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Show WEDNESDAY,APRIL20,2005 STATESMAfHv0RLD States try to make America less inviting to illegal immigrants BY JACQUES BILLEAUD Associated Press AP Photo/Mark Humphrey ANTONIO VILLA TAKES PART IN A PROTEST Monday, in Lebanon, Tenn. The protest is in response to a judge who is reported to have ordered an immigrant from Mexico to learn English in order to regain custody of her daughter. PHOENIX - Frustrated by the influx of illegal immigrants, some states are trying to make this country less inviting to those who sneak across the border. Other states are moving in the opposite direction, trying to offer illegals many of the privileges citizens enjoy. Lawmakers in Arkansas, Colorado, North Carolina, New Mexico and Nebraska have considered allowing the children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates. Iowa lawmak-' ers have looked at making it easier for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses. On the other side of the debate, a new Utah law will replace licenses for illegal immigrants with drivingprivilege cards that cannot be used to board airplanes or register to vote. A Virginia lawmaker wanted to bar illegal aliens from attending the states universities. The most restrictive measures lately have come from Arizona, the busiest illegal entry point on the nations porous southern border. "We may not be able to secure the borders as we would like," said Republican state Rep. Russell Pearce. But "we don't have to allow them to get free stuff." Arizona voters last year approved a law that denies some welfare benefits to illegal immigrants. Now Arizona lawmakers are trying to bar illegal immigrants from attending adult education classes, obtaining child care assistance, or receiving in-state status at public universities or state-subsidized collegefinancialaid. Many states have long been frustrated by what they consider the federal government's failure to crack down on the flow of illegal aliens or overhaul the nation's immigration laws. Last month, the Pew Hispanic Center, a private research group, reported that there were an estimated 10.3 million illegal immigrants living in the United States last year, an increase of about 23 percent from in 2000. The Homeland Security Department announced in March that it is assigning 534 additional agents to the Arizona border, bringing the total there to about 3,000. President Bush wants to allow some illegal immigrants to remain in this country under a special work program but has run into opposition from his conservative GOP base. In the meantime, Arizona and other states complain that they must shoulder tens of millions of dollars in costs each year for health care and schooling for illegal immigrants and for locking up those who break the law. Study finds the government has overstated the danger of obesity BY CARLA K. JOHNSON Associated Press CHICAGO - Being overweight is nowhere near as big a killer as the government thought, ranking No. 7 instead of No. 2 among the nation's leading preventable causes of death, according to a startling new calculation from the CDC. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Tuesday that packing on too many pounds accounts for 25,814 deaths a year in the United States. As recently as January, the CDC came up with an estimate 14 times higher: 365,000 deaths. The new analysis found that obesity is indisputably lethal. like several recent smaller studies, it found that people who are modestly overweight actually have a lower risk of death than those of normal weight Biostatistician Mary Grace Kovar, a consultant for the University of Chicago's National Opinion Research Center in Washington, said "normal" may be set too low for today's population. Also, Americans classified as overweight are eating better, exercising more and managing their blood pressure better than they used to, she said. The study was published in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association. Based on the new calculation, excess weight would drop from the second leading cause of preventable death, after smoking, to seventh. It would fall behind car crashes and guns on the list of killers. Calculating the health effects of obesity has been a major source of controversy at the CDC. Last year, the CDC issued a study that said being overweight causes 400,000 deaths a year and would soon overtake tobacco as the top U.S. killer. After scientists inside and outside the agency questioned thefigure,the CDC admitted mak- HELP WANTED 9 & NAT10N ing a calculation error and lowered its estimate three months ago to 365,000. CDC Director Dr. Julie Gerberding said because of the uncertainty in calculating the health effects of being overweight, the CDC is not going to use the brand-new figure of 25,814 in its public awareness campaigns and is not going to scale back itsfightagainst obesity. "There's absolutely no question that obesity is a major public health concern of this country," she said. Gerberding said the CDC will work to improve methods for calculating the consequences of obesiDr. JoAnn Manson, chief of preventive medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, said she is not convinced the new estimate is right "I think it's likely there has been a weakening of the mortality effect due to improved treatments for obesity," she said. "But I think this magnitude is surprising and requires corroboration." NEW POPE FOR SERVERS. 21 & OLDER. PREFER EXPERIENCE BUT WILL TRAIN. 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WESTERN PLASMA Main Street You can help save someone's life by giving plasma. From page 2 AP photo/Eric Cay LUPE RUBIO prays for newly elected Pope Benedict XVI at San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, Tuesday. the smoke. Some sections of the crowd were silent; others jumped in the air chanting, "Habemus papam!" — "We have a pope!" Waves of applause gave way to the silence of uncertainty. As the minutes passed many began to believe the smoke had been black, because no bells were ringing. "When it blows in front of the wall it really looks white, but where are the bells?" asked Jose Ignacio Rodriguez, 28, of Puebla, Mexico. There was a brief flutter when the bells rang at 6 p.m., but the cheers died down when they stopped. They had been ringing the hour. Only two minutes passed before they started up again, and it was official. People screamed and climbed onto their chairs. Wild applause spread through the crowd. 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