The Dog Ate My Homework: A Different Excuse For Not Doing It

It’s no secret that kids don’t exactly like homework but it’s more than just a hassle. The burden of homework can detrimental to young people’s performance in school and overall health. It’s considered to be the leading cause of stress among students and sometimes this stress can be so severe that it causes panic attacks, stomachaches, headaches, anxiety, and sleeping disorders.

I was hanging out with one of my friends last June when I found something I never thought I would ever see on a sixteen year old, silver hairs. Her response to my questioning about it was simple, stress. The last school year stressed her out so much that she started to go gray.This year, my junior year, is the first time I’ve found stress from school to have a visible effect on my health found clumps of hair on my pillow when I woke up. My enormous amount of homework made me anxious and this was affecting my health and causing my hair to fall out. That’s messed up.

It’s messed up that while students are encouraged to have jobs and volunteer and participate in extracurriculars like sports and music lessons, we’re often burdened with two to five hours of homework a night. It’s messed up that kids my age need 8.5 to 10 hours of sleep to be healthy but I know nobody who gets more than 8 regularly, mostly because they’re doing homework (I myself stayed up until 2:00 am last night finishing AP Physics homework). And these people are getting younger and younger. A freshman I know told me that last year, in middle school, she would often get an average of 4 or less hours some nights because she would stay up late doing her homework and finishing projects. A thirteen year old should not be sleep deprived. This can have a direct effect on a student’s performance at school. A student who gets 5 hours of sleep just can’t give their best performance in class.

South Korea is considered to have some of the most rigorous academics in the world. Students there attend school two months months longer than Americans and for upwards of sixteen hours a day, often staying at school until midnight or 1:00 am. They’re put under immense pressure to succeed. Most schools there don’t have sports teams or art programs, so that not to distract the students. South Korea also has the highest suicide rate in the world, with 27.3 suicides per 100,00 people. It is possible that the pressure that Korean Society puts it’s students could be related to these suicides. This is obviously an extreme case but it seems like America could be headed the same way. Now more than ever are high school students enrolling in intense and challenging college courses like AP physics and history. College admittance has also become extremely competitive and students are feeling the pressure.

Gray hairs? Dark circles? Why must I chose between my academic success and my health? Why isn’t seven hours of school enough? If we really cared about our nation’s children, we would stop assigning homework. They have enough to worry about.

Current Events Quiz 3.2

1. The House voted to have tough new screening procedures for Syrian refugees. The reason this measure is so popular is because of the recent Paris terrorist attacks. The next step of the bill is to be taken up by the Senate after Thanksgiving. Obama said that he would veto the bill because he believes that it is insensitive by discriminating against Muslims and would hurt American foreign policy with this discrimination. The administration feels that this bill is unnecessary because refugees are already rigorously checked before entering the country.

2. City Council has decided to ease regulations for building garage apartments, by eliminating the requirement that the owner must ass paved parking on the property. Benefits of the decision would be easier access to affordable living in Austin and it being a provider of supplemental income. Council member Kathie Tovo brought up the objection that allowing garage apartments could override the neighborhood plans of those which had decided against them. Both Tommy Ates and Sabino "Pio" Renteria are pro-garage apartment, saying that it is an affordable way to live in a nice neighborhood. I am definitely pro-affordable housing in Austin, so I agree with Ates and Renteria.

3. Sheri Gallo-District 10

4. The FDA announced on Thursday that genetically engineered salmon was ok for consumption, making it the first genetically altered animal to be able to be consumed by the public. Consumer and environmental groups have argued that the study was inadequate and that it's putting wild salmon populations at risk because there is a chance that genetically engineered fish could escape into oceans and rivers. The process of decision took a long time because it is the first of it's kind. The chief executive of AquaBounty says he is delighted and somewhat surprised by the decision. A conclusion that I draw from the graphs presented is that a lot more plants are genetically modified than I would've thought.

5. Zimmerman proposed a resolution that would prevent the city of Austin from spending money to help Syrian refugees. Both City Council member Greg Casar and mayor Steve Adler responded by expressing their opposition towards the proposal. 1,225 refugees came to Travis County in 2013. Sid Miller compared refugees to rattle snakes in a Facebook post, asking "can you tell me which of these rattlers won’t bite you? Sure some of them won’t, but tell me which ones so we can bring them into the house.” Manny Garcia deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party responded by saying that this fear towards refugees would not help protect Americans.

6. Holiday was convicted for killing his young daughter and her two half-sisters. Texas has executed 13 people this year, including Holiday. The other 49 states have executed 13 people all together. Gretchen Sween argued that Holiday's case should be appealed because his court appointed attorneys abandoned him after the justices refused to review his case. Holiday's trial attorney believed the case should be appealed because the conviction and some trial testimony were improper. The Texas attorney general's office overturned the appeals.

7. National Security: I know that this isn't exactly what the article is about but I always hear people ragging on the government (Obama in particular) for tapping into our phones and computers but I don't think we should really complain about this. The government does this for our safety so if you complain about the NSA listening in on some trivial conversation of yours or knowing that you've been looking at pictures of Jake Gyllenhaal holding dogs for the past hour but you're perfectly willing to go through airport security, you should probably reconsider your opinions.

The Craft of Writing Columns Questions

1. Robbing a convenience store and killing a police officer and a store clerk.
2. That he was innocent and falsely accused.
3. October 2005
4. May 2014
5. That he was in his girlfriend's apartment at the time of the crime and that he had made a call from there at around 10:00 am.
6. There was no evidence to support his claim.
7. Phone logs supporting Brown's claim were found in the garage of a homicide investigator.
8. There was also a document found that said that the prosecutors had requested to see the phone records. I think that Lisa Falkenberg is correct in thinking that it was more than just an innocent oversight.
9. The appeals court has yet to okay a new trial.
10. Falkenberg states that Brown is entitled to a fair trial and that unless the judges hurry up, an innocent man could be executed.
11. I think, or at least i hope, that he, by this time, has been released from prison.
12. The piece simultaneously tells a story, states an opinion, and creates an argument. I think this is pretty typical of an op-ed as columns are usually opinionated.

The Craft of Writing Editorials Questions

1. The editorial opens with a description of the horrible conditions a low ranked kitchen worker works in. With this, Kingsbury has already created an argument and most likely gotten the reader on her side. The lead tells the reader the topic of the editorial (working conditions of restaurant workers) and draws the reader in with the pathos of the paragraph.

2. The rise of the restaurant industry in America and the widening income gap.

3. That raising the wages of restaurant workers would result in less jobs. She disproves this by using California as an example. California has just raised the wages of their restaurant workers and it has actually resulted in growth in the industry.

4. Fairness, concern for the children of workers, it would combat income inequality.

5. Restaurant workers face a poverty rate of nearly 3 times that of the rest of the workforce.

6. She says consumers must pressure the industry to change and that lawmakers should reject the demands of the National Restaurant Association.

7. The National Restaurant Association is mostly responsible for the tipped minimum wage in Massachusetts. Tipped minimum wage is in which restaurants pay workers 2.63 with the expectation that tips will make up for the rest of it.

8. Restaurant owners blame slim profit margins and intense competition for these low wages and working conditions.

9. She says that raising wages wouldn't change competition because every restaurant would have to abide.

10. They work more than one job in order to stay afloat. Oftentimes they're also supporting their family both here and in their home country if they're an immigrant.

11. The paragraph about Filiberto Lopez humanizes the issue by providing the story of someone directly affected by the low pay and working conditions of restaurant workers.

12. Restaurant owners routinely do not pay their workers overtime, break child labor laws, and often either fail to pay minimum wage or to even pay workers at all.

13. Fairly common, the US Department of Labor conducted 165 investigations in the restaurant industry in 2013 and retrieved more that $1.7 million in back wages.

14. Kingsbury advises the mayor of Boston to pass an ordinance preventing those who are guilty of wage theft from getting or renewing permits, preventing them from doing business.

15. The conclusive paragraph is written with a proposed solution for the problem. I think it is effective because it gives the reader the impression that the problem can be fixed if we are proactive. It's different than other conclusions because, other than wrapping up the idea and closing it, the conclusive paragraph leaves it open.

Current Events Activity 3.1

1. The Texas abortion restrictions may be reviewed by the Supreme Court. Orders will be published on Monday morning, letting people know whether they will review it or not. People feel that it should be reviewed because the closing of the majority of Texas abortion clinics make it difficult for a woman to procure one. The Texas attorney general disagrees, saying that the closing of the clinics were meant to improve the medical standards in which abortions are performed.

2. Officer Kleinert was shielded from criminal charges by a 125 year old law meant to protect federal agents in the old West. The Supremacy Clause is a US constitutional provision that declares the Constitution the primary law of the land. This could have some far reaching effects because by using this law in this situation, people are wondering if it applies to the whole police task force. 

3. UT didn't do as much cultural prep work as the University of Washington has done with their players and has no plans to go sight-seeing. This will be the first regular season intercollegiate game played in China and more college athletic departments are exploring playing games internationally than ever before. Smart is worried for his team's strength and eating habits and is concerned because not only is it his first game at UT but he's also missing the first day recruits can sign a national letter of intent.

4. The decision in the election will determine whether Myanmar will continue existing under military rule. The day was described as being "full of excitement and energy." The main fight is between Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy and the Union Solidarity Development Party. Suu Kyi is expected to secure victory.

5. Pope Francis says that the theft of documents describing financial malfeasance inside the Holy See is a crime. He said this because documents had been published in two books last week, detailing the misdeeds and mismanagement of the Catholic Church, such as the high cost of sainthood and how money meant for the poor was used to pay the Vatican administration. Pope Francis says measures have been made to stop the actions revealed in these documents and yet he is upset that they are now public knowledge, implying that perhaps not everything is fixed.

6. Sanctuary cities are cities in the United States that have a policy of not persecuting illegal aliens. The two opinions expressed in these columns are that the Republican Party's policy on immigration will not solve immigration issues and that ending the policy of sanctuary cities would decrease crime rates. The author of the first column supports his argument by giving the reader an example of how Republicans don't want to talk about immigration and yet they consider it an important issue. The second author supports his argument by giving the reader an instance in which a crime could have been prevented with deportation. Both cartoons reflect the attitudes of the columns, that Republicans see all immigration as bad even though America is a country predominately founded by immigrants, and that sanctuary cities are just attracting criminals. I do think that Republican opinion on these issues are hindering progress but I do not think it is right to deport illegal aliens who pose no threat to society, so I disagree with the second column.

This editorial page allows readers to voice their opinions on the subject via Facebook or email. I think this is a good idea because it gives the public a voice and a chance to debate with each other.

Bring Home the Bacon (Or Not)

1. Eating processed red meat raises the risk of colon cancer.
2. The meat industry resisted the findings of the report while some environmental groups called for warning labels to be put on meat.
3. Processed meats being placed in Group 1 means that their is sufficient evidence that it can cause cancer. The chairmen of disease prevention at Stanford, Dr. John Ioannidis,  clarifies that being placed in Group 1 does not mean it has the same hazards as cigarettes or alcohol.
4. Randy Bish explains that most people don't really care and will continue to eat processed meats.
5. I think the opinion of the cartoon is sort of like "so what? who cares? people are still going to eat meat."
6. I probably eat meat about one a week at most and I will continue to eat processed meats when I do. I eat meat rarely enough that I'm not worried about cancer.

Current Event Quiz 2.2

1. The fire could've either been started by a farm accident or by someone violating the burn ban. In addition to the announcements made about the cause of the fire, residents are now allowed to return to their properties. The Hidden Pines fire destroyed 64 homes and 4,600 acres of land. Hearing the stories of the people affected by the fire made me feel sad and made the article have a lot more value to me.

2. AISD is digitizing math and social studies textbooks, which is cheaper for the district and helps prepare students for a computer dependent future. However, the Robertson family didn't find their daughter's geometry textbook very helpful so they decided to buy an expensive print textbook. Melissa Prepster, an 8th grade social studies teacher, supports the movement because she believes online textbooks to be much more interactive. The Eanes district, and soon the Leander district as well,  has gone as far as to make a device available to each student , spending 5 million since 2011. I understand that digitizing textbooks is a good financial decision, but at what cost. I have encountered many technological difficulties with my US History textbook. I think that if the district wants to do this, they should at least invest money in a system that actually works and is user-friendly. They should also invest in better computers (for example, only about 3 of the class set of computers in my physics class works). I also think that it's easier to get distracted working on a computer than it is working from a book. I do think that this would make a good story for The Shield as it is something that McCallum students are experiencing and have opinions about.

3. Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister of Canada yesterday. Trudeau says that he will legalize marijuana in Canada, rebuild Canada's economy and infrastructure, and drop out of the US-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State. The last one will probably have an effect on the relationship between Canada and the US, as Canada will no longer be supporting US involvement in the Middle East. Relations will probably become a little tense.

4. Alan Guckian, Eastside Memorial High School's band director is up for the Music Educator Award from the Recording Foundation and the Grammy Foundation. The teacher was nominated by SaulPaul, a local musician, and is one of the 25 semifinalists. He says that if he wins, he and his students will have a pizza party and that he will keep the award on his mantle.

5. The new UT men's basketball coach, Shaka Smart, wants his players to work on sharpening their receptiveness and intellect. In order to achieve this, Smart is subjecting the team to new exercises meant to push them out of their comfort zone as well as encouraging them to decide who they want to be as a player and as a team.

Current Event Quiz 2.1

1. Council members of the Austin Park Foundation receive two VIP passes, two regular passes, and 3-day parking passes, all at no cost, for Austin City Limits. The passes are intended for the council members and their staff and are "for work purposes only." Two of the council members, Rick Cofer and Don Zimmerman, rejected the passes. Cofer said that he thought that the passes were an unnecessary expense and that he would feel uncomfortable accepting them. Zimmerman thought that the free passes violated a policy saying that council members aren't allowed to accept “any gift or favor, that might reasonably tend to influence that individual in the discharge of official duties" although Sabine Romero of the city's ethics and compliance division stated that taking the passes was okay because it “provides access to the event for ‍city representatives for municipal purposes.” Another council member, Ann Kitchen, used the passes with her staff because she believes it is "important for her office to understand how the festival operates." Yet another council member, Ora Houston, gave her passes to 311 operators filling in for a staff member on maternity leave as a thank you. 
I'm not particularly bothered by this "perk." I think that if they're part of the city's parks department, why shouldn't they attend an event that concerns Austin's largest park?

2. Oklahoma has halted all executions after realizing that they had been sent the wrong drug, rather than the one used for executions. Many states have come up with backup solutions if they cannot obtain the proper drugs, such as Tennessee, with the electric chair, and Utah, with firing squads. Midazolam is a drug that, combined with hydromorphone, was used to execute an inmate in Ohio. The inmate in question reportedly struggled for several minutes before dying, raising questioning over the humanity of using the drug to execute and of capital punishment overall. 

3. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu is preventing his ministers from visiting a holy site in Jerusalem used by Muslim worshippers, telling police to prevent them from going, in an attempt to ease violence and unrest. Both Arab and and Israeli ministers have expressed their displeasure with Netanyahu's decision. Muhanad Halabi is a Palestinian who had been defending the mosque on Facebook before he was shot dead by Israeli forces on Saturday. 

4. Svetlana Alexievich, a Belarusian writer and journalist, was awarded the Nobel prize in literature. Her most famous work, "War's Unwomanly Face" which was published in 1988, is about Soviet womwn who participated in World War II. Her winning the Nobel prize is a rarity because her work is mainly nonfiction, a mixture of literature and journalism. In her statement to the press, she says that the future holds a lot of work for her and that she does not consider her winning a Nobel prize to be the end of her career. 

5. Professor Emeritus Daniel S. Hamermesh has decided not to continue teaching at the university because of the campus's new concealed carry law. The reporter who wrote this article first became aware of his decision because of the Daily Texan, UT's student newspaper, who obtained a copy of the letter Hamermesh sent to the UT President. Hamermesh is the first professor at UT to leave based on the new law though he believes he will not be the last. He also stated that he had other opportunities to teach abroad. 

6. Tech: YouCam Makeup, virtual beauty kit
A new app allows you to try new makeup looks without ever actually having to put makeup on. Instead you upload a picture of your face onto the app and put on virtual makeup. The app also allows you to see what you look like with a different nose or an eye lift. 
To be honest, this seemed pretty irrelevant to me and it was obvious that the reporter who wrote this thought so too because it seemed lackluster and hastily done.

The articles in the extra sections are brief and often about stuff that no one really cares about. I think that they put stuff like this in the electronic edition, not as a perk, because it's not relevant enough to spend money on to print in the paper. I don't think it makes the Statesman a more viable product.
 

 
 

Observation Practice

1. There is a family sitting near me, they're talking in Spanish.
2. There's a mom and dad and three little girls.
3. There's a couple with an infant playing on the seal statue.
4. There are older kids playing on the bigger playscape and vintage firetruck.
5. A woman and her daughter are sitting on a blanket in the grassy are nearby, having a picnic.

Observation Assignment

Place: Zilker Park Playground

It's the middle of the afternoon and the park is crowded. One family is sitting on the curb near me. They have three daughters and are latino. The young girls, who look about early elementary school age and are dressed in brightly colored leggings and t-shirts, babble in Spanish to each other and to their parents as they jump on and off the curb. A young man and a young woman playing with their baby son who looks no older than one. The baby is wearing a light blue shirt with a whale appliqué on it and dark blue stripped cotton pants. He's also barefoot. Even though the baby's parent's both have dark hair and olive skin, he is fair, with blue eyes, pale skin, and fine blonde hair pulled back into a tiny ponytail. He toddles around on the rubber surfacing with the help of his father, his mom is trailing behind. The baby climb's up onto the concrete seal statue put next to the smaller playground. The father scoops the baby up and sits him on the seal's head. The baby poses as the father whips out his iPhone to take a picture. I turn back around, there are older children playing on the big playscape and the vintage fire truck that the city repurposed. A scruffy, possibly homeless, man plays the toy marimba farther away. A woman and her daughter, who's wearing a pink shirt and a pink polka dot skirt, are sitting on a blanket on the grass that surrounds the playground, eating a picnic. Three adults lead a boy, about 6, across the playground. Two of the three adults appear to be his parents, and the other, a photographer. As they walk past I hear the photographer say "over here would make a good picture..." A young man wearing baggy denim shorts and a baggy red t-shirt walks up to me and asks if I'm "waiting for someone or somethin'" and I tell that I am. "Oh, okay." He responds and walks away back to a group of other guys his age.

Current Event Quiz 1.3

1. Pope Francis stated that Congress needed to "break out of its cycle of polarization and paralysis and use its power to heal the “open wounds” of a planet torn by hatred, greed, poverty and pollution." His speech was made to Congress and was historic because it was the first time a pope had ever addressed Congress. The pope was invited to make the speech by Speaker of the House, John Boehner, who is Catholic. The article illustrates the huge interest in this address by telling how many people came to see the address, which was in the tens of thousands. 

2. It was debated whether the referee actually made the remarks that allegedly caused the attack. Some people think he did but others say he didn't. The two football players will be allowed to return to John Jay High School on January 15th but Breed has resigned. The chairman of the committee,  Mike Motheral was frustrated that the referee and the two football players did not appear during the meeting, even though they were the people most involved in the incident.

3. The relocation of 6th grade teacher, John Wetherold, caused the parents and students to protest. Wetherold was relocated to "level out" the student to teacher ratio within the district. This hurt the 6th grade at Maplewood Elementary because now students have fewer teachers which means that they'll get less individual attention. A similar protest at Bryker Woods Elementary (aka MY elementary school holla) resulted in the teacher that was going to be relocated being able to stay.

4. Senator John Whitmire asked if the law that will allow holstered firearms to be carried in the open will be extended to school properties. The law in question takes effect on January 1st, 2016. Sen. Whitmire has interpreted to be that school would be allowed to ban guns in outside areas but is not sure if this is correct because it, often, state gun laws do not consider areas such as sidewalks or parking lots to be premises where guns can be banned. The office of Senator Paxton has 180 days to answer Sen. Whitmire's question but that might not matter because the law will take effect in about 100 days anyway.

5. 700 people were killed and 800 people were injured by a stampede during a hajj pilgrimage in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Health Minister, Khalid al-Falih, has stated that the stampede might have been caused by unruly pilgrims unwilling to follow rules and guidelines that were implemented to keep people safe. I think the topic was well covered but they could've stated the probable cause of the incident earlier in the article because it was towards the end and I spent the whole article wondering what caused this to happen, which distracted me.

6. I think that the elements that make up an obituary are human interest, prominence, timeliness, and sometimes proximity and novelty but not always (it depends on who the person is). In an obituary, you read about the person's life, their accomplishments, significant things that happened to them, and who they're survived by (siblings, parents, and/or children). You might expect an obituary to tell you the circumstances of the person's death but it almost never says. I think that it's often a first assignment because it's easy to research and straightforward to write, which might actually make it a quite boring assignment too so it makes sense to assign it to an inexperienced reporter.

Humans of McCallum

"I don't think I've ever gotten an award. It doesn't bother me though. I don't need special recognition to know that I'm awesome."

Current Event Quiz 1.2

1A. Mike Perrin was asked if he would become UT's new interim athletics director on Labor Day. He was asked this because the old athletic director, Steve Patterson will be leaving the position soon. People have been unhappy with the way that Patterson has been running the department (and most recently with UT's loss against Notre Dame) and they're happy about Perrin's hire because he himself is a UT alum and played on the football team himself.

2.The CIA director, John Brennan, was on campus yesterday for the release of documents from both the JFK and LBJ presidencies. The release of these documents mark a shift towards a government more open to the public. The documents are accessible through the CIA's website. PBD is short for President's Daily Brief and it is a top secret document given to the president each day that is intended to give the president new information on issues that warrant his attention. It is the type of document that has been released and that the article was written about.

3. Hungarian security forces stopped immigrants at the border and and attacked them with tear gas and water cannons. As a result, immigrants are forced to take routes though Croatia, many of the areas they are walking through are littered with active land mines.

4. The student, a 14-year-old Muslim boy, brought a clock he had built himself to school to show his engineering teacher and it was mistaken for a bomb. School officials took him out of class for questioning before handing him over to the police, saying that it was inappropriate of him to bring something like that to school. Over half a million people, including President Obama, showed their support for him via Twitter, tagging their tweets with #IStandWithAhmed. This incident is suspected to be based on anti-Islamic sentiment, especially since the city council endorsed a bill last spring that would prevent judges from ruling based on "foreign laws", a law that has been deemed "unnecessary and driven by anti-Muslim sentiment." 

5. I first learned about the story on Twitter. I got a notification in math class telling me that #IStandWithAhmed was trending worldwide and I checked it out. I don't think social media is an incredibly reliable source for news because anyone can say whatever they want and I don't think it's very fair either because many times one opinion can overwhelm another. I would have placed the story on the front page because of it's proximity to Austin and the people involved, and also because I think that everyone should know about this because i think it just shows how intolerant the American people are towards other cultures and hopefully it might change some people's minds about Muslim people. 

Current Event Quiz 1.1

1. The two men assaulted a gay man back in 2004. Officials say that federal law prevents them from explaining the hiring of the two men despite their crime. Although it is never directly stated that UT knew about Darren Gay's arrest, it is implied that they did not, based on the inclusion of the statement "Hiring departments are permitted to request an exemption to this rule (inclusion of arrest records), which can only be granted by senior ‍university leadership in rare cases if they determine the hiring would not compromise campus safety.

2. The city of Baltimore reached a settlement of 6.4 million dollars last Tuesday with the family of Freddie Gray. The mayor supports it because "it is in the best interest of the city, and avoids costly and protracted litigation that would only make it more difficult for our city to heal and potentially cost taxpayers many millions more in damages." The related trial is still pending because, as says the press release concerning the matter, "the settlement does not resolve any factual disputes, and expressly does not constitute an admission of liability on the part of the city, its police department or any of the officers."

3. Vice Chancellor Sig-mar Gabriel has announced that Germany will accept 500 thousand refugees a year. Some people have accused Germany of causing immigrants to risk their lives at sea in order to receive the great benefits that Germany offers. Germany has responded to the criticism by reducing the amount of the cash handouts that refugees will receive. People are fleeing countries such as Syria and Iraq due to the war in the Middle East that has endangered their lives. Germany is one of the most generous countries that is accepting refugees, offering to take the most people (800k by the end of the year) and provide emergency housing and relief.

4. Ted Cruz invited Donald Trump to his anti-Iran nuclear rally. ted Cruz stands out among his fellow conservative presidential contenders with his refusal to criticize Trump. He says that his reason for inviting Trump is that his presence will bring media attention to the rally. Trump is not a "standard target" for Cruz because he has never held office, a type of politician which Cruz has frowned upon in the past.
 
5. Hillary Clinton apologized for her use of a private email account as secretary of state. This issue will likely continue to be in the news, as two Senate chairmen are entertaining the idea of seeking immunity orders for a former Clinton aide. Clinton has been co-mingling, or mixing, her personal and business life with the use of one singular account for both types of emails. She was also reluctant to admit her mistake back in 2002 during her time in the Senate, when she voted in support in the decision to invade Iraq.

6. The two John Jay High School football player had been suspended for attacking a game official. An assistant coach was also suspended for telling the two players “This guy needs to pay for cheating us.” The attack against the official was allegedly prompted by him using a racial slur towards the players and the assistant coach's comments.

7. In Olathe, Kansas, convicted killer of three and white supremacist, Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., was recommended the death sentence by a jury for his antisemitic crimes at a Jewish community center back in April 2014. Miller stated that he didn't care what his sentence was and that he wanted to kill Jews before he died of his chronic emphysema. It is currently unclear whether Miller will actually be subjected to the death sentence or not.
The story is strong in human interest (it was a shooting), unusualness (extreme display of antisemiticism in modern times), and currency (the article was published in today's paper). It is not strong particularly in proximity because the crimes and trial happened in Kansas and there is to mention of a relation to Austin. The article includes quotes from the District Attorney and other people who witnessed the trial, so first hand sources. I think that the story was well written but could've included more details.


 

Research Scenario Part 1

I would try to get access to the district website and see if the powerpoint is on there, either by myself or with the help of a teacher. If the powerpoint is on the website then I would try to get an interview with the people involved with putting it on there, such as the district superintendent or someone on the board of education because that means that the powerpoint was not created by the teacher and that the board of education could possibly support creationism. If it is not on the website, that means that the powerpoint was created by the teacher so I would interview their students and friends to try to get background info on them. I would also interview parents of the freshmen in his class to get their perspective and try to find a student who has a copy of the powerpoint so I could see it myself.

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