Ukraine Crisis: In a further political complication, The Crimean parliament today voted to join Russia and called for a public referendum within 10 days. The majority of Crimeans are ethnic Russians. The Ukraine government says Crimea cannot have a unilateral vote to change the borders of the country.

  Also today, the US State Department imposed a ban on visas for officials and other people “responsible for or complicit in threatening the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” according to a White House statement.

  Representatives of the US, Russia, and Ukraine made little progress yesterday in talks to defuse the crisis. The Russian foreign minister refused to recognize the Ukraine foreign minister. But Secy. of State John Kerry said ideas for resolution were on the table and talks might take some time. Kerry said, “I don’t think any of us had an anticipation that we were coming here at this moment, in this atmosphere of heightened tension and confrontation, that we were suddenly going to resolve that here, this afternoon.”

Quitski: An American anchor working in the US for the Russian television network Russia Today quit on the air yesterday saying, “I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin.” The anchor, Liz Wahl said, “I’m proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth.” Appearing later with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Wahl said, “RT is not about the truth; it’s about promoting a Putinist agenda.” She said, “And I can tell you firsthand, it’s about bashing America.”

Nation: The chief technology officer for the Target discount chain resigned after the company revealed how much it lost in sales when hackers stole customer information during the Christmas season. Beth M. Jacob is the first major executive to leave the company after the hacking embarrassment in which the information of up to 1.1 million customers was stolen. Target earnings in the 4^th quarter of last year were down 46 percent.

>American doctors claim that a second infant has been purged of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, through the administration of antiretroviral drugs. The unidetified nine-month-old California child is reported to be  HIV negative. The first case of a baby cured of HIV was reported out of Mississippi last year. That child is now three years old.

1600: The College Board announced basic changes in the SAT, including eliminating the mandatory essay, ending the penalty for guessing wrong, and eliminating obscure vocabulary words no one uses in real life. David Coleman, president of the College Board, said both the SAT and the rival ACT had “become disconnected from the work of our high schools.”

The SAT will return to the old 1600 point scoring system after eliminating 800 points for the essay that many colleges were not even considering in their admission evaluations. Vocabulary will focus more on words actually learned in high school study and the math questions will narrow their scope. One of the motivating factors in the board’s decision was the increasing number of students paying for test preparation, which indicated that the SAT had become a game rather than an honest assessment of achievement.

Questions: 1. What was the primary theme of the previous two paragraphs? 2. What is significance of the number 1600? 3. Will your child get into Harvard?

You may use a calculator only for question 1.

-30-