Category Archives: News

Science/Nature

The world’s first picture of a black hole, and why it matters

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So, unless you’ve been living a prehistoric, or nomadic life, traversing from cave to cave on a journey for wild boar meat, you probably already know about how a group of astronomers, from something called The Event Horizon Telescope Project, have taken the first ever real, and (somewhat) clear picture of a black hole, from millions light years away, in the galaxy you’ve only heard the name of once known as Messier 87. You see the blurry orange circle, you compare it to its infinitely more interesting looking, not real cgi renditions, and think to yourself, why?

Why does it matter that we just took a picture of an orange circle from far away? Well, my ignorant, yet now thoroughly offended hypothetical reader, there’re lot’s of earth shattering scientific breakthroughs which are the result of this discovery.

Well, not only was this photo taken from 50 million light years away
which means, the light we’re seeing in this photo, is from millions, and millions of years ago. And to photograph something so impossibly far away, the team would need a telescope almost the size of planet earth itself, but the Even Horizon team, all came together and connected 8 different telescopes from around the planet, to combine their data to get an accurate image using a technique called interferometry. Which is such obviously a massive breakthrough as it shows that not only is our technology at THIS level, but it will just keep better as the years progress. And who knows what this could possibly lead to, for future generations.

But not only that, but the researchers say that, this whole thing, helps further prove the theory of Relativity, which was first talked about in 1915, by this quite obscure scientist, I dunno if you heard of him, his name was ALBERT FREAKING EINSTEIN, so basically, this means, he predicted that black holes well, exist, and that they have things called event horizons. And there were also tons of equations he came up with, which predict the exact size, and shape, of the black hole, based on its mass, and that’s pretty much what the image revealed. You can read more on this at space.com ( Yeah “space.com” I mean what else would you name it?)

So, if all this isn’t already enough evidence of the extraordinary feat of this black hole, from an entirely different galaxy, millions of light years away, being well, see-able. Then I dunno what to tell you. It might not be super interesting to see a blurry orange circle. But this “blurry orange circle” has extremely extraordinary implications, which will effect the way we view the outward universe for pretty much the rest of time.

And for this, we can thank Katie Bouman, along with many others in the Event Horizon team, but Katie Bouman was a very integral part, as sometime back in 2017, she led the work to create a specific algerithum which was used to generate the picture of the black hole. Before then, Bowman was then a graduate student, earning a PhD in computer science, and artificial intelligence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (a.k.a. MIT). And now, according to the guardian, while Katie is as-of-now, a post-doctoral at MIT, and is due to obtain a position as an assistant professor at the California Institute of Technology, she instead prefers to continue her work with the Event Horizon team, as it is her passion, and there is still much to discover, and much to learn, about this wide world we live in.

World

Julian Assange arrested

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By: Daniela Fernandez

On April 11, 2019, Julian Assange was arrested in London at the Ecuadorian Embassy. He was arrested for refusing to surrender to the court.

Assange is most well known for creating Wikileaks, which is a place where classified information can be illegally released for the world to know, according to NBC News.

According to CNN, Assange had been living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London since 2012 after seeking asylum there. He first seeked asylum there after being accused of rape in 2010, while in Sweden. On November 2, 2011, while in London, the High Court ruled that Julian Assange was to be extradited to Sweden for the accusations of rape against him.

Then on December 5, 2011, Assange petitioned the UK Supreme Court to have his extradition to Sweden revoked. On May 30, 2012, the UK Supreme Court came to a decision to finalize Assange’s extradition to Sweden.

A month later on June 19, 2012, Julian Assange applied for political asylum at the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. The UK then responded to this by stating that they can revoke Assange’s asylum and extradite him to Sweden. On August 16, 2012, Ecuador gave Assange asylum in their embassy, stating they were concerned about his human rights being violated by the UK extraditing him.

On August 13, 2015, Sweden dropped their case against Assange for sexual molestation, and unlawful coercion, because they had no more time to question him as their case had expired. Then on May 17, 2017, Assange’s rape charges were dropped by Sweden.

On July 27, 2018, the UK and Ecuador reported that they were talking about what was to be done about Assange. Then, on December 6, Assange denied the UK and Ecuador’s deal to let him go free.

Then, after many years of struggle between Ecuador and the UK, Julian Assange was removed from the embassy and arrested by the UK. Ecuador stated the reason for their decision was because Assange violated international conventions through Wikileaks. Wikileaks stated Ecuador violated international law by revoking his asylum.

Events

Easter: An overview

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This year Easter, which is a Christian holiday, occurred on Sunday, April 21. Each year, Easter falls on the Sunday after the first full moon in spring. Easter Day, for Christians, is the resurrection of Jesus from the tomb on the third day after he was put to death. The resurrection of Jesus is a way to renew hope that we have victory over sin. Easter is three days after the death of Jesus on the cross.

Easter is where many people do a period of fasting called Lent leading up to it, and many churches set aside time for repentance and remembrance. Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, and ends on Good Friday, the day that Jesus was put to death. On the day before Good Friday, there is a day called Maundy Thursday, considering to be the last supper/Passover Jesus took. Easter is associated with the Jewish holiday Passover, the Last Supper was a Passover feast.

During Passover, Jesus took bread, which represented his body, and shared it with his 12 apostles. The cup of wine they drank represented his blood. In present time, Passover observed by breaking bread and drinking wine, or as an alternative grape/cranberry juice. Breaking bread is simply having bread, without yeast, and breaking it into pieces among the people.  These rituals symbolize the sacrifice he was about to make in death, and this became the basis for the Christian ritual.

Easter Day is a time of celebration of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead. As time passed many secular ideas have been incorporated in this holiday. In present time Easter is celebrated as Jesus’ resurrection and/or to celebrate with the Easter bunny.

Another tradition is the Easter Bunny, that delivers candy and chocolate eggs to children on Easter Sunday morning. According to Country Living, the Easter bunny was a part of early pagan (non-religious) celebrations, and Christian missionaries had sometimes incorporated pagan ideas into their holidays. The two were combined to help promote their holidays to others. Historians believe it arrived in America with the German immigrants in the 1700s. The Easter bunny was at first the goddess of spring and dawn named Eastre, but was turned into a bunny by the Germans.

Eastre was celebrated because during spring, people celebrated the renewal of life and fertility. Eastre was associated with newborns and animals, and rabbits were known for reproducing rapidly, which created the concept of the Easter bunny.

For more information, please visit:

http://www.holidayinsights.com/easter/

https://www.crosswalk.com/faith/spiritual-life/undertanding-the-history-and-symbols-of-easter-1256039.html

Editorials/Student Voice, World

What’s going on in West Papua?

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If you’ve been reading the news lately, you’ve probably seen an article or two about what’s going on in West Papua, Indonesia, but most articles don’t give you the full idea, and not many people know the intense situation which is going on. Anyway, let me give you some background here from indonesiamatters.com if you don’t already know.

So, in the 1800s, there was this island called “New Guinea.” The British took the East half, and the Dutch took the Western half, and then it became a part of the Dutch East Indies. Then, in the ’30s, the former colonies of the Dutch East Indies all became independent except for Western New Guinea. But, in 1952, the Dutch prepared the people, for independence, for this remaining colony, and by the ’60s, the parliament of that part of New Guinea (now called West Papua) was formed, and the country created a national anthem, flag, and national seal.

 

Everything seemed to be going well until in 1962 when the Indonesian government started invading West Papua, and tried to push out the Dutch who were staying in the country, taking care of it before its total independence. The Dutch forces successfully stopped the invasion, but then Indonesia went to the Soviet Union for support, and because of Cold War anxiety, the US government tried to help out the Dutch in West Papua.

In August, later that year, an agreement was reached, in New York, between the Netherlands and Indonesia, where the UN gains custody of West Papua until they hold a vote. But, when the vote actually happened in 1969, it was said to be heavily rigged by the Indonesian government, thus making West Papua a province of Indonesia (two provinces actually).

Via worldpoliticsreview.com

Now, according to a paper put out by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the people, culture, language, and just overall heritage of West Papua is vastly different from the rest of Indonesia, as they are a Melanesian people, more similar to the many different groups within the bordering country of Papua New Guinea, which is VASTLY different culturally and linguistically from the South East Asian culture of Indonesia. The government is said to be trying to force Indonesian culture on the people of West Papua.

There are intense reports of brutal torture as described by a study in 2015: torture seems to be the unofficial form of governance. It is said that the Indonesian regime is not reluctant to use killing, surveillance, and arbitrary arrest to control the illegally occupied West Papua.

An example of this is when graphic footage was leaked to YouTube in October 2010. There are two separate occurring events which were captured in this footage. The beginning shows eight highlanders forcibly stripped naked in front of two Indonesian army soldiers. And while interrogating these terrified Papuans, and calling them “monyet,” “anjing,” or “bajingan” (monkey, dog, bastard), the soldiers kicked their heads with their edged boots, and hit their heads using their helmets.

The soldiers demanded that they would confess to being members of the OPM, which is an independence movement with the overall goal of freeing West Papua from Indonesian control. The latter half of the footage displays two people, with one having a knife to their throat, and another being burnt on his bare skin by Indonesian army men, as so the men would confess the location of OPM weaponry near their town. It was very public, and many people were forced to bear witness.

This is said to be a very frequent occurrence in West Papua, according to that study. Along with that, terrible Indonesian policies which cause environmental damage such deforestation, severely undermines the foundation for West Papuan society and culture.

Via freewestpapua.org

So, it would be evident to say that independence would be a fair option for these oppressed people of West Papua, and that’s what they are trying to achieve now more than ever. According to theguardian.com other Pacific Islander countries, such as Vanuatu, have shown support for the struggle against the oppression. And according to UNPO (Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization) almost 2 million residents of West Papua have signed a petition (which could have had more signatures if it wasn’t heavily kept away by the Indonesian government), practically begging the UN for equal, and fair independence, and self determination for the West Papuan peoples.

Sadly, according to theguardian.com, the UN denied the petition after all that, and said that it damaged the territorial integrity of Indonesia. I believe this is a violation of equal rights, freedom, and the democracy on which the very principals the UN were supposedly founded on. Though maybe, in the future, brave governments such as Vanuatu may eventually speak out loud enough, and take action. I believe that it is the UN’s duty, as a global peacekeeper, to find, and create justice for the West Papuan peoples, as they deeply deserve it.

Science/Nature, World

Oil spills – Part 3 in a multi-part series about the environment

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According to Marineinsight.com, an oil spill is when there is a contamination in the ocean due to oil being spilled, because of a accident and/or an error made by a human. Oil spills come in many different sizes. Climateiknterpreter.org reports that there are about 20,000 oil spills each year. These range from being small and quickly contained, to very large and taking a while to contain.

During the Gulf War, in 1991, there were about 240 to 336 million gallons of oil spilt. This happened because Iraq opened the oil wells and pipelines. This is was the largest oil spill, caused on purpose, history has ever seen. This spill affected the coral ecosystem and local fisheries.

Another large oil spill was the Deepwater Horizon plant spill in 2010. As reported by Telegraph.co.uk, this spill happened in the Gulf of Mexico. There were about 210 million gallons of oil that ended up in the ocean. This spill flowed for over three months: April 20, 2010 to July 15, 2010. This became the largest accidental spill in the history of the petroleum industry. This spill killed 11 men that were working on the plant platform, and injured 17 others. The leak was stopped by capping the wellhead after it spilled around 4.9 million barrels of oil – crude to be exact. This meant that about 53,000 barrels escaped each day. This affected the the marine and wildlife habitats, as well as Gulf’s fishing and tourism industry.

If you have a small vessel, there is a checklist to go through to prevent small spills. The first thing would be, tighten bolts on the engine. The bolts can loosen due to shaking while the engine is being used. The next thing would be, replace cracked or worn lines and fittings before they get lose and fall out. There is also a checklist for filling up your vessel. The first thing is to avoid overflows when refueling; you should know what the capacity of your tank and nosing you should leave room for the fuel to expand. The next thing is to use an absorbent pad to catch any drips. For more information about this, please visit: Responde.restoration.noaa.gov

World

What is the future plan for Brexit?

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By: Daniela Fernandez

What is Brexit? Brexit is the UK’s plan to separate themselves from the EU. The original plan was to exit the EU on March 29, 2019. Now, as this plan was rejected, the new deadline for Brexit is on April 12 if all goes well in negotiatios.

3 years ago, the UK voted for Brexit, and made Labour Party Representative, Theresa May, Prime Minister of the UK. With the UK’s plan for Brexit the EU stated that the UK would lose all of their trade benefits with them because they would no longer be a part of the EU. This would include their now trade benefits, such as having no taxes on products from different EU countries. An upside for the UK, with separating from the EU, is that they will now be able to have their own trade deals with EU countries since they are not allowed to have these deals under the EU according to CNBC.

March 29 was the day where Parliament would vote for Brexit. After the votes were counted it was determined the Prime Minister May’s plan was rejected once again after 2 other plans had also been rejected, according to CNN. The first time the plan was rejected, only 202 people were for the plan and 432 against, on January 15. The second vote was on March 12, with 242 for May’s Brexit plan, and 391 against. Then on March 29, the number of people who voted for May’s plan in Parliament was 286 against 344 who opposed.

On April 12, Parliament will again vote on the new Brexit plan. There are 2 ways this vote can go. One way is that if the plan is accepted then the government will try to make a decision on how to continue, and call for an extension on their plan. If the plan is rejected then Brexit will most likely be canceled, and the UK will have many options such as holding a general election on the plan or to continue May’s Brexit deal and have negotiations with the EU.

With all of this back and forth about the plan the plan for Brexit is unclear in the future.

World

New Zealand Massacre

On March 15, 2019, an Australian man opened fire in two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, killing 51 people and injuring 50 people. The shooter walked into the first mosque, Al Noor, where he started to live stream the attack on social media. The shooter claimed that he identified as a “white identity.”

That he killed these innocent people, all military style, with semi-automatic weapons, and assault rifles, are to be banned in New Zealand. Prime minister Jacinda Ardern made the decision because this was the worst mass shooting that had happened in the country’s history. Ardern said that the terrorist charged the killings to continue his attack, when he was interrupted by police.

39 people remain in the hospital, 11 who are in critical condition, and in intensive care units. A four-year-old girl, that is in critical condition, is to require multiple surgeries. Christchurch hospitals chief of surgery, Dr. Greg Robertson, said many of the victims will need multiple surgeries as well.

Ardern said that she will not say the killer’s name, “He obviously had a range of reasons for committing this atrocious terrorist attack. Lifting his profile was one of them. And that’s something that we can absolutely deny him.” Ardern met many of the families of the victims on Saturday, March 16. She said that authorities were working to ensure that the bodies could be identified quickly to allow proper Muslim burials.

Authorities in Australia and New Zealand have been asked why the suspect was not listed as a terrorist in the media watchlist. He was planning this attack for many years. The terrorist identified himself as member of a white supremacist group. It is believed that the terrorist was alone, but that there were at least two people helping him. The Christchurch police had two other people in custody, a man and a women, it was later confirmed that they were let go and didn’t have any connections on the attack.

People around the world were devastated about the attack and they couldn’t believe that people that were in a place of worship, that thought were safe, were killed. They were killed by someone who hated them, and for him to live stream the attack of killing innocent people from ages 3-70 was heartbreaking.

Many people were scared to attend the mosque and pray, but wonderful people ensured their safety, and while they prayed they stood behind them during prayer. Others also stood in front of mosque doors so that this will not happen again, in any other mosques in the U.K., U.S., etc., and that the Muslim citizens were be protected during prayer.

The news was devastating, and instead of saying “hopefully this doesn’t happen again, we need to make changes,” Jacinda Ardern made a change. She banned semi-automatic weapons so that something like this will never happen again. And that’s what a lot of countries need to do. Change starts with us.

National

The Green New Deal

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The Green New Deal is a plan proposed by Democrats, that is aiming to curve climate change and address economic inequality. It is named after Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal during the Great Depression, but with Green added on for the environmental part of the plan.

The Green New Deal has been gaining interest over the past few months, and on March 26, it was brought to a vote. The plan was shot down, but proponents of the plan are trying to pass parts of the plan as smaller bills. It has been estimated that we have 10 years left to fix carbon emissions or else there will be a catastrophic event.

Everybody knows what the Green New Deal is, but how does it actually work? The plan is to boost clean energy and infrastructure by offering incentives to those who will build the structures necessary for clean energy. This will hopefully make clean energy the first choice over non-renewable energy sources such as: coal, oil, and natural gas.

The plan also aims to tackle economic inequality by creating jobs for lower income people. These jobs would mostly be in construction, as all the new infrastructure needed for renewable energy will have to be built by someone. All the new building is supposed to stimulate the economy and help the environment.

The idea of a Green New Deal is not a new idea. It was first mentioned in columnist Thomas Friedman’s book Hot, Flat and Crowded in 2007. The idea was picked up by Obama in 2008, and by liberal groups in Britain, but in 2010, the Republicans won congress and the Tories (the conservative party in Britain) won Parliament, and the idea was lost.

The idea resurfaced in the 2016 election race when Jill Stein ran with her own idea of the Green New Deal and Bernie Sanders also had his own idea of the plan. Both of these candidates would eventually lose, but then in 2018, the Democrats regained the house and young, progressive, representative, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, reintroduced the plan and gained support from many progressive representatives. The bill was eventually killed, but the fight is not over and many representatives are pushing for other plans like it.

Science/Nature

Black holes

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Black holes are not just holes floating through space. Black holes are an area with massive amounts of matter squished in tiny areas. Because of all that matter stuck in a tiny area, the gravity that it releases is so strong not even light can escape. And since it even consumes light, that means that you can’t even see them. Scientist observe black holes by the effect on the surrounding area.

Black holes were predicted by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. According to NASA’s website, he predicted, “which showed that when a massive star dies, it leaves behind a small, dense remnant core. If the core’s mass is more than about three times the mass of the Sun, the equations showed, the force of gravity overwhelms all other forces and produces a black hole.” The first black hole was discovered in 1971.

Black holes have many weird properties to them that make them very unique. As was stated earlier, they are invisible, and they also take in all things around and tear them down to their subatomic level. According to a post on NASA’s Universe Forum, black holes also seem to slow down time around them. They are also predicted to release radiation; this radiation is known as Hawking radiation named after Stephen Hawking. Black holes leave this radiation theoretically until they completely evaporate.

Black holes are created when a large star dies. A star dies when it runs out of fuel for nuclear burning, and because of this the star collapses on itself causing a supernova.

After we are left with either a neutron star or a black hole. In order to get a black hole the core needs to be at least 3 times the mass of our sun, thus meaning if our sun went through this process it still wouldn’t make a black hole.

There are 4 main types of black holes which are: supermassive black holes, intermediate mass black hole, stellar black hole, and a micro black hole. The difference between all of these is their solar masses which can range from 5 solar masses all the way to an immeasurable amounts of mass. There is one other type of black hole, which is the most common one, which is characterized by its rotation, which is known as a Kerr black hole.

National

Mueller Investigation

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In the years of 2017-2019, Robert Mueller was doing a special counsel investigation against Russia. He was investigating their government to see if they had anything to do with the 2016 U.S. presidential election. A source said, on May 17, 2017, the investigation extent included the allegations that were linked to Donald Trump’s 2017 presidential election.

In 2019, the FBI (Federal Bureau of Investigation) started to look into the special counsel, eight days before Trump fired James Comey, who was leading the FBI Russia investigation. The FBI had a feeling that Trump and Russia were linked. The FBI were investigating Trump for obstruction of justice.Following the dismissal of Comey, 130 democratic lawmakers, in congress, called for the appointment of a special counsel.

The investigation resulted in the finding of dozens of instances of foul play by Paul Manafort. They found federal crimes, and at least eight guilty pleas led to convictions, possibly leaving him to serve 7 years in jail.

On Sunday, March 24, 2019, Mueller submitted his report to the FBI. The democrats fear that what they have read has already been made public in Trump’s favor.

The democrats demand that they see the full report made by Mueller. Attorney General William Barr said Mueller’s report cleared Trump of campaign tampering with Russia and criminal obstruction.

For more information, please visit:https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/29/politics/mueller-report-secrecy/index.html