Reporters on the Job

ABOUT FACE: As Scott Peterson dropped his translator off yesterday, she pointed out what she said is the best example of how the pope's visit is affecting ordinary Ukrainians' lives (page 1).

She lives in a Soviet-era, nondescript high-rise apartment block, Scott says. "It is situated across the street from a huge field where this huge cathedral has been built." It is one of the places where the pope will say Mass."

The front walls of the translator's apartment had been freshly painted with a rust-red paint, and trimmed with a mellow beige. "It looked great, Scott says. But then the translator told Scott to drive around back to see what it looked like before the city began planning for the pope's arrival. "It was the usual hideous and decrepit type of building we're used to seeing in the former Soviet Union, with peeling paint and water marks," Scott says.

LOCATION, LOCATION: Rachel Hays says she and her colleagues were so caught up in the news of the Lori Berenson trial that they forgot where they were (page 7).

The trial took place in the jail where Lori Berenson has been incarcerated. It is located in a very rough area, Rachel says, in a shantytown on the outskirts of Lima.

Normally, there were about four reporters covering the daily routine of the trial, Rachel says. But for the reading of the verdict - which took four hours - some 200 reporters showed up.

"The session didn't end till around 10 p.m.,"she says. "So when we got outside, there were no cabs. And one of the reporters realized her backpack had been stolen during the reading of the verdict."

Rachel and a couple of her colleagues jumped in the back of a news station truck. "They gave us a ride out of the shantytown area to a busy street, where we could then get a cab," Rachel says.

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