U.S.
In 2022, San Francisco rejected Proposition A despite sixty-five percent of voters choosing to pass it. This measure would have allowed the city to fund improvements to public transportation, streets, and sidewalks. Unfortunately, a minority of voters – about thirty-five percent – voted against this proposition, leaving these vital aspects of San Francisco’s infrastructure untouched [1]. Cur...
U.S.
“Are you safe?” “Please be careful.” “I love you.” These are the messages that parents send upon hearing that their child is involved in a school shooting. However, in the case of the 2021 Oxford High School shooting, the mother of school shooter Ethan Crumbley texted her son “Ethan don’t do it.” While the parents of school shooters often share...
U.S.
As a result of rapidly increasing globalization, social media usage, and post-pandemic frustrations, the past decade has become one characterized by a surge in youth-led activism. College students, in particular, have expanded upon previous movements to advocate for an end to police brutality, the preservation of the environment, and justice more generally for marginalized groups both at home and ...
U.S.
Remeritocratizing College Admissions: Why Our Top Universities Must Require Standardized Test Scores
In just five years, the landscape of elite college admissions has undergone a sweeping transformation. From the striking down of affirmative action to the Varsity Blues scandal, the systems in place to determine our society’s next generation of leaders have been scrutinized under the microscope. The most drastic of these recent shifts, however, is the widespread adoption of test-optional policie...
U.S.
California faces yet another dangerous outbreak, but this time it is characterized by ski masks rather than surgical ones. From armed robbery to petty theft, crime in the state has been on the rise since the reversal of quarantine orders. This increase comes as a surprise from an economic standpoint, considering the forgiving nature of COVID-19 relief checks and payment suspensions. According to P...
World
In name, at least, the peace in North Ireland has persisted since the Good Friday Agreement. However, the core issues at the heart of the period known as “the Troubles” have not been resolved, resulting in legacies of violence, colonialism, and religious division. The subsequent complacency and misguided efforts towards reconciliation by the states involved have contributed to an absen...
World
As global political alignments shift and solidify, Latin America has become a particularly contested arena caught between the economic and political visions of the U.S. and China. Within this context, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has offered an opportunity to observe how the nations of Latin America navigate international disputes with weighty formal and informal alliances on either side of the...
World
Russian interference in the 2016 United States Presidential Election proved that foreign influence can threaten the fabric of our democracy. Both Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the U.S. Senate Committee on Intelligence found that Russia conducted an extensive campaign, involving efforts ranging from hacking confidential email servers to the use of bots to spread misinformation on social media,...
World
Walking into a local grocery store, you would not expect to see corrosive materials such as highly concentrated hydrochloric and sulfuric acids stocked on the shelves. These deadly substances, branded as necessary cleaning agents, are easily accessible and cheap in many stores in India. Yet, these “cleaning agents” are strong enough to melt down human skin and bone. Unsurprisingly, malicious p...
World
Introduction
Since 2011, Ethiopia has built a dam creating a reservoir that will eventually hold almost double the water of Lake Tahoe [1]. Recently, Egypt and Ethiopia have been in heated debates regarding Ethiopia’s building of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) on the upper Nile River. Fears have risen about an escalation of this conflict between the two nations which could turn bl...