Current Event #12 ‘Man Survives 3 Weeks Alone After Alaska Cabin Burns Down’

Current Event #12

‘Man Survives 3 Weeks Alone After Alaska Cabin Burns Down’

Tyson Steele, age 30, survived three weeks alone in Alaska after his cabin burned down. His dog, Phil, died in the fire, leaving Tyson to fend for himself. A helicopter had circled ahead and saw a large ‘SOS” sign into the snow. After his family hadn’t heard from him in weeks, they asked welfare to go check on him, which was why the helicopter was circling the area. “The request is what alerted us to go look for him,” Ken Marsh, a spokesman for the Alaska State Troopers, said in an interview Sunday. “The S.O.S. might eventually have drawn a passing pilot to investigate, but hard to say when it had already been more than three weeks.” Mr. Steele, who had been living alone in Alaska since September, said he had purchased the property from a Vietnam War veteran. His closest neighbor was 20 miles away, according to the report. On the day of his rescue, the authorities said Mr. Steele sat at the Alaska State Troopers’ Aircraft Section Hangar at Lake Hood, drinking a hot cup of coffee, and looking every bit like the survivor of the ordeal he had just endured: His long hair hung matted and frayed over his neck. His hands were rough and ash stained. His beard reached his chest. 

I am impressed that Tyson Steele survived this major event that could have lead him to his death like it did his dog. He survived in the cold, without all his belongings that burnt in the fire, for a total of three weeks. Not only did he have to survive the cold but he had to survive all alone. It takes a lot to survive alone in the freezing cold.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/12/us/man-cabin-alaska.html

Current Event #11 ‘Why Is Puerto Rico Having So Many Earthquakes?’

Current Event #11

‘Why Is Puerto Rico Having So Many Earthquakes?’

For more than a week Puerto Rico has been trembling. An earthquake with a magnitude of 6.4 struck off the coast of the island. According to United States Geological Survey, the earthquake struck at around 4:24 at local time. This was after a week of small quakes, clustered in the same area. Three strong aftershocks, with preliminary estimates of 5.6, 5.2 and 4.5 magnitudes, followed Tuesday’s big quake. “Things are really very tense about what has been going on because this is not normal, so many tremors,” Mayor Nelson Torres Yordán of Guayanilla said. But why are there so many earthquakes in such a short amount of time? The North American plate is actually sliding under the Caribbean plate there, creating the potential for earthquakes and undersea landslides that can set off tsunamis. “They are converging at a relatively low rate in comparison to plate boundaries around the world,” Gavin Hayes said, a research geophysicist at the United States Geological Survey.

In 1918, an earthquake near the island’s northwestern coast triggered a tsunami that killed 118 people, according to the geological service. So maybe, the residents in the area should be a little bit worried. I would. But, it is unusual for the area to have so many major earthquakes at once. Some people who live there feel the need to move. I wouldn’t if I lived in that area. The geological survey has recorded 61 earthquakes of 4.5 magnitudes or within about 50 miles of the northern shoreline since 2009. That is a lot less than 6.4, which is one of the latest earthquakes. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/us/why-puerto-rico-earthquake.html

Current Event #10 ‘Gulf of Maine Warming is ‘Sneak Preview'

‘Gulf of Maine Warming is ‘Sneak Preview" of Future Global Climate Conditions’

While most of Maine’s East Coast is experiencing unseasonably warm weather, many scientists say that the reason for the very warm weather is a ‘sneak peek’ into what climate change could mean for Maine and it’s citizens. The Gulf is heating up faster than 99% of the world’s oceans, the Chief Scientific Officer at the Gulf of Maine Research Institute, Andrew Pershing has said. “We're warming at about four times the global ocean average,” Pershing states. “And so, that means we're kind of getting a sneak preview of some of the conditions that we expect later in this century that other ecosystems are going to see down the line." Global warming is also responsible for the decline of lobsters and really the lobster fisheries because of Calanus (zooplankton) are their population is going down. “Calanus declining is a really good sign that we're seeing an ecosystem that's switching from one that's more subarctic and subpolar into an ecosystem that's more temperate,” Pershing said. Lobster fisheries in Maine are some of the most value in America, in terms of money. The fisheries bring in a lot of money and because of the new global warming issue, bringing that much money is now another dilemma yet to be solved. “It's contributed to the decline of lobsters and essentially the collapse of the fisheries in Southern New England,” he said. “And so, we're really looking towards the future to say, at what point are we going to hit perhaps a tipping point and start to see catches decline here in Maine?” 

I believe that if Maine will be one of the first to deal with global warming, as we somewhat already are, then we need a solution. Pershing had said that scientists from Maine have an opportunity to come up with some solutions that might work and help mitigate the warming oceans the send them to other regions who will be dealing with the effects of global warming in decades to come. Maine’s oceans are heating up a lot faster than pretty much most places in the world, so, therefore, we need a solution really fast. Or we are going to have to deal with the consequences of not.          

https://www.publicnewsservice.org/2019-10-07/climate-change-air-quality/gulf-of-maine-warming-is-sneak-preview-of-future-global-climate-conditions/a67983-1

Current Event #9 ‘Two Americans Killed in Helicopter Crash in Afghanistan’

‘Two Americans Killed in Helicopter Crash in Afghanistan’Two American service members were killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, November 20th in Afghanistan. The cause of the crash is not known and under is an investigation. Though preliminary reports do no indicate that the crash was caused by enemy fire. A Taliban spokesman said that the helicopter was shot down in Logar Province at about 1 a.m. However, the militants often issue exaggerated claims, so that may not be 100% true. The identities of the two service members are not being released until the family members say they can be. It is unknown what military branch they were from, but-most likely-soon to be discovered. The two deaths brought the number of American service member deaths this year to 19. That’s the highest yearly total since 2014. That was when the Pentagon announced the end of combat operations in Afghanistan. More than a total of 2,400 American troops have died in combat since America came to Afghanistan in 2004. The most recent military death prior to Wednesday was Sergeant First Class Jeremy W. Griffin, 40, a Special Forces soldier from Greenbrier, Tennessee. The Pentagon said that he was killed by small-arms fire fighting with commandos in Wardak Province. Though the Afghan and American militaries don’t publish Afghan government casualties, it is estimated that nearly 50,000 Afghan military members have died in the past five years, sometimes 12 in one day. The United Nations reported that in the first nine months of the year, 2,563 civilians were killed and 5,676 were injured. I think that dying the way those US army members did is honorable, yet very sad. When you think of the number of American soldiers that have died in the past five years compared to the number of Afghan soldiers, we are considered somewhat lucky. In the past five years, 50,000 military members died. With their deaths, America now has 19 members of the military now dead from just this year.  https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/20/world/asia/Afghanistan-crash-Americans.html

Current Event #8 ‘Santa Clarita Shooting is Another Nightmare Made Real’

Current Event #8

‘Santa Clarita Shooting is Another Nightmare Made Real’

On Thursday, November, 14 a 16-year-old student that attended Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California opened fire at the high school at about 7:30. He pulled a .45-caliber semiautomatic pistol out of his backpack and started shooting.  Within 16 seconds he shot five students, at random, then turned the gun to himself. When the police and ambulance arrived they didn’t seem to know that the shooter was the person who had shot all of the students. They later found out, from video, what had happened. There were no rounds of ammunition left in the gun when found in the school. The shooter’s birthday was the day in which he shot five students. There were two students who died. A  16-year-old girl and a 14-year-old boy. The other victims were identified as a 14-year-old girl, a 15-year-old girl, and a 14-year-old boy. Lucy Gulley, 47 lives up the street from the high school. She was getting ready to take her younger child, 11, to his school, when she saw kids running. At first, she told her son that they were just playing around. She then saw the terror and panic in their faces. Lucy and her husband rushed several students to their home so they could call their parents. “It was very emotional,” she said. “You just automatically get into the state of mind where you put your child in that situation.”  

I believe that situations like this are horrible. I don’t think it is really possible to completely stop shootings at schools or anywhere. We can’t take guns away from everyone because that’s not fair. The school in Santa Clarita knew what to do during a lockdown. The students knew to muffle their sobs and to silence their phones. Of course, the practices are nothing like real life. I also believe that the shooter should go to jail. Maybe a mental hospital. Who knows the reason behind why he killed five people? I do not believe that he should go to jail for life. He should eventually be let out due to the fact that he’s only 16. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/14/us/school-shooting-santa-clarita.html?searchResultPosition=1

Current Event #7 "With California ablaze, firefighters strain to keep up"

Current Event #7

‘With California ablaze, firefighters strain to keep up’Hundreds of other firefighters charged up flaming hillsides in the middle of the night to battle a brush fire that exploded on the tinder-dry edge of West Los Angeles. Helicopters poured water on the hills to protect the priceless artworks at the nearby Getty Center as homes went up in flames. The fire crews on the ground began attacking the blaze to keep it from leaping across the street and taking out other multimillion-dollar houses. “It was pretty much chaos,” said Captain Arriola, a 34-year-old veteran of the fire department. Nearly four hundred miles north, more than 4,000 other firefighters rushed to take advantage of the brief pause in the scorching flames. There were two fires, to begin with, and they were starting to blend together, making it hard to tell where one end the other began.  I believe that wildfires are horrible and terrible because they are ruining animals’ habitats and our homes. Many homes were burnt in California, leaving people with no homes and nowhere to stay. Aminals lost their lives, as well as humans, did. I also think that people need to take more precautions when it comes to fires, not that this particular fire occurred because of the faults of humans. Some precautions that would be smart to keep in mind are: Dealing with campfires properly, discarding cigarettes in the right manner, playing with matches or fireworks.       https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/28/us/getty-kincade-fires-california.html

Extension Current Event: "Iranian Women Allowed to Attend Soccer Game for First Time Since 1981"

Women’s Rights Current Event

“What does Iranian soccer have to do with women’s rights?”

For the first time in nearly four decades, women in Iran have been allowed to buy tickets to sporting games at public stadiums. On October 10 thousands of women watched a football game in Azadi or Freedom stadium in Tehran. The football match itself didn’t make headlines, but the women in the crowd got quite some attention, given that that was the first game women were allowed to. Some of the women that attended cried and hugged their tickets, while others painted their faces with the Iranian flag colors, and used their cellphones to document their presence at the game. Soccer is also another game that many women wanted to see. Sahar Khodayari, 29, wanted to see a game so much, that she snuck into a game at Azadi Stadium. She was eventually arrested, sentenced to six months in prison. Sahar set herself on fire in front of the courthouse on September 2. She then died in a Tehran hospital later that week with severe burns covering 90% of her body. Her death sparked an outcry from Iranian and international soccer players. Many players are called for boycotts of soccer games until the ban on women attending matches is taken away. Blue is the color of the Esteghlal team, and as the news was spread, Sahar became known as, on social media, as “Blue Girl,” with a hashtag to bring awareness to the ban. 

I totally support women in Iran, and women all over the world, fighting for their rights. Though I’m not a big fan of sports, I would hate to be arrested just by going to a sports event. I believe it’s, honestly, stupid how Sahar,  22 years old, had to take such extreme measures to get noticed so that it would make people realize that women should be allowed to go to sporting events. Not only sporting events. Many women today, throughout the whole world, don’t have equal wages. Of course, it’s not as bad as it was, when women had no rights at all, but the fact that we still have to work or our rights is outrageous. We should have all of our rights from birth. Many women worldwide have already died to give us more rights and freedom, but here we are more than a hundred years later, and there is still unequal treatment towards women. 

https://america.cgtn.com/2019/11/04/what-does-iranian-soccer-have-to-do-with-womens-rights

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/10/sports/soccer/iran-women.html