The Weekly What

The Weekly What is a current events blog that narrows news items into simple, understandable segments with slightly editorial comments.

by Audrey Carroll, photo courtesy of MCT Campus

 

First post of the new year! So far, 2015 is off to a pretty…weird start. Let’s catch up.

 

 Series of fatal attacks in France leads country to raise its terror alert to its highest level

What? It all started last Wednesday when a French publication, Charlie Hebdo, was attacked for continuing to publish controversial comics of the Prophet Mohammad. Twelve people were killed in that attack, including two police officers. There were three gunmen involved in the Charlie Hebdo attack. One turned himself in while the other two gunmen, who happened to be brothers, were killed in a shootout the following Friday, when they held someone hostage. The hostage was freed. The same day, a gunman who claimed he worked with the brothers held many people hostage at a market in Paris. Fifteen hostages were freed when police stormed the market and killed the gunman. The chase is not quite over yet though, because police are still searching for the widow of one of the gunmen, who is a suspected accomplice. The recent attacks have sparked a movement in France, and across the globe, in protest for freedom of speech rights called “Je suis Charlie” or, “I am Charlie.”

Je suis accablé.

Divers have retrieved the cockpit voice recorder of AirAsia Flight 8501

What? The plane crashed on Dec. 28 halfway from Surabaya to Singapore killing 162 people. About fifty bodies have been retrieved from the Java Sea so far. The flight data recorder was also salvaged by divers. The voice recorder is a key part to finding out why the plane crashed. The crash was caused by bad weather, but that’s all anyone knows as of now. Investigators say it could take up to a month to get a complete reading of the data and to determine what really happened during the crash.

They better put it in rice first.

President Obama makes proposal to offer  free college tuition

What? Obama recently made an announcement introducing his plan to offer two years of free tuition to community colleges. With the approval of Congress and the participation of state governments, the plan would help cover tuition and fees for students with an at least C+ average and who plan on completing their education program. The federal government would cover about 75% of costs while state governments take care of the rest. Grants and loans will still be available to these students to pay for extra expenses. “Two years of college will become as free and universal as high school is today,” Obama said. So far, there has been some backlash about potential failures within the plan but Obama plans to address these concerns in his upcoming State of the Union address.

“Get connected, for free…”

 

Knock Knock.

Who’s there?

DeCloud with another shipment of senior IDs.

A story I’m sure we all have heard by now. Seniors received photoshopped versions of their school pictures on a second ID card, some with changes as drastic as skin recoloring and changes in facial structure. Some students got pretty angry, because we just don’t stand for this kinda thing at STA, and the story was picked up by some pretty big news sources like Jezebel and Cosmopolitan.

At least America now knows how awesome STA is because we teach positive body image. Heck yeah.

 

(P.S. I’d like to apologize for not being consistent with these blog posts. We all get busy sometimes. I get really busy sometimes. I’m working on it.)