MAY 2019 NEWS RECAP
LOCAL NEWS:
LHS mock crash
This year, Lexington High School’s SADD (Students Against Destructive Decisions) club, which supports the “Above the Influence” movement, created a mock crash scenario for the entire junior class, with the help of the Lexington Police and Fire Departments, PTA, and LHS administration. Taking place on May 8th—before the junior and senior proms—the mock crash played out on Worthen Road and was meant to deter students from drinking or texting while driving.
Investigation involving racist language
On May 3rd, school officials in Lexington announced they have been investigating social media posts containing racist language. Lexington Public Schools’ Superintendent Julie Hackett noted that administrators are aware of these circulating posts among students on Instagram and Snapchat.
Spectrum Music closing
After 43 years of business in the Lexington center, Spectrum Music is officially set to close on June 15th. Co-owner Judy Kramer said that the decision to close was the result of different factors adding up over the years. Additionally, the rise of the internet has severely cut into their business of selling sheet music.
Brice Kapel returns to Lexington
On Tuesday, May 21st, French and Senegalese musician Brice Kapel returned to Lexington for a concert at Cary Hall, which featured Diamond Middle School French Students in an original musical production. This is Kapel’s fourth year visiting Diamond Middle School to celebrate ColoricocoLEX, where students taking French work with him to write new songs and perform some of his popular songs.
Discovery Day
Massachusetts Avenue was closed on Saturday, May 25th to make way for Lexington’s 40th annual Discovery Day. The event was sponsored by the Lexington Retailers Association and hosted by over 90 businesses and civic organizations
Upperclassmen
Junior Prom took place on Saturday, May 18th at the Burlington Marriott and Senior Prom took place on Saturday, May 30th at Lombardo’s. UMass Lowell hosted the senior graduation on Saturday, June 2nd. The seniors are also participating in the long-standing senior pranks tradition, and are advised by LHS administration to respect the school’s property.
Homicide of Lexington woman
Authorities have launched a homicide investigation after the body of a 49-year-old woman was found Thursday morning of May 30th inside an SUV alongside Worthen Road in Lexington. The victim, Shen Cai, was discovered behind the wheel of a white Honda CRV after she was last seen on Tuesday evening, according to a statement from the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office. An autopsy determined Cai died of multiple blunt trauma and mechanical asphyxiation, according to the DA. Cai’s husband, Hongyan Sun, is accused of killing her and was ordered on Thursday, June 6 to be held without bail awaiting trial. He pleaded not guilty. Cai leaves behind a daughter and a step-son.
BIG HEADLINES:
Abortion bans throughout the nation
Georgia, Ohio, Missouri, Louisiana, Alabama and Mississippi have recently passed extremely restrictive abortion bans. These “Heartbeat bills” ban abortion as early as six weeks into pregnancy, including a penalty of up to ten years in prison for those who perform an abortion. The new wave of restrictions challenges the Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision from 1973 that protects a pregnant woman’s right to choose whether or not to have an abortion. These abortion bans have sparked nationwide protests, and US District Judge Carlton Reeves has blocked Mississippi’s ban by issuing a preliminary injunction.
Jeff Bezos’s moon plans
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has announced a plan for a vehicle designed to land on the moon. Bezos said this was the first step to build colonies for humans in space, noting that “if we move out into the solar system, for all practical purposes, we will have unlimited resources.” His lesser known company, Blue Origin, has already built reusable rockets that aim to take tourists into space. The rocket “New Shepard” is planning to stage its first flight towards the end of 2019.
SAT adversity score
College Board announced a new scoring system that puts student’s SAT scores into context by providing colleges an adversity score, on a scale of one to one hundred, that summarizes disadvantages students have faced when growing up in troubled and impoverished neighborhoods. Many claimed the scoring system is imperfect and reduces the complexities of a student’s circumstances, but others argue that even an imperfect scoring system is better than failing to take into account difficulties students have overcome.
POLITICS:
President’s son subpoenaed
Donald Trump Jr. has been subpoenaed by the Senate Intelligence Committee, however, he is reluctant to comply. Trump Jr. has been urged by South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham to invoke his Fifth Amendment rights or to not appear at all to the hearing. The subpoena is likely motivated by inconsistencies between what came out in the Mueller report and an earlier testimony by Trump Jr. on efforts to build a Trump Tower in Russia.
Lindsey Graham
A social media campaign using the hashtag #LindseyGrahamResign has urged South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham to resign. This campaign follows attempts by Graham to urge Trump Jr. to ignore a legally binding subpoena issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee. Graham is quoted saying that Trump Jr. should “just show up and plead the Fifth.”
Trade war with China
President Trump's administration placed a ban on technology made by Chinese tech giant Huawei. Huawei is now prohibited from buying parts and components from US companies without the federal government’s approval. Economic analysts are afraid China’s reaction could be detrimental for American companies. This executive order is part of an ongoing trade war with China.
Rudy Guiliani & Ukraine
President Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani confirmed with the Washington Post that he met with former Ukrainian diplomat Andrii Telizhenko, who made claims that the Democratic National Committee worked with the Ukrainian government in 2016 to obtain damaging information on Trump’s foreign campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, who has been sentenced to over seven years in prison. Democrats have criticized Giuliani’s efforts, claiming that they are explicitly trying to help Trump politically.
LOOKING TOWARDS 2020:
Trump campaign rallies
Toward the end of his campaign rally in Montoursville, Pennsylvania on May 20th, President Donald Trump was interrupted by his supporters with “lock them up” chants. Trump responded with: “Well, we have a great new attorney general who’s going to give it a very fair look.” He then goes on to accuse his supposed enemies of “treason.” Trump further noted: “[American citizens] have always been loyal to this nation. Now you finally have a president who is loyal to you. It’s taken you a long time.” The “lock them up” chants were not the only time Trump’s fans called for imprisonment of his political enemies during his campaign rally. When Trump brought up Hillary Clinton earlier during the rally, his audience responded with resounding boos and “lock her up” chants.
Breakdown of Republican candidates
As of May, two Republican candidates have entered the 2020 presidential race: Donald Trump and William Weld. President Trump has shown interest in: restricting immigration and building a wall at the Mexican border; renegotiating international deals on trade, arms control and disregarding climate change; and withdrawing American troops from overseas. Weld, the former governor of Massachusetts and former federal prosecutor, favors fiscal restraint, free trade, and moderate immigration reform, and has endorsed steps to legalize marijuana. According to the New York Times, two other Republican candidates are likely to run: Larry Hogan, governor of Maryland; and John Kasich, former congressman and governor of Ohio.
Warren refuses to go on Fox News
On May 14th, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren accused Fox News of being “a hate-for-profit” operation that gives voice to “racists.” She noted that she would not participate in one of the network’s presidential town halls, which is a decision that some of her Democratic disagree with. Through explaining why she turned down the televised event, Warren explained that “[Fox News is] designed to turn us against each other…to provide cover for the corruption that’s rotting our government and hollowing out our middle class.”
Buttigieg slams Trump’s identity politics
Mayor of South Bend, Indiana and openly-gay presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg made waves on Wednesday, May 15th at an LGBTQ gala by criticizing President Donald Trump for embracing “peak white identity politics” and Vice President Mike Pence’s record on LGBTQ equality. At the gala, Buttigieg warned that “so-called identity politics” have contributed to a “crisis of belonging” in a country that has “divided and carved up” people of different backgrounds. These remarks attracted criticism from some people of color, as Buttigieg is a privileged white man with a Harvard degree whose presidential campaign has caught fire among white Democrats.
Biden’s place in the Democratic race
It has been over a month since Joe Biden entered the presidential race. In that time, he has gone from nominal front-runner of the top-tier Democratic candidates to the clear front-runner to be the party’s 2020 nominee against Donald Trump. Biden released a video on April 25th announcing that he was running, and two days later, the Real Clear Politics average of national polling on the 2020 Democratic primary put Biden at 29% to Bernie Sanders’s 23%, Kamala Harris’s 8%, and Pete Buttigieg’s 7.5%. May’s polling averages put Biden at 39% to Sanders’s 16%. Biden has changed the 2020 campaign race in just three weeks.
CULTURE:
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
The month of May is recognized as Asian Pacific Heritage Month, celebrating the culture of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. May was selected in order to commemorate the arrival of the first known Japanese immigrant to the United States on May 7th, 1842, and to honor the completion of the transcontinental railroad on May 10, 1869, which 20,000 Chinese workers participated in building. This tradition was started in 1978, when President Jimmy Carter signed a bill introduced by California Rep. Norman Mineta that called for the week beginning on May 4 to be designated as Asian Pacific American Heritage Week, which later became a month under President George H.W. Bush’s administration.
Game of Thrones ending
The series finale of HBO’s Game of Thrones was released May 19th. Many viewers are unhappy with the finale, with a petition gaining over 1.5 million signatures to get the concluding season remade.
Knock Down the House
The new Netflix documentary Knock Down the House follows four female candidates, Cori Bush of St. Louis, Amy Vilela of Las Vegas, Paul Jean Swearengin of West Virginia, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Bronx, New York, who ran in the Democratic Congressional primary in 2018. Of the women highlighted, only Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who receives the majority of the screen time, won her primary and later in the general election. The film brings to light the social, environmental, and economic problems that exist in politics.
James Charles and Tati Westbrook drama
Tati Westbrook, an influencer, vlogger, and owner of a beauty-supplement company, is feuding with her former friend James Charles, a fellow influencer and vlogger. Tati has posted a video calling out Charles that has amassed over 25 million videos on Youtube, resulting in James losing millions of subscribers on his channel and throughout his social media platform. The drama began when James advertised Sugar Bear Hair, a competitor to Tati’s beauty supplements. The video also contained allegations of James sexually harassing other beauty influencers who were not interested in him.
Gender-swapping snapchat filter
Snapchat has released a new filter that allows users to swap gender appearances. Many have viewed it as silly game, with others have critiqued it, as it makes light of the transgender experience. Some argue that the filter can be a therapeutic tool that leads to self-discovery, easing the transition of people struggling with gender identity. Snapchat has responded to criticisms, commenting that “our Lens design team is working...to ensure that on the whole these Lenses are diverse and inclusive by providing a wide range of transformative effects.”
WHOLESOME NEWS:
Royal baby Archie
The Sussexes, Prince Harry and his wife Meghan, have kept much under wraps about the birth of their first son, Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor, in the morning of May 7th. Both son and mother are very healthy. Speculation on where Archie was born has finally been put to rest with Fridy’s release of his birth certificate. On the certificate Meghan's job is listed as “Princess of the United Kingdom.”
Dad posts encouraging signs to lower suicide rates
In early May, Seattle man Colby Wallace launched the “You Matter” campaign to strengthen mental health awareness, engage conversations on the topic, and promote positivity. For the past few weeks, he has been putting up signs with words of encouragement along the sidewalks near his daughters’ elementary school in Queen Anne, Seattle. This initiative began after the 42-year-old father heard about four recent suicides in his county. “These were local high school students and no one was really talking about it,” Wallace told Yahoo News. The signs read: “You’re Worthy of Love,” “Don't Give Up,” “You Matter,” and “Your Mistakes Don’t Define You.”
Man graduates with degree from the same university where he worked as a janitor
On Monday, May 20th, Frank Baez graduated with a nursing degree from the same institution where he worked as a janitor. Baez, who moved with his family to New York from the Dominican Republic, was just a teenager when he started working at New York University’s Langone Tisch Hospital. “While working with the nurses, I realized I wanted to be one of them,” he told Good Morning America. “I learned how much they advocate for their patients and the passion they have for their job.” Baez was encouraged by the nurses he worked with to apply to NYU’s nursing program. He graduated with a 3.6 GPA, and is the first person in his family to graduate from college. “I could barely speak English at the time when I started working at NYU,” Baez said. “Now I reflect on it and I feel very proud of how much I accomplished.”
by ABBY SULLIVAN & EVAN LI