Controversy of gay marriage in Costa Rica

By Natalie M.

Recently in Costa Rica, there was a tight presidential election between Carlos Alvarado, a labor minister and his opponent Fabricio Alvarado, an evangelical pastor. Although they have the same last name, they’re not related. Fabricio was against having same sex marriage while Carlos was a supporter of it.

After more controversy over whether people of the same sex should marry, new Costa Rican president, Carlos Alvarado, chose to be in favor of gay marriage.

Recently, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights started to require countries to respect rights of same sex couples. This is a court where human rights for individuals of American countries are decided.

This however, struck a chord in Fabricio Alvarado. Fabricio was very much against this new proposal, to the extent where he threatened to leave the court if he was elected into office.

Many Southern American countries have already legalized gay marriage while others still have not.

The two candidates are more similar than one would think– including the last name. They both had journalism backgrounds and are very passionate about music. Not only that, but the opponents had similar views on problems in Costa Rica, such as the unusual murder rate, or the country’s deficit.

At the end of the day, it came down to whether or not same sex marriage should be legal. With president Carlos Alvarado in office now, Costa Rica is favoring gay marriage.

Trump reaction entails outrage from the Parkland shooting survivors

By Celine P

Emma Gonzalez speaks to increase gun security

On February 26th, President Donald Trump stated in reaction to the sheriff’s deputies in Florida, that he “would have run into school during the shooting, ‘even if I didn’t have a weapon’”. He implies once again, that there could be one hero.

Trump has– as well as many other times before this incident– insinuated that he would be the courageous hero to save the day that the country so very needs.

This has attracted many critics. A survivor of the Florida shooting tweeted in response to Trump’s morning tweet-storm. “17 of my classmates are gone. That’s 17 futures, 17 children, and 17 friends stolen. But you’re right, it always has to be about you. How silly of me to forget. #neveragain”

Trump barely mentioned guns in his speech about the shooting, and later blamed the Democratic party in a tweet, for failing to pass gun control laws when they were the main power back in the Obama presidency.

One of the students who participated in the “Meet the Press” on NBC was David Hogg. Hogg vocalized his animosity towards Trump in an urgent request for change. “You’re the President,” he said. “You’re supposed to bring this nation together, not divide us. How dare you? Children are dying, and their blood is on your hands because of that. Please take action. Stop going on vacation in Mar-a-Lago. Take action. Work with Congress. Your party controls both the House and Senate. Take action, get some bills passed, and for God’s sake, let’s save some lives.”

In general, people were not very impressed with the president’s reaction to the Parkland shooting.

   

Austin Explosion

By: Wyatt B.

The people in Texas are officially living in peril! The fourth explosion in Austin occurred extremely recently, on March 19, at the FedEx distribution center. When the package exploded, nails and sharp metals came out. The bomb knocked an employee off of her feet, but nobody was killed. There have been four bombs in the last eighteen days in Texas! The police are positive that all four of these events are related.

The first explosion occurred outside of a man’s house. He was a father. When he opened it, the package exploded. The second bombing was also at a man’s house, but he took the package inside to open, and that was when his was detonated. Both men were killed by these horrific events.

For the third one, the bomber decided to go with a different route. The bombers set up a tripwire explosive that was attached to a “caution, children at play” sign. The explosive injured two bikers, but none were killed.

The police found themselves chasing the bomber the next day, and after forcing him to drive into a ditch, he detonated an explosive, and killed himself along with injuring one officer. Later, the police found that he had left a 25-minute confession message. The man had nothing going well in his life, so he decided to cause harm.

The people of Texas are asking each other why someone or some people would do this to them, but what we should be asking is what will we do to stop these horrific events from happening, President Trump?

The End of the World’s Smartest Man

By Jackson K

The world renowned scientist and the world’s smartest man, Stephen Hawking, has died peacefully in his house in Cambridge at 76 years of age. Prof. Hawking made his name on his work with black holes and the theory of relativity. He wrote A Brief History of Time in 1988, but he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease (ALS/Lou Gehrig’s Disease), a condition that crippled him at 21 years old. He was only given a few years left to live.

Even through the disease, Hawking survived and excelled in his studies. He was unable to speak except through a computer attached to his wheelchair. Hawking used his cheek movements to control his speech.

The physicist appeared on many popular TV shows like The Big Bang Theory, The Simpsons, and Futurama. He got his start around the 1960’s with his studies on Black Holes and the universe. “My goal is simple. It is a complete understanding of the universe, why it is as it is and why it exists at all.” His goal was to understand the universe, something nobody may ever get the privilege to do.

One of Hawking’s main accomplishments was his work on black holes. His prediction that black holes emit radiation is often called “Hawking Radiation”.

Stephen Hawking was one of the world’s most intelligent beings and his name may be placed along the lines of Albert Einstein. The loss of Stephen Hawking will be mourned, but he won’t be forgotten.

Instagram finally listens to years of complaints: your feed will be more chronological

By Anthony P

After enduring years of criticism for its unorthodox feed, Instagram released a blog post detailing changes to your feed in the near future.

One of the most common complaints about Instagram in its current state is how you see posts that are older appear higher in your feed than newer ones.

We asked an Instagram user about this, and they said, “[Instagram] should only put posts in your feed that are in the last 24 hours. If it’s longer than 5 days ago, it’s too old.”

This statement reflects the thoughts of many others; people have asked for Instagram to put posts in your feed in chronological order or at least closer to it for years.

The Facebook-owned company said in the blog that it is “making changes to ensure that newer posts are more likely to appear first in feed.”

This appeases many people’s complaints about the social media platform, but until the release of these features, nothing can be for sure about how well the company has done to satisfy users.

Another common complaint that was addressed in the post was how your feed automatically refreshes, bringing you back to the top of your feed. Instagram said that their solution is having “a “New Posts” button thats lets you choose when you want to refresh.”

Making cars and waging wars: Tesla’s recent affairs

By Anthony P.

Tesla’s newest release, the Model 3, awaiting the garages of over 500,000 people

     Employees working for the company at the stern of the electric car industry, Tesla Motors, already have enough to worry about with the rapidly increasing production of the Model 3, but that is not the extent of their worries.

     Over the past year, Tesla has been fighting a war against allegations made by workers and journalists. The company was accused of poor safety for workers at its factories and of “pervasive harassment” at the workplace.

     Tesla has been refuting these claims, both with blogs on the company’s website and with letters to its employees from its founder and CEO, Elon Musk. One letter from the tech mogul sparked some controversy after it was sent on May 31st 2017.

     The letter, called unsympathetic by many, told employees to be “thick-skinned” and accept people’s apologies for conduct like harassment, and to not do anything that you would be ashamed to describe to “someone you respect.”

     A blog written by Tesla’s team dated November 14 of the same year, published on Tesla’s website, defended the letter and tried to reassure customers that the company is against any form of harassment and takes complaints “very seriously.”

     Furthermore, two blogs have been published on the company’s website defending against the allegations of an unsafe work environment for factory workers at Tesla. One of these blogs, also written by Tesla’s team, says that the allegations are “a misleading narrative based on anecdotes, not facts,” while the other one, written by Tesla’s VP of EHS, Laurie Shelby, takes a more passive approach.

     She argues that the factory safety at Tesla, measured by the Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR), is on par with the industry average, and that the electric car company is constantly working on improving the safety.

     Shelby also adds in the blog that the company’s newest release, the Model 3, was designed with ergonomics in mind, meaning that they made the car as easy for workers to produce as possible.

     The TRIR number Laurie Shelby references is from the 2017 data. However, in years prior, the safety has been worse, notably in 2016, when the incident rate at Tesla’s Fremont factory was 31% higher than the industry average.

     Tesla is already a busy company in terms of business affairs, but with 33,000 employees and growing, more and more personal and public affairs are at the center of attention for the company as well.

     How long Tesla will stay at the top of the electric car industry is unknown, but this amount of time is lengthening because of how well the company manages to cover everything from fighting allegations to making groundbreaking new vehicles.

Gunman terrorizes Veteran’s Home in  Yountville, California on Friday

By: Celine P.

At 1:18 on Friday, the 9th, gunfire was reported at a Veterans Home in Yountville, California. The gunman, as reported by local media outlets, took three hostages.

The California Highway patrol has surrounded the building of more than a thousand veterans “We have activated our emergency response protocol and are cooperating with law enforcement,” the California Department of Veterans said.

Police are telling people to avoid the zone and risking themselves.

Yountville is a small town of about 3,000 residents, located in North California, near Napa.

Most citizens are not currently in town, because of the recent fires in October.

The three hostages have not been released yet.

 

Pyongyang Pink Place: A billion dollar tourism plan for North Korea

Tuesday, February 13, 2018

By Celine P.

Most children in the U.S. probably won’t hear “Alright kiddos! Who wants to go on vacation? How does North Korea sound? They have a new beach resort,” in the morning on their first day of Christmas break.

For those of us who know about Kim Jong Un, this sounds outrageous, but this is exactly what Kim’s shooting for.

Deep in the heart of the world’s most renowned nuclear bomb producing country, Kim Jong Un lies, as their leader. As most of the world knows, he has a slightly different take on life.

He’s known to take advantage of his position and holds the world for ‘ransom’ as he threatens to blow them all up with his abundance of nuclear weapons.

 

Recently, the “supreme leader” invested about a billion dollars in a tourism plan. This plan hopes to allure people from all around the world to North Korea.

There’s one itty-bitty problem with this. In North Korea, you have to treat their leaders like god’s gift to mankind. Gargantuan bronze statues sit directly in front of other huge white buildings. It’s expected of everybody to place fresh flowers at their feet. Plural. It’s looked down upon to place one.

So, maybe a person could convince themselves to go on a trip on their favorite rocket ship to the golden beaches of North Korea, but they run the risk of being captured for espionage and taken to prison to be tortured.

Wikitravel.org justifies this in saying “Those planning to engage in activities that the North Korean government forbids must be prepared to face imprisonment, torture, and death.”

Also on Wikitravel.org, is a warning. “Some governments advise against all travel to North Korea due to the uncertain security situation caused by North Korea’s nuclear weapons development program and related tension… if any emergency consular assistance is required, such assistance will likely be very limited.”

For most Americans, a billion dollars would not woo them into a vacation with a side of incarceration.

So a vacation to North Korea would be a very tense family outing. Thus, the parent who suggested such would probably follow up with, “Scratch that! How about Hawaii?”