All around the world, circuses travel and entertain people everywhere they go. Performers do flips, tricks, and balance on the craziest things. Something almost every circus uses is animals, which are often loved by children. 

Despite bringing huge success to the circus, people are arguing for animals to be taken out of circuses for multiple reasons.

When it comes to taming the animals, trainers use whips, tight collars, muzzles, electric prods, bullhooks and other painful tools to force animals to perform. Tigers naturally fear fire, but they are still forced to jump through fire hoops in some circuses and have been burned multiple times. 

Other than physically being abused, animals are also mentally abused. During the off-season, animals used in circuses are sometimes put in small traveling crates. The confinement has harmful psychological effects on them that are often indicated by unnatural behavior such as repeated swaying, and pacing. 

Virtually 96% of a circus animal’s life is spent in chains or cages. 11 months a year they travel over long distances in box cars with no climate control; sleeping, eating, and defecating in the same cage until they die.

Not only does this hurt animals though, it also hurts people. Since 1990, there have been more than 123 documented attacks on humans by captive large cats in the United States, 13 of which resulted in fatal injuries.

As animals everywhere get abused, the senate in Colorado is passing Senate Bill 125, called the Traveling Exotic Animal Safety Protection Act. “Circus animals often have quite difficult lives, and this bill aims to prevent exotic animals from being used in such a way here in our state,” Rachel Zenzinger, a Colorado state senator said.

Colorado is putting up a bill to ensure animals are being fairly treated. Circus animals are often abused and mistreated until the day they die. As time goes on, it only puts more animals in danger. Circuses should be discontinued if they continue to hurt animals.

In many places in the world, like America, Black women and men often face hair discrimination. On several occasions, they are denied work and opportunity because of their hairstyles and/or hair textures. Due to this, not only adults are facing mistreatment, but also children of African Descent. 

In a single week, three states around the United States introduced or advanced bills that would ban hair discrimination. Those three states are: Colorado, Minnesota, and Washington. All three states have a 3%+ population of African Americans and are becoming more open minded.

Colorado passed the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair, or CROWN, Act and their senate introduced the new bill the next day. Minnesota is considering the bill and was introduced to the bill earlier in the week. Washington state passed a bill that would prohibit employers and schools from discriminating against people over hairstyles and textures including: afros, braids, locks and twists.

At school, many people experience hair discrimination, like Texas student DeAndre Arnold. He was told that he was unable to walk at his own graduation if he didn’t cut his dreadlocks. His school only allows short dreadlocks and because his are long, they violated the school dress code. As of January 24, 2020, Arnold had to face suspension.

It’s not just Colorado, Minnesota, and Washington though. Other states like, California, New York, and New Jersey, were the first three states to pass the CROWN Act. As other states start to roll in and start accepting others, the CROWN Act is starting to thrive each and every day giving others the rights they deserve. 

By Jillian Armstrong

Most people have heard about the Iowa caucus, and even it’s results this year. Most people, however, don’t know why the caucuses are so important and the influence it has.

The Iowa caucuses are biennial electoral events for members of the Democratic and Republican parties in the state of Iowa. The Iowa caucus is regarded as an important indicator of a candidate’s likely success and it usually is the first among the nomination contests. 

You may be wondering why the Iowa caucuses are important and why they are in Iowa in the first place. Iowa is tiny, atypical to the rest of the United States, and provides about only 1% of the nation’s delegates. However, this doesn’t stop the state from being the first indicator of whether a presidential candidate’s support is holding up. The timing of the Iowa caucus provides candidates time to adjust their messages, which gives the state a large amount of power in elections. The Iowa caucuses give the media a tangible measure of candidates’ relative strength.

The Iowa caucuses’ importance can be seen in past electoral races. According to Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, the Iowa caucuses in 2000 played an important role in the ascendance of the Democratic nominee, Al Gore. It did the same thing for the election’s ultimate winner, George W. Bush. In 2008, former President Barack Obama took lead in the Iowa caucuses. This forged a path for his nomination and victory over his rivals. 

The Iowa caucuses are run differently from other primary elections. In primary elections, in other states, registered voters go to polling places to cast ballots. In Iowa, people gather at local caucus meetings to discuss and vote on the candidates.

The caucuses were run differently this year, a decision that may have backfired. Instead of local meetings, it was decided that an app would be used to make the experience “easier.” The apps showed irregularities and votes began to have to be counted manually. This led to a significant delay in determining the results. 

According to CNN, the eventual results of the Iowa caucuses showed Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders as front runners in the Presidential race, both carrying about 21% of the votes. Elizabeth Warren was not far behind in the race with about 18% of the votes. So, as the Presidential race continues, these three candidates should be paid close attention!

Minnesota is such a quiet place no one would think something like sex trafficking would be going on. It is known for teens to do risky things in the bathroom at malls and movies in Minnesota. But no one really knows if they’re forced to interact in these sexual encounters. There was a total of 28 victims forced into human sex trafficking last year during the “Final Four” in March of 2019, also sex trafficking is huge during the Super Bowl, which Minnesota hosted not that long ago. 

All 28 of those victims were rescued, including one minor, and there was a total of 58 men and women that were arrested for these crimes.

The average age of when a sex trafficking victim is first sold is 13years old. The ages go up to as high as 30 years old. One pimp of who was a sex trafficker, but ultimately was caught said, “The goal is to get the girls as dependent as possible. Mentally you’ve gotta burn into their brains you’re the only one…You’re god. Once you’ve got that down and they’re ready to work…Then you instal the fear…The wrath of god. If they mess up, there’s a price to pay, and they know it’s a heavy price.”

Most everyone knows about sex trafficking from what they see and hear in movies and the news but no one has ever sat down to actually listen to the victims instead of interviewing them to get famous off their stories.

So, as we conducted research, we went around to the students of Highland Park Senior High School and asked their opinions on the topic. We interviewed multiple students but only a few of these students’ opinions really stood out. The same two questions were asked: “How do you feel about human sex trafficking?” and “What are your emotions towards the victims that go through sex trafficking?”. 

Jerry Flores a sophomore attending Highland Park Senior High said, “Well sex trafficking is a controversial topic and isn’t well thought out or more of the less thought of. I feel that there should be more laws about how to compensate these families when going through these type of experiences.” 

Brianna Avalos said, “It has messed up young girls’ lives because they don’t experience things that everybody else does because of it.” She also said. “It makes me feel bad because they have to go through it everyday and they don’t have a normal lifestyle that a normal person would have.”

According to the U.N.-backed International Labor Organization (ILO) globally, it is estimated that up to 40 million people today are affected by this industry. In 2019 alone, per the Institute for Sport and Social Justice’s “Shut Out Trafficking” program, there were 2,907 individuals arrested, suspected or charged with human trafficking activities in the United States. More than 400 people over 18 years of age were rescued from being trafficked and nearly 115 children under age 18 were freed. There were 83 new laws passed and 483 community-based initiatives to fight human trafficking.

There are plenty of groups and organizations working and helping the police in different states to stop this crime from happening. So, if you, or anyone, are in need of help please don’t hesitate to call the National Trafficking Hotline at: 1-888-373-7888 or text “HELP” to Polaris Project’s BeFree Textline at 233733. And please take the information provided to you and spread the word; it’ll help a lot of kids and women. 

When it comes to serving one’s country, it took a lot to get women to where they are today. Throughout the years, women have been fighting to move up the ranks in the military. It took a long time, but finally, women can now enroll and serve their country in any rank or position. 

Women have always held a role in the United States military, however for the majority of the time, the roles never involved combat. These women who wanted to serve were confined to jobs as washwoman, cooks, medical caregivers/nurses, seamstresses, and laudresses in the 18th and 19th century. These military roles were mainly taken part during the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.

Once World War l came around, women still were mainly just nurses. However, the women not already working medical positions were to enlist in the armed forces. During this time, most still served in a voluntary area. A select few ended up being hired by different branches of the military for work and aide in clerical positions. 35,000 women and counting served in the army during WW I. 

During WW ll, women were once again recruited for the army. This time not only to be a nurse, or work in a clerical position, but to be hired as a weather forecaster, telephone operator, or linguists.

As time went went on, some faced a lot of hardships while being a part of the army. Congress decided to allow women to legitimately enlist in the Army of the United States. Because of the Women’s Army Corps, in 1943, women could attain a military rank and serve overseas. 

Women served valiantly in WW ll. They were mocked, sexually harassed, and stigmatized. Through all that, they served bravely and some received medals and citations of their contributions. However, every woman who served was not considered a veteran or given benefits.

A few years later because of sexism in the military, in 1948, President Truman signed the Women’s Armed Services Integration Act into law. This meant letting women serve as full and permanent members in all branches of the U.S. military. However, women were still restricted. This act limited the number of women who could serve. This left only 2% to be women in the military. At this point, it would take years to get women to where they needed to be equally. 

Slowly but surely, Women’s roles did expand from where they were. By the time it was 1970, women in the military could rise to command roles in non-combat units. Along with this, women and men began to train together.

In the year of 2013, women finally achieved full status in the U.S. military. They could now serve in combat roles. However, this did raise a new global question; should women be required to register for the draft? 

On November 14th, there was a school shooting that occurred in Southern California, in the Los Angeles metropolitan area, in the city of Santa Clarita. The school shooting occurred at Saugus High School and the suspect pulled out a gun from his bag and started shooting at students in the outside courtyard at around 7:40 A.M. right before classes began that morning.

The perpetrator was a 16-year-old, who was named shortly after the shooting, Nathaniel Berhow. Berhow shot 5 of his classmates and ended up killing 2 out of the 5 classmates he had shot, and wounded the other 3 before shooting himself. The shooting only lasted 16 seconds. The other 3 wounded students, whom were in critical condition were transported to nearby hospitals.

The shooter, Nathaniel Berhow, was transported to a nearby hospital as well but he was in grave condition. A day after the shooting, he was pronounced dead.

The LA sheriff, that was on scene, said that Berhow shot himself right after he began shooting the others, and that he doesn’t know what the motive was.

The Los Angeles Police Department and authorities went to Nathaniel Berhow’s home to see if there were any problems at home but there was none. It was Berhow’s 16th birthday and 2 of the other victims, that lost their lives, were were 14 and 16 years old.

The Los Angeles Police Department said that he used a .45 caliber pistol and there weren’t any bullets left. They also said that he wrote on his Instagram bio saying “Saugus have fun at school tomorrow.” It was taken down immediately after reports from students and others on Instagram that had seen it.

A 15-year-old sophomore at Saugus High School said that she kept running because she didn’t want to get hurt.

A 17-year-old student said that when he initially heard the gunshots, he used his metal water bottle that he was carrying as a weapon. Students also were hiding under their desks crying in fear. He also said that the school taught them to put a book in front of your chest.

Another high school student said that she was in the courtyard when she heard what she thought was “balloons popping” and she immediately found out that it was not balloons popping and that it was gunshots and immediately started running.

After the shooting, all the other schools in the same area of Saugus High School heard what was occurring at the high school and immediately went on lockdown and officials told others to lock their doors to stay safe.

Parents of students that attend Saugus High School and schools nearby insisted that schools to do more to insure safety in schools and have active shooter drills.

Classes at Saugus High School won’t resume until December.

This past decade, in the US, school shootings have been very common. The second most deadly school shooting, behind the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, just occurred 6 years ago, at Sandy Hook Elementary school, killing 27 people. The deadliest high school shooting occurred just last year in 2018 in Parkland, Florida, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School killing 17 people.

This shooting makes it the 373rd mass shooting in the US in 2019 alone.