Saks credit card user data hacked

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By KATHERINE CERAVOLO

Saks Fifth Avenue and Lord & Taylor, which are owned by Hudson’s Bay Co., were both reportedly hacked. Those affected include more than five million credit and debit card clients of these stores. Hudson’s Bay Co., has responded and stated it is working to solve the issue. The company has also declared it will compensate those affected with free identity protection services and web monitoring of the credit card information.

Gemini Advisory, a cybersecurity firm, explained that the hackers, known as JokerStash, took the data and put it up for sale on the dark web, causing this scandal to be the biggest attack on retail chains yet. The most cases of stolen information were in the New York and New Jersey locations of Saks and Lord & Taylor.

How this happened is the real question. According to the Gemini Advisory, the hackers installed unique computer codes into cash registers, sending every in-store purchaser’s information to their own computers. This explanation may be estimated because only in-store purchasers were affected while the online shoppers weren’t.

The news media are explaining what steps will be taken to ensure customer relationships and to fix the reputation of feeling safe to purchase at these megastores. The issue here is the fact that the hacking has supposedly been occurring for a year now. Why has this been able to happen? Focusing on the fact that fraudulent charges are probably unlikely, considering the purchasers of these stores buy expensive items, what are customers supposed to do when their identity is compromised?

The media need to inform customers of what is going on, as Hudson’s Bay Company is continuously investigating and enforcing regulations to prevent future situations and to keep customers’ trust. Providing a change in cybersecurity and communicating with customers is the best step to take for now.

The Rock latest celeb to talk depression

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By JUSTIN SOBELMAN

Continuing a movement that has seen a huge amount of growth in the past few months, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson became the latest prominent male figure to publicly share his experiences with depression.

Johnson is one of the most famous celebrities in the world and one of the most beloved (and a University of Miami alum to boot). He’s also famously strong and muscular, playing the hardened, badass character in many of the movies in which he stars.

Some people may see this news and say, “Who cares? Boo hoo. A multimillionaire is crying on his yacht, am I supposed to feel bad?” This misses the point entirely. Mental health is not based on one’s bank account and despite what some may believe, celebrities have an enormous impact on the public, especially young people. Johnson is an activist, philanthropist, and general good guy, so there are worse options for kids to mimic.

What Johnson’s story does is continue the conversation, allowing mental health to be discussed openly and without shame, not something that gets bottled up and ignored. The fact that he is a man, and a non-white man at that, is even more important.

Generally, famous women are the ones who share their stories about battling mental health, and in movies and television its usually women who deal with these issues. Of course, that’s perfectly fine, but as Johnson says himself, men have more trouble discussing their emotions and mental states. The social norm is for men to not show their emotions, and women typically are much more emotionally healthy as a result. Johnson shows that you can be a tough guy and have emotions, they aren’t mutually exclusive.

DeMar DeRozan, the Toronto Raptors All-Star guard, really got the ball rolling when he opened up about his own ongoing battle with depression, and he expressed support for Johnson. If an NBA All-Star and a world-famous actor can thrive in their field even with depression, that helps others realize that you can still be successful while dealing with a mental health issue.

Many of the responses to Johnson were like the one displayed earlier, expressing surprise that Johnson dealt with depression and happiness that they weren’t alone. Many news outlets covered this story, which helps to spread Johnson’s message even further. Hopefully, guys like DeRozan and Johnson become the rule, not the exception, and help us move toward a future where we can talk about our problems and heal them, not just hide them and let them eat away from within.

Tank fails at fertility clinic in Ohio

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By ALLIE SIMON

Called a “catastrophic” failure, a storage tank at an Ohio fertility clinic malfunctioned and resulted in the loss of more than 4,000 eggs and embryos this month. 950 patients were affected by the failure and have since had their childbearing plans altered.

The beginning of the newsletter issued by the University Hospitals fertility clinic. The full letter can be found at http://news.uhhospitals.org/news-releases/uh-fertility-clinic-update-patient-letter.htm.

According to a newsletter provided by the University Hospitals fertility clinic, the remote alarm system designed to alert employees of rising temperatures was turned off the weekend that the tank temperature rose.

The newsletter says that the clinic, “does not know who turned off the remote alarm nor how long it was off, but it appears to have been off for a long period of time.”

“We are heartbroken to tell you that it’s unlikely that any of the eggs are viable,” the newsletter said.

According to the letter, the clinic had recently come across issues with the auto-refill function of the tank, which fills the liquid nitrogen that preserves the eggs and embryos. Employees had been manually refilling the liquid nitrogen. The clinic claims that they do not know if the new fill process was affecting the temperature of the tank.

In an interview on March 21, cancer patient Elliot Ash said that he froze his sperm in 2003 before he underwent chemotherapy.  After getting married a few years later, Ash and his wife were able to use in-vitro fertilization to have a child in 2015. According to Ash’s wife, the couple’s “goal was to always give [their] son a biological sibling … it has been a rough few weeks.” The couple is “now unsure about their family plans,” according to The New York Times. The Ashs are filing a class action lawsuit against the clinic.

The newsletter issued by the clinic was sympathetic and deeply apologetic for the tank failure, but patients remain outraged and heartbroken. Jeremy and Kate Plants, a couple who lost their embryos, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper that they “had accepted that [their] embryos were lost, but [their] hearts still break for those who were holding on to hope that their embryos were still alive.”

Regarding the clinic, the Plants wrote, “why was nothing done before this disaster happened?”

The logistics of what actually happened are still being investigated.

Ice cream name offends religious groups

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By KATE JOHNSON

Canadian ice cream chain “Sweet Jesus” is being boycotted by Christians as it tries to expand across the United States. Some Christians claim the chain is blasphemous, uses the Lord’s name in vain and mocks the Christian faith.

A petition has been made on Change.org to urge the Toronto-based company’s founder Andrew Richmond to change the name of the ice cream chain.  It has more than 7,600 signatures.

“We, as Christians, are deeply offended by the name of a new ice cream chain of stores calling themselves ‘Sweet Jesus.’  This is a mockery of taking the Lord’s name in vain and also highly offensive to Christians,” reads the petition.

The ice cream chain uses upside down crosses on the labels of the ice cream cups and various ads for the company use well-known Christian symbols and language.

“One ad on the company’s website shows a Nativity scene, but instead of Baby Jesus, there’s an ice cream cone,” reads the online petition.  “Many of their ads are replete with cherished Christian and Catholic symbols that are used to mock faith, including a rosary, a crucifix with a corpus, and angels.”

One ad for the ice cream company reads: “Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain, but God [expletive] that’s delicious.”

Two Sweet Jesus advertisements (Photo courtesy of vigilantcitizen.com).

The ice cream company has 19 locations in Canada.  The company has a store at the Baltimore-Washington International Airport and is planning to open in other U.S. locations, such as the Mall of America in Minnesota, according to LifeSiteNews.

In covering the controversy, the Christian Post wrote an article condemning the ice cream chain and advocating for the cause of the petitioners. Their article included multiple quotes from various petitions calling for a name change.

“If anything could qualify as ‘hate speech,’ this is it! . . . Even if this were some innocent faux-pas, it would still be unacceptable!  However, this is anything but a mere mistake.  Both in their promotional materials and menu selection, it is plain to see that [owners] Richmond and Todai have every intention of mocking Christ and Christianity,” reads another petition on the Canadian site CitizenGo.

The Christian Post does not give equal coverage to both sides of the story. LifeSiteNews, another Christian news outlet, even launched its own petition condemning the company and demanding a name change. The end of the article includes contact information for the Sweet Jesus company founders.

“Faithful Christians follow the Second Commandment about not taking the name of God in vain. This means that God’s name should be used respectfully, as in prayer or in blessing. Anything else is misusing his name. Christians believe that Jesus is God and his name is holy.  St. Paul in his letter to the Philippians put it this way: ‘At the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow,’” wrote Dorothy Cummings McLean and Pete Baklinski for LifeSiteNews.

“I wonder what might have happened had the company been named ‘Sweet Muhammad’ and employed the same kind of plays on Islamic religious symbols as it does on Christian ones.  Mohammed Mud Pie anyone?  It would never have been tolerated.”

Secular news outlets have given much more equal coverage of the story.  The Toronto Star provided mainly facts in their article about who was opposing the ice cream chain and why.

“There are few things that feel more care-free than enjoying an ice cream cone, and Toronto-based chain Sweet Jesus servers up gigantic, Instagram-worthy soft serve cones – or blasphemy, depending on who you ask,” wrote Jenna Moon for the Toronto Star.

Along with several fiery quotes from petitioners against the company, the Toronto Star article also included the disclaimer issued on the Sweet Jesus’ company website.

“Our name was created from the popular phrase that people use as an expression of enjoyment, surprise or disbelief.  Our aim is not to offer commentary on anyone’s religion or belief systems, our own organization is made up of amazing people that represent a wide range of cultural and religious beliefs.”

CBC News, another Canadian news organization, wrote a short Web article that included many of the main quotes from the online petitions that the other stories have used.

Like the Toronto Star, CBC gave a very factual and much more equal account of the controversy surrounding the company name and advertisements.  CBC reached out to Richmond for a statement.

“We are conscious of the fact that, to some, our name can be off-putting,” Richmond told CBC.  “That fact is something we struggle with, because we sincerely do not wish to give offense or show disrespect in any way toward anyone’s personal beliefs.”

“After a lot of thought, we have decided that we will not make a change. Sweet Jesus is an honest reflection of our experiences and that of our customers and how they react when they try our product. In our experience, the majority of people understand that we’re not trying to make a statement about religion.”

The Huffington Post article about the petitions against Sweet Jesus focused on the variety of reasons the company was facing backlash.  They included quotations from many online petitioners, religious groups and YouTubers that spoke out against the company.

Sweet Jesus ad poster (Photo courtesy of LifeSiteNews).

“The first S in the word Jesus is a lightning strike, reminiscent of the Nazi style used by the SS, and the T in ‘SWEET’ is often shown as an inverted Cross on the company’s various products . . . We cannot remain silent while Our Lord is blasphemed,” wrote the Christian site Return To Order.

The Huffington Post also mentioned some non-religious reasons the company is facing condemnation and controversy.

“Others took issue with one of Sweet Jesus’ advertisements, because the child posing with ice cream running down her face looks similar to Jonbenét Ramsey, a child beauty pageant contestant who was murdered at age 6,” wrote Emma Paling for the Huffington Post.

Cosby begins retrial for sexual assault

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By ABBY LLOYD

Bill Cosby, the comic legend and “America’s Dad,” begins his retrial on sexual assault charges today, Monday, April 2 in Norristown, Pa.

Cosby’s first trial ended with a mistrial on the charges of drugging and sexually assaulting Andrea Constand, former director of operations for Temple University women’s basketball team. After the mistrial on June 17, District Attorney Kevin Steele announced that he would, without a doubt, retry Cosby.

In the first trial, Judge Steve T. O’Neill only allowed one accuser to testify– Andrea Constand. This was just one of the many women who came forward. However, in the second trial, the judge will allow up to five previous accusers to testify. This will increase the likeliness that Cosby will be guilty.

According to The Washington Post, there is a legal term called “Doctrine of Chances” that basically says the more times someone is accused of the same type of crime under the same circumstances, the less likely they were innocently involved in those situations.

Jury selection begins today for the process of picking 12 jurors to partake in this trial. During the first trial, after more than 52 hours of jury discussion for more than six days, Judge O’Neill declared a mistrial.

More than 60 women confirmed they were drugged and molested by Cosby. According to CNN, Cosby admitted he bought the now banned sedative, Quaaludes, to give to women he wanted to have sex with. Almost a year ago, Cosby confirmed in court documents that, “I meet Ms. [name redacted] in Las Vegas, and she met me backstage. I give her Quaaludes. We then have sex.”

We will soon see what the verdict will be for the second trial.

This story is covered on almost every small and large news station, from CNN and The Washington Post to People and WGAL-TV.

Space station crashes into Pacific

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By LIAM SHEJI

One of China’s greatest space marvels, the Tiangong-1 space station, has met its fiery end by re-entering Earth’s atmosphere on April 1, breaking up over the Pacific. The exact location of the crash is still unknown.

At the size of a school bus, the 8.5-ton space lab has been unmanned since 2013 and lost contact with the Chinese in 2016, following an apparent malfunction that ended communications with the spacecraft. The Chinese have not publicly stated what this malfunction could have been.

The Chinese originally planned to use Tiangong-1’s thrusters to guide the spacecraft harmlessly into the ocean, but after the apparent communications malfunction the space station has gradually been dropping lower as it passes through the upper atmosphere. Scientists predicted the station would re-enter the atmosphere anytime between March 29 to April 2.

“With our current understanding of the dynamics of the upper atmosphere and Europe’s limited sensors, we are not able to make very precise predictions,” Holger Krag, head of the European Space Agency Space Debris Office, said in a statement. “The high speeds of returning satellites mean they can travel thousands of kilometers during that time window, and that makes it very hard to predict a precise location of reentry.”

According to CNN, China’s Manned Space Agency said the space station crashed into the Pacific Ocean at 8:16 p.m. ET on April 1, with most debris burning up in the re-entry process. While the exact location of the downed space station is unknown, it is most likely located north of an area known as “the spacecraft graveyard,” an area of the Pacific where most space agencies try to put space craft down into.

News coverage that surrounded the Tiangong-1 re-entry was unprecedented, only becoming big due to the chance of crashing on land. While no one has died from being hit by falling spacecraft debris, one woman in Tulsa, Okla., was struck on the shoulder by a piece of a rocket fuel tank, but was uninjured, in 1997.

Parkland shooter sent sympathy mail

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By NATALIE NOISOM

It has now been more than six weeks since 17 people were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., on Feb. 14. The shooter, Nikolas Cruz, 19, committed the mass shooting with an AR-15 style semi automatic rifle.

Moving forward six weeks, it is now being released that the shooter is receiving letters throughout the nation from a majority of women, sympathizing for him. According to cnn.com, the letters even include a handwritten note signed by a Girl Scout troop stating
May God Forgive.”

The Broward County Public Defender’s office, where Cruz is being represented, released a statement claiming more than 200 letters have been sent to Cruz. Many of these people feel sorry for the perpetrator because of his background. By the time Cruz was 3 years old he was diagnosed with development delays. When he was 6, he witnessed his father die. A few months prior to the shooting Cruz lost his adoptive mother.

With the tragedies that occurred in Cruz’s life since he was a little boy, many see him as a victim. Dr. Robi Ludwig, a psychotherapist and commentator said, “Some people may be sympathetic to how Cruz has been portrayed..as a person with a lot of difficulties.”

Cruz is not allowed to see the letters as he has no access to engage with the news media. He is currently on suicide watch. Florida prosecutors stated earlier this month they are trying to seek the death penalty against Cruz.

New NFL rules met with criticism

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By BRENNAN PRUSAK

Football has long been one of the most violent sports in the country. Although rules have been implemented over the year to try and slow the speed of the game down and limit injuries, the recent prevalence of CTE in former players has caused the league to take drastic measures.

While helmet-to-helmet hits on a defenseless player have resulted in a 15-yard penalty and often a fine, NFL owners unanimously passed a new rule to give a 15-yard penalty to any player that lowers his head to initiate contact along with a possible ejection, defenseless or not.

Back in the 1950s, pretty much anything went in the NFL. Form tackling as we know it today wasn’t necessarily as ubiquitous when player like Dick Lane were running around the field clothes-lining opposing receivers or yanking them down by their face masks. In today’s game both of these techniques will result in a personal foul, but there weren’t any players barking about how it would change the way that the game is played.

Players across the league are not happy with the new rule, and thing that it could be disastrous for the sport.

“They better figure out a way to narrow down the interpretation of a foul here,” said offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz, who played eight years in the NFL. “The game is played too fast to determine on-the-field ejections.”

Richard Sherman, a corner for the 49ers, is also having a hard time figuring out exactly how he’s going to do his job this upcoming season. “It’s ridiculous. Like telling a driver if you touch the lane lines, you’re getting a ticket. [It’s] gonna lead to lower-extremity injuries.”

Sherman raises an interesting point here that the news media hasn’t fully embraced. While many members of the media have noted that this rule will likely reduce the amount of concussions in the sport, they fail to address the other injuries that will result from lower tackles.

Just last year superstar Odell Beckham Jr. suffered a season-ending injury when he was hit below the knees by a defender. This hit was scrutinized for week and labeled a dirty play, but if you can’t hit high and are a dirty player for going low, there is nowhere left to go.

“I don’t know how you’re going to play the game,” all pro corner Josh Norman told USA Today, and honestly, I’m not sure either. In a game where the low man always wins, being penalized for dipping your head will certainly result in some controversial flags and ejections.

Fox News show host mocks student

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By PATRICIA SANTANA

Fox News weeknight host Laura Ingraham is embroiled in a controversy after mocking Parkland student activist David Hogg’s college rejections.

Ingraham retweeted an article posted by right-wing website The Daily Wire with the headline “Gun Rights Provocateur David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied.”

“David Hogg Rejected By Four Colleges To Which He Applied and whines about it,” Ingraham commented in her retweet. “Dinged by UCLA with a 4.1 GPA…totally predictable given acceptance rates.”

Soon after, Hogg took to Twitter to ask his followers to ask companies who advertise during Ingraham’s show to pull their ads. Many of these companies, such as Hulu and TripAdvisor, have already listened to the public outcry and are now boycotting Ingraham’s show.

Ingraham has since apologized on Twitter for her comments. Hogg has not accepted her apology, stating that “an apology in an effort to save your advertisers is not enough” and that he will only accept the apology if Ingraham denounces the way Fox News has treated the student activists from Parkland.

Most of the drama in this story played out on Twitter. Ingraham’s initial comments and apology, Hogg’s responses and calls to boycott, and some companies’ statements of pulling their support were all tweets.

As a result, most news organizations have embedded many of the tweets in their coverage of the story. I found that the more tweets a news organization embedded, the more engaging I found the article.

For example, The Washington Post included the most tweets out of any of the articles I read, and I found that that was the article I enjoyed most. Being able to see the exact tweets allowed me to see the article Ingraham retweeted and click on it, making the story more interactive. It also made for a visually appealing article since the embedded tweets broke up the blocks of text.

Other outlets, such as The New York Times and CNN, included only one tweet. I found that decision puzzling given how much of the story played out on Twitter and it made the stories a duller read.

I also found that embedding the tweets made the articles flow better, since tweets can be very awkward to quote due to their conversational nature and usage of links and hashtags.

Patients seek cause of glioblastoma

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By KRISTIAN DEL ROSARIO

In Fort Pierce, more than a dozen people have been diagnosed with glioblastoma. This disease affects about 13,000 people in the U.S each year. It is an aggressive and deadly form of brain cancer.

In this town of just 45,000 people, patients and their families want to know if there is something leading to their illness.

Eleven patients or surviving family members met each other through word of mouth over the last year and realized some interesting common trends. They live at most seven miles apart, the majority are within five miles of each other, and some lived on the same street at some point.

In one of the cases two patients even lived in the same house through over a span of 20 years. The 11 current cases that have been discovered were diagnosed within the last 5 years affecting people younger than three years old all the way to their 70s.

These families being affected are struggling immensely with financials and the bills are piling up.Some have paid more than $50,000 since their diagnosis.

The goal of these group of people is to find out whether or not there is an environmental factor making them sick.

Most of the glioblastoma patients have moved to new homes over the years and The Florida Department  of Health in St. Lucie County recently met with the support group of glioblastoma patients.

They will be offering them any available services due to the overwhelming amount of payments some patients have.

This story was covered in a very informational manner with lots of research on the people involved in the case. I feel like this story could be perceived as weird and crazy, but once reading it, I noticed it’s not just irony.

Final Four teams meet this weekend

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By JABARI WILBON

By now, everyone has seen the year’s Final Four in the March Madness tournament: Michigan, Villanova, Kansas and Loyola-Chicago. For many brackets, the first three were not a surprise at all. Michigan has been hot for the past month, beating Michigan State and Purdue to win the Big 10 Tournament. Kansas and Villanova have been consistent powerhouses and consistent No. 1 seeds during the past five years.

Loyola-Chicago on the other hand is the Cinderella of the year, being the No. 11 seed and still making it to the Final Four, beating several good teams to get there, including University of Miami with a buzzer-beater in the first round.

Coverage of the tournament as a whole has been heavy and consistent for the past two weeks. Stories have been put out by each school’s own newspaper about their chances and their performance in the tournament.

Coverage has been heavy on TV as well, especially in the last week leading up to the tournament. ESPN has been talking about the final four a lot, especially “First Take” the sports talk show with analysts, Stephen A. Smith and Max Kellerman. The two have talked all week about who they think will advance to the championship and who will come out on top.

The two have also talked about if Cinderella teams like Loyola-Chicago are helping or hurting the tournament. Stephen A. Smith made it well-known that he did not want Loyola-Chicago to be in the final because he wanted the best to be in the championship. He is fine with Cinderella teams because they are good stories, but when it comes down to the final, he would prefer a match-up between big schools.

USA Today put out an article at the beginning of the week previewing the game between Villanova and Kansas. The article talks about what each team needs to do in order to win the game. It also talks about each team’s path to the Final Four and how it will affect their play in this game.

An article was put out on ESPN.com this morning on how each Final Four team can be beat. It goes one by one for each school and gives details about their weakness and how their opponent can exploit that.

An article came out about three hours ago talking about how Loyola-Chicago was staying in the same hotel as Russell Westbrook in San Antonio, where the Final Four is this year. NBA star Russell Westbrook told the team to go win it since they already made it this far.

Overall, the coverage for the Final Four has been great and the reporting for the Final Four as a whole as well as each specific team has been great for reporters across the countries. The Final Four starts on Saturday and we will see who advances to the national championship game.

MIA introduces facial recognition

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By DREW COHEN

Traveling is such an amazing experience. Whether it’s traveling to visit friends in snowy Canada, or going on a beach vacation in the Caribbean, the experience is great. There is one thing, though, that many, if not most, travelers don’t like and that is the dreaded TSA security line.

If you’re lucky, the line won’t be long, and if you’re traveling to an international destination, forget about it. The process with international travel is a long and dreadful one. Not only are the TSA lines brutally long, but the customs and immigration lines are quite frustrating. Personally, having the patience of a second grader doesn’t help either. When I was home watching the NBC6 news, I saw a story about new facial recognition technology at the busy Miami International Airport, and I had to do my research.

Late last month, Miami International Airport introduced new facial recognition technology in its newly renovated E Concourse. The E Concourse (also known as the international concourse) is the busiest concourse at the airport. The new technology hopes to speed up TSA checkpoint times and airport safety.

Miami airport officials believe this new method of airport safety will spread across the country and even the world. The new technology is able to screen as many as 10 passengers per minute. One may ask, how will this new facial recognition system work? The answer is actually very simple. The camera will match the traveler’s face to the traveler’s passport.

This will shorten custom lines and make international travel safer and faster. Another pondering question many, including myself had to ask was “Is this safe?” Customs and Border Control authorities could not stress enough how safe the facial recognition system was, and said there were no risks whatsoever.

Immigration lines will still be long; however, if you have global entry, the process should be a breeze. Global entry should be on every international traveler’s to-do list for this year. I myself have global entry, and it makes immigration and customs a piece of cake. The next time you’re at Miami International Airport, check out the new facial recognition system in Concourse E, and say cheese to the camera.

TESS to take over Kepler’s mission

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By AMANDA TORRES

On April 16, the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, will launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. TESS was created by NASA and its main goal is to search for exoplanets. According to CNN, officials said Wednesday that TESS will search for planets that can sustain life, much like Kepler did since it launched in 2009.

After discovering more than 4,500 potential planets and exoplanets, Kepler will run out of fuel soon. Luckily, TESS will have arrived in space by the time that happens to continue the search for exoplanets. CNN stated that Kepler “will be abandoned in space, orbiting the sun and never getting any closer to Earth than the moon.”

To have a mission that outlives two years, TESS is expected to orbit around the Earth through the use of fuel and a gravity support from the moon. The mission will officially begin when TESS has an established orbit around Earth and when it passes instrument tests 60 days later.

Although similar in mission, CNN included the differences that Kepler and TESS do have. TESS will be able to “survey an area 400 times larger than what Kepler observed.” The area will also have 200,000 of the brightest stars. TESS will have four-wide cameras that will, for days at a time, take pictures and videos of the sky.

Through the transit method, TESS will search for exoplanets by detecting the brightness dips of stars as planets pass in front of them. NASA is predicting that TESS will find more than 1,500 exoplanets, but also think that TESS could find much more.

According to CNN, officials believe that out of the 1,500 possible exoplanets found, 300 could be similar to Earth or double the size of Earth, with the potential to support life outside of our solar system.

George Ricker, the TESS principal investigator at Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, said that “we expect TESS will discover a number of planets whose atmospheric compositions, which hold potential clues to the presence of life, could be precisely measured by future observers.”

With Kepler, it was discovered that there were more planets than stars. TESS will reveal even more of those planets, allowing researchers to have a better understanding of the differences between these planets and whether they have the potential to sustain life.

Stephon Clark shooting sparks outrage

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By SOPHIA CONSTANTINO

The March 18, 2018, police shooting of unarmed Stephon Clark has sparked outrage throughout Sacramento, Calif.

Earlier this month, a 22-year-old black man, Stephon Clark, was shot and killed by two Sacramento police officers in his grandmother’s lawn. The officers approached Clark regarding a call about breaking car windows. They proceeded to shoot him with no less than 20 bullets, killing him at the scene, according to The Washington Post. The police claim they thought Clark had a gun, only a cell phone was found at the scene. A video capturing the incident can be viewed on CNN.com.

The shooting has since sparked protest, demonstrations and calls for prosecution of the officers responsible. In a meeting on Tuesday set to discuss the incident, residents packed Sacramento City Hall. The meeting lasted 2.5 hours, as it was continually interrupted by chants and emotional demonstrations of outrage. In a CNN.com video, Clark’s brother, Stevante Clark, can be seen standing on the information desk and beginning a chant of “Stephon Clark,” during the meeting.

In a now viral demonstration, activist Berry Accius held up his cell phone in similar fashion to Clark, encouraging the council meeting attendees to do the same. He demanded of Mayor Darrell Steinberg, “Does this look like a gun?”

Body camera footage shows the officer’s yelling “gun,” in response to their allegedly thinking Clark held a gun, though footage shows that the officers failed to declare themselves as police before firing 10 lethal shots each at Clark. According to The Washington Post, more than five minutes passed before police called for medical attention, allowing Clark to die on the scene.

The California Department of Justice announced Tuesday that it will oversee a police investigation into the shooting, while Steinberg stated, “A 22-year-old man should not have died that way,” according to The Washington Post.

News media are still trying to piece together the details of the incident, releasing updated content as promptly as new details come to light. As the case progresses, news media attention shifts to the suspicious delay in calling for medical attention. On a national level, it brings the Black Lives Matter movement back to the media forefront.

Ultra Music Festival becoming safer?

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By ANDREA ILLAN

Despite the negative coverage in the past few years, Miami EDM music festival, Ultra, received comparably more positive coverage this year, as it is considered to have been relatively safe when compared to other years.

The music festival takes place every spring and has seen extreme amounts of arrests and deaths of festival-goers through its history.

On its 20th anniversary, however, CBS Miami reported that Miami Police only arrested 27 people on the account of Ultra in the three days of the festival.

Additionally, the Ultra Music Festival security director referred to this festival as “one of the safest.”

This is not only favorable for festival-goers, but it is also great news for the people that live around Bayfront Park, which is where the festival takes place every year.

This time of year is usually stressful for homeowners of the area, as some have confessed to news outlets that they leave their Brickell homes every year during this time. But coverage focusing on positive aspects of the music festival, such as this CBS Miami story puts homeowners at ease.

This article also reports that the arrests were mainly related to fake tickets and the use of drugs. While these subjects are to be taken seriously, they are considered to be minor offenses compared to what has been seen in previous years.

If Ultra Music Festival continues to become increasingly safer as time progresses, the festival can become a completely safe environment for people to enjoy EDM music free of risk.

The article can be found at: http://miami.cbslocal.com/2018/03/26/ultra-music-festival-edm-miami-crime/

Boss of Nasser failed to protect patients

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By GRACE SMITH

The arrest and conviction of Larry Nassar, the former Michigan State University and USA Gymnastics doctor who abused more than 200 women over his career, is one of the largest sex abuse scandals in U.S. history.

William Stampel (Staff photo, Michigan State University).

Now, his boss is under fire.

William Strampel was dean of the College of Osteopathic Medicine and oversaw the clinic where Nassar worked.

He failed to enforce proper examination room regulations he set in place following an accusation against Nassar in 2014, which required doctors to have a chaperone present whenever they examined “sensitive” body areas.

This allowed Nassar to continue to abuse his patients. Even in the midst of the sexual abuse investigation in 2014 Stampel allowed him to return to work and did not inform the rest of the Osteopathic Medicine Department of his new regulations. He stated in 2017 he did not feel the need to check to see if Nassar was following these new rules because he felt he had been “exonerated” by a investigation by the university and the police.

Strampel’s work computer contained more than 50 photos of female genitalia, nude women, sex toys and pornography, as well as an extensive collection of female “selfies” of MSU students, most likely pulled from social media.

Most worryingly, there was also saved video of Nassar “performing a ‘treatment’ on a young female patient. Forsyth, who was hired by Michigan’s attorney general to investigate the university, would not discuss the photos on the computer or how Stampel may have come in possession of them.

Outside of Nassar connections, Stampel has also been repeatedly accused of sexual assault by young women around MSU.

I am always skeptical when it comes to new coverage of sexual assault and its victims. If the news media aren’t implying blame on the victims, they are often sensationalizing the stories and jumping the gun on accusations.

However, I was pleasantly surprised by this story’s coverage as well, by extension, the coverage of the Nassar case. The news media were mindful when discussing Nassar’s victims and even seems to hold the 200 testimonies against him in high regard. These articles were no different.

There was very little wild speculation over who was a victim and rather drew the lines that prosecutors and investigators had within their statements. They mirror Nassar’s actions against Stampel’s work as dean to create a timeline and connect events. Even articles with pointed tones still lay out the facts and list the defense’s claims, even if it would be easy to immediately condemn him in the wake of Nassar.

Google, Facebook store private data

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By JUSTIN SOBELMAN

What does privacy mean in a social media-infused world?

Not much, as it turns out. Most people are aware that big tech companies, like Google and Facebook, harbor a good chunk of data on its users, but the extent to which they do so might surprise and frighten some.

Dylan Curran, a web developer from Ireland, decided to reach out to these companies and ask them for all the information they had on him. What he saw prompted him to launch a firestorm of tweets this past Sunday, and it gets creepier the further you venture into it.

As one might imagine, this discovery proved to be quite the bombshell. Curran appeared on CBS News today to discuss.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/how-facebook-google-keep-tabs-on-you/

Curran found that Facebook alone stores all information that comes from users of their service. Naturally, that makes sense, it’s their platform and they would want to collect data from their users.

The truly scary part comes when Curran says that Facebook stores your contacts, call records and text messages from your phone, not from the Facebook app. This means that even though they don’t have permission, this huge corporation has all your private information.

Google’s freakiest privacy breach is likely their location tracking. While it’s amazing to be able to drive somewhere you’ve never been before without using a map, you may not realize that when you use a service like Google Maps, your location stays on unless you manually turn it off.

According to Curran, every time you turn on your phone, Google receives your current location and the time you were there.

That’s just scratching the surface. Curran’s exposure of how these tech companies keep tabs on us is going viral. Facebook has already responded, saying that they will “update” their privacy settings “in the coming weeks”.

While that sounds nice, many critics have highlighted how Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made these types of promises before, only to back away from the situation after the controversy of the time dialed down.

Here’s to hoping that this newest storm will actually create something better.

Heineken slammed for racist ad

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By KATHERINE CERAVOLO

Oh no, Pepsi 2.0 is here. Heineken released an ad that showed a bartender spotting a light-skinned woman drink a glass of wine. He quickly grabs a Heineken and passed it down to her, but before it arrives, the bottle passes multiple dark-skinned people.

This issue can be previously seen in the Pepsi Co. ad featuring Kendall Jenner, who stops a police barricade with a can of soda. This ad received some of the most negative, traumatizing backlash a company has yet to experience. Critics from all over the world criticized the soda company for mocking true events that happened in the world regarding the Black Lives Matter movement. The ad was denounced from a respectable person as well: Dr. Martin Luther King’s daughter, who posted an image on social media of her father in the middle of a peace protest, captioning: “If only daddy would’ve known the power of #Pepsi.”

Heineken’s damage has received backlash from the hip-hop star Chance the Rapper, who tweeted that the ad was “terribly racist.” This tweet was one among many that denounced the ad and the company.

Most coverage of this issue is focused on the content and the people who criticized it. However, what about Heineken’s past and the company’s values showed before this ad.

For example, last year, Heineken released an ad called “Worlds Apart,” which contained the tagline “open your mind, open your world,” and showed people from all over the world with completely different viewpoints and beliefs, discussing their differences over a bottle of beer. This campaign gained an immense amount of attention and support, completely opposite of the “lighter is better” campaign.

Although it is difficult to forgive, critics must remember to cover all possible tracks before jumping to conclusions about a company. Heineken may have made a huge mistake, but the company has proven its acceptance for all races and people in general.

Scientists find a new organ in body

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By ABBY LLOYD

Scientists believe they have found a new human organ that could possibly help to better understand its impact on diseases like cancer and how it spreads through the body. This new discovery could change lives by having a better understanding of diseases.

The organ is called interstitium, which is a series of interconnected, fluid-filled sections found in the body. Scientists found the interstitium in various parts of the body including the lungs, arteries, bladder and digestive tract. The interstitium is the body’s biggest organ; however, not all experts are convinced, according to CNN.

Dr. Neil Theise, professor of pathology at New York University Langone Health, who was a co-senior author of the study said, “I think it’s bigger than the skin, my estimate is that 20% of the volume of the body is this [interstitium].” The skin is roughly 16 percent of your body mass, which has been known to be your largest organ for years.

Doctors knew that the interstitium was in the body, it is not technically a “new” organ. However, they previously believed that it was a dense connective tissue. Now with updated technology, they can view what is truly there. The interstitium is basically acting as a “shock absorber” that allows our organs to swell and compress as we breathe, eat, and live.

Space station to make crash-landing

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By ALLIE SIMON

A Chinese space station that was launched in 2011 has begun a spontaneous crash-landing towards Earth. The station is expected to crash on Earth’s surface within the next few months.

Illustration of the Tiangong-1.

The Tiangong-1 space laboratory, nicknamed “Heavenly Palace,” weighs 8.5 tons and has begun its downward spiral towards Earth. According to CNBC, pieces as much as 100 kg could potentially crash onto Earth’s surface.

Chinese officials say that the space station’s functions failed after two years of orbiting Earth.

Jonathon McDowell, a Harvard University astrophysicist, claims that scientists will only be able to predict where pieces of the station will come down a few hours before it happens.

Current predictions, according to ABC News, have debris from the Tiangong-1 hitting the surface anytime between March 29 to April 2. The majority of the station will supposedly burn up on it descent to Earth, but it is possible that some debris will make the journey to Earth.

Information on the falling station is extremely vague, despite that the potential landfall is just days away. Chinese officials have not given much information on what exactly happened to the station since it ceased functioning on March 6, 2016.

Instead, researchers and scientists have been making assumptions about the impact of the fall. According to CNN, researcher Alan Duffy claims that “China’s secrecy around the space mission made the risks difficult to assess.”

CNN claims that the last space station that fell to Earth landed in the ocean. The first U.S. space station that ever fell landed in a part of Australia that was hardly populated and injured no one. The falling of the Tiangong-1 is similar to the space stations that fell before it and poses little threat to humans. Researches claim that the odds that the debris will damage ground activity is “very low”.

Only few types of materials could withstand the plasma in space. If titanium, makes the journey, according to CNN, it could fall to Earth.