look, including the color, of the leading brands. For example, Pepto-Bismol is the recognized brand of liquid medicine for an upset stomach, but its store-brand competitors have copied its distinctive pink hue. "Color alone, at least some- times, can meet the basic legal re- quirements for use as a trademark. It can act as a symbol that distin- guishes a firm's goods and identi- fies their source," Justice Stephen G. Breyer wrote for the court. But he stressed that the color may not be simple and "functional." A maker of orange juice could not patent an orange shade for its car- tons, nor could a manufacturer of fire extinguishers seek exclusive use of bright red. These shades identify the basic product, but they do not conjure up a distinct brand In the past, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has authorized trademarks for a particular shape, such as the Coca-Cola bottle, a par- ticular sound, such as NBC's three chimes, and even a particular scent used on a brand of sewing thread. 0 PAID ADVERTISEMENT DENVER COLORADO Numerous Opportunities Exist for Michigan Professionals Colorado's employment picture continues to remain bright for the first quarter of 1995. 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