By: Caden Ligman

The Ford Motor company is one of the biggest and most well known car manufacturers in history. Since being founded in 1903 by Henry Ford, the company has only grown in popularity. Today, the FMC is the top selling car manufacturer in the US.

In 1896, before the company was founded, Henry Ford had already started developing Ford cars. The first Ford car to be manufactured and sold to the public was the Model T. The Model T was revolutionary for the car industry’s time.

The car was in such high demand that the company was forced to build a mass production plant in Kansas City, Missouri in 1911. As the popularity of the car continued to grow, another mass production plant was built in Manchester, England to keep up with international demand.

As the company grew, Henry Ford developed the assembly line. This method of assembling cars significantly cut down on the amount of time it took to assemble Ford cars, allowing the company to sell many more cars. Because Ford was selling so many cars so quickly, Henry Ford was able to pay his factory worker a $5 daily wage, almost double the previous wage rates. This only made the company more popular, especially among middle and lower class families.

Ford kept expanding, and in 1927, they started manufacturing the Model A, which replaced the Model T.

In 1932, Ford introduced the first Ford V-8. Not only was it for diversifying their product, but they were also making big moves elsewhere in the auto industry.

Ford bought The Lincoln Motor Company In 1922. Lincoln produced Ford’s luxury cars, which still sell today. In addition, Ford started selling Mercury cars which were medium priced and targeted at the middle class.

Overall, the Ford Motor company revolutionized the auto industry and made cars accessible and affordable for the middle and lower class. Ford is still a major car manufacturer and is the highest selling car company in America.

For more information, please visit:

• https://corporate.ford.com/about/historyhtml
• https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/ford-motor-company-incorporated
• https://detroithistorical.org/learn/encyclopedia-of-detroit/ford-motor-company

By: Ayane Jarso

Depression is a mental illness that over 246 million people worldwide suffer from. Typically, from what most people understand, they think of depression as sadness. It is that, but it is much more.

Depression can happen due to many things. A study in the ‘American Journal of Psychiatry’ found that men were more likely to have depression due to drug abuse, childhood sexual abuse, prior history of depression, and major stressful life events.

That being said, depression can also be genetic, and it can happen to anyone. A chemical imbalance in one’s head causes them to have this illness. So, in some cases, something might have happened to someone (see above list of trauma), or they just developed depression due to a naturally occurring imbalance. Some people may have gotten it from a parent, and in the future, they may possibly pass it on to their children.

The physical aspect of depression can cause major headaches, nausea, body aches, and other pains. It can also cause other illnesses such as diabetes, heart disease and anxiety. All of these other symptoms cause much more stress to a person that’s already dealing with the other effects of depression.

Depression in women can often be another story. According to MedicalNewsToday.com one in seven women suffer from postpartum depression, which happens after giving birth, and women have a 2 to 3 times greater risk of getting depression during the time after birth even if they have never been depressed in the past. Also, a woman’s chances of getting depression during the menopause transition is much higher.

By: Olivia Knafla

With the rising popularity of shows such as ‘Criminal Minds’ and ‘Mindhunter’, the idea of criminal profiling is growing more and more common. However, there are lots of misconceptions regarding how it works and why it is used. Today, I will let you know a bit about this subject and help you gain a better understanding of what exactly it means to be a criminal profiler.

According to ScienceDict.com, criminal profiling is: “A collection of inferences about the qualities of the person responsible for committing a crime or a series of crimes.” Profiling is relatively new in the science world and it rests between the worlds of law enforcement and psychology. There is some dispute on it’s accuracy and methodology, but it has been proven to work in the past.

For example, between the years of 1940 and 1956, Georgr Metesky was able to evade police capture while planting over 30 bombs throughout New York City. After reviewing some crime scene photos, James Brussel (an assistant commissioner of mental hygiene), was able to come up with an idea of how this offender would be like. He profiled that he would be an unmarried, self-educated man in his 50’s, who lives in Connecticut, and has some sort of a personal vendetta against Con Edison.

This may seem random at first, but when you look into it, things begin to make a lot more sense.

He was able to deduce that he was in his 50’s as paranoia tends to peak around the age of 35, and considering it had been roughly 16 years since the first bomb was planted, it would put the offender in his 50’s. Also, from a psychological standpoint, bombers tend to be loners, typically unable to hold down a steady job or maintain relationships with others.

With this knowledge and a geographical profile, investigators were led right to Metesky, who was caught and arrested in 1957, and immediately confessed to his crimes.

This is only one example that shows the way that criminal profiling is able to serve its purpose, which is to help investigators examine evidence from the crime scene more thoroughly and to create an offender description based off of psychological theories and trends. Many people believe it to be as much of an art form as it is a science, but at the end of the day, there is still a lot to be learned about it, and we are off to a great start. Profiling has contributed to investigations more than ever recently, and now is the perfect time to learn what it’s all about.

By: Jimmy Somerville

I am here asking the question: How likely it is to get robbed in your life in America? What are the odds?

According to the FBI website, FBI: UCR, robbery in America happens on average 150 times per year, per 100,000 of the population (in 2007). So the chance of being robbed in one year is 1 out of 667 so 0.0014%. Over a 4-year period, the chances of being robbed is out of 1 in 167 so 0.00598% (There are also many other variables that go into this. If you live in an area with a higher crime rate, the odds of you getting robbed increase, while if you live in an area with a lower rate of crime, the odds of you getting robbed decrease).

The average American lifespan is 78.5 years, so I rounded up to 80 and did the math. The odds of you being robbed while living 80 years in America (assuming you live  somewhere near the average of the average crime rate in America) is 0.11994%, according to my math. So, basically around a 1/10 chance you get robbed living in the average American town over 80 years.

Honestly, I thought the odds would be a little bit higher, but then again, I don’t know that many people personally, that have gotten robbed. I also wonder how much property needs to be stolen for it to be considered a statistic, and I bet some robberies go undocumented or unheard of. Maybe some people get robbed without even knowing it as well.

There’s a lot of information we don’t know, but that’s probably as accurate as we’re going to be able to get.

All of this is based off of data from 2007. Since 2007, the robbery rate has dropped 33% but
most people alive in America right now we’re alive quite a bit before 2007, as the median age in
America is 38.2 years old, so I figured choosing a statistic from an earlier time would be more
accurate for most people. The crime rate is always shifting so it’s hard to tell, but choosing the
statistics from 2007 made sense to me (it may not though).

Thanks for reading!

By: Elizabeth Woxland

Less than two years ago Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (known by her initials AOC) was a bartender in Manhattan. Today, she is the 28-year-old democratic socialist who unseated 10-term incumbent Democratic Rep. Joe Crowley (this also made her the youngest woman elected to Congress).

A brief bio of AOC, as reported by The New York Times reads:

She was born in the Bronx where half of the residents are immigrants, and 70 percent are people of color. AOC grew up with two working-class parents Her mother was born in Puerto Rico, and her father was from the South Bronx. She went to Boston University, where she studied economics and international relations. After graduation she took up bartending and waitressing jobs. The primary, in June 2018, was Ocasio-Cortez’s first run for office, but she had experience in politics. In college she worked for Democratic Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts on immigration issues, and she was an organizer for Bernie Sanders’ 2016 campaign. AOC promoted Medicare for everyone, tuition-free college, criminal justice reform and ending private prisons. She also supports immigration reform, specifically abolishing ICE. At the time, AOC argued that Crowley — a 56-year-old white man— couldn’t properly connect with this diverse district.

AOCs journey to become elected to Congress was not easy. According to Business Insider, Crowley had not faced a primary challenger in 14 years. He also had raised nearly $3 million for his re-election campaign and spent about $1 million, while AOC raised just $600,000. Since AOC rejected corporate donations, over 70% of her campaign donations were under $200, compared with 0.78% of Crowley’s.

Yet, AOC put in the time to introduce and make herself heard. Democratic strategists and AOC herself attribute a lot of her victory to her aggressive door-to-door ground campaign. “We won because, I think, we had a very clear winning message, and we took that message to doors that had never been knocked on before.”  In comparison Crowley, who lives in Washington, sent a surrogate to one debate to take on AOC in his place.

AOC won the Democratic Party’s primary election for New York’s 14th Congressional District on June 26, 2018, which soon would lead her to representing New York’s 14th District in the midterms, and becoming the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

By: Kayla Madison

*Note, this article may have material that could trigger individuals (suicide), therefore, we present a trigger warning here.

Mental health is a big deal, always has been. There are a variety of mental disorders, and while most can seem very similar, the two I’m going to talk about today are almost twins.

Borderline Personality Disorder not only affects your moods, it affects your personality, hence ‘Personality Disorder.’ Borderline Personality Disorder and Bipolar Disorder are both characterized, in part, by major mood swings. The similarity of the two mood shifts having extremely high highs, to very low lows, causes people and clinicians to confuse the two disorders.

Borderline is said to be characterized by: rejection-sensitivity, chaotic relationships, and difficulty in managing emotions. Most people think the stressor is a bad childhood, which can be it, but it could also be other things. If your spouse leaves you, you’ll tend to get depressed and that’s normal, with borderlines though, they are more reactive to relatively minor events and demonstrate contradictory emotions.

Borderline Personality signs:

• Fear of abandonment; they’re terrified of being abandoned or left alone.
• Unstable relationships; relationships get intense very quickly and are very short lived.
• Unclear or shifting self image; there is no clear idea of who you are or what you want. You may frequently change everything about yourself from jobs to even your sexual identity or religion.
• Impulsive/ self-destructive behaviors; you may start engaging in harmful, sensation-seeking behaviors such as spending money recklessly, doing drugs or drinking alcohol to ‘feel better.’
• Self harm; suicidal behavior and deliberate self harm is a common factor with mental illnesses.
• Extreme emotional swings; unstable emotions and moods these moods are intense but tend to pass very quickly.
• Chronic feelings of emptiness; you feel empty, as if there’s a void you have to fill, you may feel like you’re nothing or nobody.
• Explosive anger; you may struggle with intense anger and a short temper.
• Feeling suspicious or out of touch with reality; you lose touch with reality- dissociation. You struggle with paranoia.

Everybody has a mood swing or two but with Bipolar Disorder these are more severe. These cycles can last days, weeks, or even months. These mood changes can interfere with your everyday life such as your job or school performance. During a manic episode you may quit your job or spend huge amounts of money on useless items. During a depressive episode you might be too tired to do anything most days or be full of self-loathing and feel hopeless.

Bipolar Disorder Causes:

• Stress; stressful life events can be very triggering in someone with genetic vulnerability. These events tend to have drastic or sudden changes.
• Substance abuse; this doesn’t cause bipolar, it can bring on an episode or worsen the course of the disease.
• Medication; certain medications, notably antidepressants, can trigger mania, most over the counter medications can as well.
• Seasonal changes; episodes of mania and depression are sometimes caused by the seasons changing.
• Sleep deprivation; loss of sleep can trigger a manic episode even skipping a few hours of sleep.

So, what’s the difference? Well, BPD is a personality disorder that causes you to think, feel, act, and relate differently than those without it. Bipolar Disorder is a mood disorder, which is a category of illnesses that causes severe mood changes.

For more information, please visit:

• medicalnewstoday.com
• helpguide.org
• healthmatters.nyp.org

The Mandela effect is when a large group of people believe something happened differently than the actual way it happened, or when they think an event happened when it did not.

Several people think the Mandela effect is proof of the world going into an alternate dimension, while scientists believe that it’s proof of how imperfect and dotted our memory can be.

There are multiple examples of the Mandela effect happening. 

The Mandela effect started, and got its name, when Fiona Broome, a self-identified “paranormal consultant” remembers Nelson Mandela dying in the 1980s. Nelson Mandela lived until the year 2013. Fiona Broome remembers the news covering his death and his widow giving a speech. Which, none of it happened. Later, it was found out that multiple other people had the same thought as her and remembered the same things.

The Mandela effect happens because it’s said to be false collective memories. Those false collective memories are then spread amongst a large group of people. Although those “false” memories could also be real, and as you remember, it’s believed that the world goes into parallel universes. So, whatever you remember could be correct but in another dimension.

There are multiple examples of the Mandela effect.

A very common one was where people remember the Berenstain Bears as the Berenstein Bears. It was believed that it was Berenstein Bears and people have evidence of it.

Another example comes from Star Wars. It was thought that Darth Vader said to Luke, “Luke, I am your father.” In reality it’s “I am your father.”

The last one is where people remember the Monopoly man and how he had his monocle. It turns out, he never had one.

Vaping is very popular among teenagers in the United States and many other countries around the world. According to NPR, 5.3 million people are addicted to vaping. Teens who vape are way more likely to smoke cigarettes. 44,000 students who smoke took a survey and 37% who vape are seniors in 2018. The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse said that teens need to understand the consequences.

Vaping is known to be less harmful than smoking but it is still bad for people. Vaping causes people to get addicted to nicotine or drugs. Regular cigarettes have 7,000 chemical toxins in them but with e-cigarettes it is unknown. Vaping causes lung injuries and death according to the CDC because 60 people have died from it.  

Why do teens still vape when the media says that it’s bad? Teens believe vaping is better than smoking regular cigarettes. They also think it’s easier to vape because you don’t need a lighter. Teenagers like vaping because it doesn’t smell at all and younger people don’t like the smell of cigarettes. They also like vaping because of the flavorings. Teenagers mainly vape because they want to fit in with their friends and they don’t want to feel left out. 

How should teens avoid vaping? Teens should be informed about vaping at a younger age so that they are informed about it. If their parents or teachers explain to them at a younger age about the consequences, teens will have a strong hate towards it as they get older and they won’t want to vape. Teens should be aware about peer pressure because teens pressure each other to fit in. 

If a teen is vaping, what are ways that they can quit and avoid it forever?