Current Events Cheat Sheet

By Avery

I think that most college women want to be informed on current events and the news but they feel like they can’t. Log onto CNN.com or The New York Times website and there is so much information- what is the most important? The most current? What actually matters? What is relevant to me?

Well wonder no more, CollegeCandies, because every Monday I’ll be bringing you up to date on the biggest news stories in a quick, concise manner (just the way your over-stuffed college brain likes it). Now you’ll finally know what’s going on in the world without having to spend hours a day sifting through the breaking news

The town of Joplin, Missouri was devastated by a tornado. The level of destruction  is pretty unbelievable. One day, it’s the average American town, the next day, every house for miles is flattened. Even reporters who have seen it all have said they’ve never imagined anything like it. The tornado happened on Sunday, and workers have been spending the week trying to wittle down the number of people missing. As of Friday, that number was 156. The official death toll was at 132, making it the deadliest tornado in recorded history.

The co-founder of Pay-Pal announced that he’ll be paying students $100,000 not to go to college. Sounds like a sweet deal, right? It won’t be all fun though; they’ll have to do something with that money. Peter Thiel will give 24 students under 20 $100,000 to drop out of school for two years and build their own start-up companies.  His views on education are a little scary to hear- he basically thinks it is way overvalued in our society: “Education may be the only thing people still believe in in the United States,” he said “To question education is really dangerous. It is the absolute taboo. It’s like telling the world there’s no Santa Claus.”

In a ruling last Monday, the Supreme Court has ordered the state of California to release more than 38,000 prisoners. The 5-4 decision came after arguments that the overcrowding was a form of cruel and unusual punishment. In certain cases, about 200 prisoners were forced to live in a gym, and 54 shared the same toilet. Justice Scalia, who was against the decision, said that it was “outrageous” and “perhaps the most radical injunction issued by a court in our nation’s history.”

Did you see the cray-cray hat Princess Beatrice wore to Will and Kate’s wedding? Have you seen the Facebook page or internet meme it prompted? Did you know that one reason the President was worried about releasing pictures of Osama bin Laden was because he was afraid people would circulate it with this infamous hat on his head? I don’t know how Princess B felt about all the attention, but it seems that in the end it did some good. She sold the thing for $130,710 on eBay, with profits going to UNICEF and other charities in support of young children.

Pic o’ the week:

Crazy and dangerous weather isn’t only happening here in North America. In Colombia this week, intense rains have affected more than 480,000 people and killed 128. Here, a boat navigates a flooded farm on the outskirts of Bogota.