The Week of 1/18/16 in a Glance

Hoping this week's news keeps you informed!

 

Never Let a Scientist Name Their Kid

by Rose Gotlieb

What’s new in the science world? Well, for all you pluto-lovers, sorry… Earth’s not only dumped Pluto, it’s found a whole new planet to replace it. You want to guess what this new planet is being called? Planet Nine. Yeah, there’s some real creative genius. Researchers realized there might be something there when they caught sight of a bunch of objects orbiting the same thing. According to those researchers, “Planet Nine” is ten times bigger than Earth and way past Neptune.

Flint Water Crisis

By Maddy Art

    Take a big gulp of delicious, clean, Massachusetts water as you read this - and feel lucky you aren’t being poisoned. Two years ago, Flint, Michigan was in a financial state of emergency. To spare water costs, Michigan decided to switch Flint’s water source from the Great Lakes (the largest collection of freshwater bodies in the world) to the Flint River. The process was scheduled to take a few years, but it would eventually cut down costs. However, the plan was not without (major) flaw. Citizens began to notice the peculiar taste and color of their tap water. The cause of the color? Iron. The Flint River has an unusually high iron content, and the water was not being treated correctly. If this isn’t bad enough, the lack of water treatment also allowed lead from service lines to intermingle with the water. In case you do not know, lead consumption or poisoning can be extremely dangerous, and lead to poor brain development. Lead poisoning is more of a risk for children, both because children are more susceptible, and because their brains are not finished developing. State officials have known since 2011 that the Flint River water would be unsafe unless treated, but did the people know this? No! Children’s blood tests show that lead levels have doubled since they made the switch. Now, people are suing the state government for keeping them in the dark, which led to the governour officially apologizing. Results and a solution to be determined, hopefully soon.

This Week in Immigration

By Owen Tucker-Smith

Most likely you already know about illegal immigration. And you probably know that in this day and age, it is happening a lot, way too much for many people’s taste. Undocumented immigrants have been spilling into America more than ever for the past few decades. To put it simply, Obama’s against deportation, along with many democrats, but many are for it. Obama wanted to throw away the current policy when he took the white house, but things didn’t all go as planned...

What is the current state of Illegal Immigration? As I said, illegal immigration is currently occurring a lot. In 2012, 11.4 million undocumented immigrants were living in this country. Of these 11.4 million, 52% were mexican, 15% Central American, 12% Asian, 6% South American, 5% from the Caribbean, and 5% from Canada and Europe. As more and more illegal immigrants came into the US, policies have been put in place to control these illegal immigration rates. Obama doesn’t like these policies.

What did he do?  More than one year ago, Obama realized that congress wouldn’t stand with him. He didn’t care. So he, alone, tried to use his own power to stop more than four million immigrants from being deported from the US. That’s where checks and balances come in. All those states that really wanted to deport those immigrants naturally got mad. They sued, and won. Since then, Obama’s really been wanting his actions to be saved. He doesn’t want these immigrants to be thrown out of the county, but to be able to work in the US legally.

Anything recent? Yes. Recently the supreme court decided to look back to last year and pick Obama’s case up. They will work to decide if Obama can or cannot carry out his plans in immigration, if lower courts made the wrong decisions a year ago. Most likely, the court will actually rule in June this year.

June? That’s pretty close to when we’re gonna elect another president! Very true. By the time the court rules, Obama will only have a couple of months to carry out his plans. His hopes are that a democratic president will rise into the White House and follow his footsteps. On the contrary, presidential candidates on the republican side naturally believe that even if the court rules in favor of Obama, a republican president will win and end these plans.

Reference 1: Liptak, Adam, and Michael. "Supreme Court to Hear Challenge to Obama Immigration Actions." The New York Times. The New York Times, 19 Jan. 2016. Web. 22 Jan. 2016.