Politics Today

The United States Postal Service announced that it will now send black and white photo images of your mail. This new system is called informed delivery and will email you the pictures by 11:pm on the day that it is suppose to be delivered. It is currently only offered in New York and northern Virginia, but they hope to expand in 2016.

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Recently a petition has called for U.K. home secretary to banned Donald Trump from the U.K. This is because he has allegedly violated their hate-speech laws. So far the online petition has received 100,000 signatures. According to an independent the issue may be up for debate in the House of Commons.

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During the month of December the unemployment rate holds steady at 5.0% and average hourly payment increased by an average of 4 cents.211,000 jobs were added in November. Since so many jobs were created in November it is expected that the Federal Reserve will raise its interest rates for the first time in over a decade.

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The House speaker, Paul Ryan, admitted that Congress may not meet their deadline December 11 deadline to fund the government. He stated that they may be extending the current budget a few more days in order to come to a consensus on the budget for the year ahead.

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In a recent speech, presidential hopeful Donald Trump is calling for a shutdown of muslims entering America. He sees the hatred and believes that until we can figure out the source of the hatred behind radical muslims we can not allow and muslims at all into the country.

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On Sunday,  conservative Mauricio Macri was announced to be the new president of Argrntina. This came after he promised business friendly reforms that would help the struggling economy. He won in a close election by 53%. His policies are similar to the ones prior to the economy crisis that threw millions of people into poverty in 2002.

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A Turkish airlines plane was flying from New York to Istanbul was diverted to Canada because of a bomb threat. Police have declined to comment on this and say that they are looking for the people involved. The plane landed safely and there were no threats found aboard, but bomb dogs are scheduled to sweep it.

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On Sunday night, 16 people were wounded at a park in New Orleans. There was a music video shoot going on when two groups started open firing. Ten people were taken to the hospital and six others were escorted to vehicles. The cause of the shooting is still unknown.

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On Tuesday, Bobby Jindal ended his presidential campaign. Jindal has remained in the back of the pack since he announced his campaign in June. Since he has not seen any increase in support, and has consistently been televised on the secondary GOP debates he has decided it is not his time to become president.

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Iran Political Parties

1.) They are a theocratic Islamic republic governed under the constitution of 1979. Theocracy is a form of government in which a deity is recognized. Officials are appointed not elected. Offices and bodies hold the real power in the government.  The President is Ali Khamenei. There is a parliment of Iran that is comprised of 290 members elected for a four year term. There is also a Guardian Council which is composed of 12 jurists. These jurists include 6 clerics appointed by the Supreme Leader and 6 elected by the parliament majiles from the Muslim jurists nominated by the head of the judicial system. Finally there is the expediency council which mediates disputes between the parrliment and guardian council.

2.) There are 76 parties in Iran.

3.) Two are considered major, the conservatives and the reformists.

4.) Out of the 76 parties in Iran, 64 of them are exiled.

5.) There are 6 ideological branches in which the parties are divided into, communists, Socialists and social democrats, Ethnic nationalists, Muslim- Democrats, Liberal Democrats and Secular Nationalists, and Anti islamic Nationalists.

6.) I learned about how the government was structured. I realized that they were always ruled by an elected official, but I did not know that they had legislative branches or any sort of elected officials.


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Friday the 13th at least 129 people were killed and 352 injured in the terror attacks in Paris. All of the terrorists inside the concert hall were eventually killed by police, and France is tightening its boarder control to look for further accomplices. The President has issued a state of emergency. There were multiple places attack but the worst place seems to be the Bataclan theater where hostages were held.

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Salt Lake City Utah is about to elect its first openly gay mayor. 3/4th of the canidates have stated that they do not believe that her sexual orientation with have an effect on the race for the office. A poll showed that 12% stated that her sexual orientation made them more likely to vote for her and only 10% said the opposite.

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In 2010 a 9/11 health and compensation bill was passed. This bill was eventually compromised because some republicans were skeptical of it. It was recently discovered that in the compromise somewhere between 11.5 and 14.5 billion dollars were cut.

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The Senate approved the National Defense Authorization Act on Tuesday. The bill prevents money from going to transferring prisoners from Guantanamo Bay and building facilities to put the prisoners in once they get here. This hinders Obama's promise that he would close Guantanamo Bay.

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This past weekend over 30 football players from the University of Missouri, stated that they would not play another game until the universities president is removed. For months there has been complaints of racial slurs at the primarily white university. The issue became real when a group of students surrounded the presidents car and he refused to get out ad talk to them. He has stated that changes need to be made and there is a meeting scheduled in April to promote diversity and tolerance.


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The Man Behind the Mosque

1.      Assume that the documentary, The Man Behind the Mosque, provided an accurate and research-based perspective on how the “Ground Zero Mosque” became a story. Based on what you saw there, what steps can you remember the cable-news media covering the story taking to investigate who was actually behind the Mosque in terms of mission, goals, and funding?

They interviewed the planner, people who support the project, they went to a rally where they interviewed people against the plan, they interviewed people who lost loved ones in 9/11, and saw a fundraising opportunity where they asked for money because they had none.

2.      Who brought the story of the “Ground Zero Mosque” to Fox News, the station that broke the story and led coverage of the story?

Pamela Zeller

3.      It can be argued that much of the cable news coverage of the story was just that – coverage of a “story,” and how people felt about this “story,” rather than actual reporting.  Explain how we can see this at work

This can be seen because they include many stories about people who are ready to build the mosque today and others who are completely opposed to the idea. There are few facts about the process the builders are going through in order to build this place and the logistics of the project and more about feelings.

4.      The journalists of Frontline included coverage of and interviews with the staff of Park 51 (the NYU grad and a couple other part-timers).  Do these individuals appear ever to have been interviewed on cable-news?

I would think so, they were very well spoken and did not appear to have any nerves.

5.      What sources did Cable news appear to rely on for knowledge and expertise about Islam?  How credible did you find these sources?  Why?

The main resources this documentary used were the coordinator of the project, his employees and the people who backed him, and there were stories at the beginning from families that lost their loved ones in 9/11.

6.      How relevant is the ownership of a media source for understanding its goals and how its goals may shape bias in its coverage? 

A Saudi Prince is owns FOX news. This Prince is Muslim, therefore it would be bias towards Muslims because he wants to shed positive light of his religion.

7.      Who was, at the time of the Ground Zero Mosque story, the second largest shareholder in the News Corp?

Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal

8.      If you bring up the topic of the Ground Zero mosque today, many people might say something like, “Oh yeah . . . What ever happened to that?”  Think about it:  Given the level of urgency that was attached to the story, why did cable news just stop covering the story of the Mosque at Ground Zero?

Cable news probably dropped the story because of a combination of two ideas. Bigger and better news came along and that captured the people’s attention. Also it hit a dead end and the project was no longer going anywhere. They no longer had a story to cover.

Politics Today

Recently a video has surfaced of an officer damming a girl to the ground during school over a cell phone. The incident apparently occurred after the student, known as Shakara, did not put her cell phone away fast enough. Before the officer had been called into the class, the girl had refused orders from the teacher and the vice principal to leave the classroom because she thought the punishment was unfair. The incident left the girl with one arm in a cast and a neck injury. The sheriff of the officer has come out and said that the officer was wrong, but also says the girl was also at fault because if the girl had not disrupted class and defied her authorities then the incident would not have occurred. Another student was also taken out of class that day and both girls are facing misdemeanor charges that could result in up to a 1000 dollar fine and ninety days in jail if they are found guilty. The FBI is currently investigating whether or not the girls civil rights were violated.

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For decades China has only allowed families to have one child. On Thursday this changed, China announced that it would now allow married couples to have two children. This decisions is considered to be now of the most significant easements of the strict policy that has been considered one  of the most intrusive law that the communist party has put on family life.

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On Thursday, Paul Ryan was elected as the speaker of the house with the unanimous vote of 236 members. Ryan has pledged to heal the divide that is currently in the house. This was a problem for Boehner throughout is five years and what eventually led to his resign. Ryan originally did not want to run for the job, but when the need became apparent he realized that the House need him to take the position and attempt to fix the current mess that is happening.

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Intro to Media

1.) TV, Instagram, Facebook, Radio, Newspaper, Twitter, Snapchat

2.) ESPN is owned by Disney Link. Robert tiger is currently the chairman and chief executive officer of the Walt Disney Company Link. Murdoch, a Saudi Prince, owns Fox News Link. CNN is owned by Turner broadcasting which is owned by Time Warner which Comcast is currently trying to buy Link.http://www.cjr.org/resources/?c=timewarner

3.) Emerson College: it is immersed in a city setting that allows their students to have numerous reporting opportunities around them. The program prepares students to report their stories in words, pictures, and sound. Their program allows students to regularly be able to practice their skills beyond the classroom in settings such as, national political conventions, inaugurations, the Olympics, the Oscars, baseballs spring training, and a host of other exciting venues. They have adopted a new multimedia curriculum. They will have numerous opportunities to work with award winning news sources on campus Link.

4.) Watchdog media si when they alert the public when problems are detected. Common subjects include, government decision making process, illegal activity, immorality, consumer protection issues, and environmental degradation.

5.) Liberal Bias: Liberals that sometimes distort numbers and facts in order to prove their point and more importantly disprove Conservative views. They believe that Liberals are the only people who are corrects in their views.

Politics Today

Recently John Boehner resigned from his position as speaker of the house, leaving the question of who will take his place? So far no one has decided to run that would obtain the necessary votes to recieve the position McCarthy was a hopeful canidate but dropped out when he realize he would not recieve enough votes. The only hope seems to be Paul Ryan, but so far he has shhown no interest in running. Leaving some to question is the only hope the democrats?

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Speaker of the House

1.) The Speaker of the House is elected every two years or when the former one resigns. They must be twenty-five and have been a citizen for a minimum of seven years.

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2.)Speaker of the House- presides over proceedings on the house floor, influences whch bills go to which committees, influences committee assignments for new members, appoints the party's other leaders, and rules on questions of parliamentary procedure.

The majority leader- helps plan the party's legislative program

The minority leader- heads and organizes the minority party. the persons influence is usually limited.

President of the Senate- The vice president of the United States, but rarely sits witht the senate.

President Pro Tempore- Selected to take the place of the President of the Senate in their absence.

Floor Leaders- The real leaders in the Senate, but generally have less power that the leaders of the House.

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3.) The President and the Vice President would have to die.

4.)Samuel Rayburn

5.) Nancy Pelosi 2007 Democrat

6.) He is famous for leading of the Republic revolution in the 90's. He was the Speaker of the House for four years and had to resign because of an ethics violation.

7.) John Boehner resigned because he believed that he could no longer fulfill the job of the Speaker of the House. He was the majority leader for republicans but was willing to compromise with the democrats, which upset conservatives and gave them the desire to get rid of him. He resigned to avoid a government shutdown. He served as Speaker of the House for nine years.

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8.) Kevin McCarthy is too moderate for conservatives and is therefore not popular because they believe he will compromise.

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9.) Paul Ryan is a major conservative and people believe he will not compromise. He is not going to run because he believes it would take too much time away from his family, since Speaker of the house has to be on the road for 100 days of the year raising money. He also eventually wants to be president.

10.)He is the head of the house for the ways and means committee. The ways and means committee is the chief tax writing committee and carries out Article 1 section VII. The committee excercises jurisdiction over revenue and related issues such as tariffs, reciprical trade agreements, and bonded debt of the United States. Eight presidents and eight vice presidents have served on the ways and means committee.

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11.) There are over fifty committees and over 100 sub committees.

12.) He does not need it for his ultimate goal of becaoming President. He doesnt want to deal with the rigurous work schedule of constantly traveling and taking time away from his family, especially since it would not necessarily be beneficial to him.

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13.) If I had the chose of becoming Speaker of the House I do not believe I would take the job. The House is in distress at the time and with no one willing to compromise I believe that it would be a difficult job to fulfill especially without recieveing bad press and possibly ruining a name for a future presidential run. It is not a crucial part of an application for becoming President and at this time, although a very important job, may be more trouble than it's worth for Ryan

14.)James K. Polk was Speaker of the House before he became President. No, I don't believe it is a stepping stone position to the White House considering only one president has ever been Speaker of the House.

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15.) Congressional caucuses are formed by members to provide a forum for issues and legislative agenda. There are approximately 68 caucuses. Committees decise which bills will see the  floor, shape agendas, and make crucial decisions about our country's future. Caucuses come together under a specific platform, goal, or campaign in order to find influence and power in numbers.

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16.) The House Freedom Caucus consists of three dozen republican conservatives. They have had a huge part in the current battle to find a Speaker of the House because they are not looking for anyone who is willing to compromise from their desires, leaving numerous canidates to be derailed.

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First Quarter Reflections

This quarter I learned what the constitution says and the rights it entitles Americans too. I always knew the major rights, such as freedom speach and right to bear arms, but I did not realize that it also gave guidelines to the government and designated the job of each section of the government. In the future I hope to dig deeper into what we are learning and not just learn the surface of the subject that is required.

Politics Today

Just hours before the September 30th deadline for funding, the president will be asked to sign the bill. The problem that will arise is that the bill only allows enough funding to cover through December. When December comes most are positive turmoil will tag along. With House Speaker Boehner leaving there are a lot of uncertainties at the moment and most of the future is up in the air.

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On Tuesday House Republicans had the opportunity to talk to the president of planned parenthood, Cecile Richards. Although this was suppose to be a time to learn more about what planned parenthood does with the federal funding they are given. Instead, it turned into a time of questions being asked and Richards starting a thought then being interupted by someone else and eventually moving onto a new question without ever adressing the previous one.

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On monday president Obama announced that the US was willing to work with Iran and Russia in order to stop the Syrian crisis. At the U.N. general assembly Obama described Assad as the chief culprit of the four year civil war. On the other hand Iran and Russia are bothe major backers of Assad which caused conflict at the meeting. Russia has recently engaged in a military build-up system in Syria where it has a naval base and Tehran has armed the Syrian government. Obama has a meeting with Russian president Putin later on Monday.

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John Boehner is resigning from his position as speaker of the house effective on the 30th of October. On monday Keven McCarthy announced that he would be running to take the position. Boehner has stated that he is leaving in order to not cause a further divide in the Republican house, which has become apparent recently. The freedom caucus is looking for a canidate that will be more aggressive than Boehener and force through legeslation tha tthe members support. In order for McCarthy to keep the favor he has gained in the house he will need to show quickly that he is different from Boehner.


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This past week China's president made a visit to the U.S. The meaning behind his visit was to talk to Preident Obama about cyber spying issues. The two came to an agreement to take new steps to address cyber spying. They also agreed to not conduct or support cyber enabled theft of intellectual property. In addition they both agreed to create a senior group to further discuss cyber issues a long with a group of high level people to talk about how to fight cyber crime. This group will meet at the end of 2015 and twice a year following that.

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The Iran Nuclear Deal, proposed by president Obama, failed for the second time in two weeks. The deal needed 60 votes to pass and barely fell short with 56 votes. The majority of Rebublicans are opposed to the deal. Two of the senators who were opposed to the deal, were not present at the vote because they were preparing for the presidential debates. GOP leaders had hoped that in addition to those twos absence two other democrats would buckle under pressure and change their votes, but that was not the case.

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North Korea has declared that it is ready to use nuclear weapons on America and all other of foes. An atomic energy official has said that North Korea is improving its weapons in quality and quantity. North Koreas main plant is located in Yongbyon. This plant includes a uranium enrichment plant and a operating plutonium production reactor. Although North Korea has threatened many times to use these nuclear weapons many wonder if the weapons could reach the U.S mainland.

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Earlier this week a strong earthquake rocked Chile. This earthquake was followed by four aftershocks. This sent a Pacific coast warning for a possible tsuami in the next few days into effect. Most people fled inland and sought high ground after the initial shock occured. There are currntly four dead and one person missing as a result of this earthquake.

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Greece is currently 356 billion dollars in debt and Friday they will be spending another 30 million on an electiuon. This is the third election in a year for Greece, following the resignation of the Prime Minister Tsipras after he lost favor with a significant portion of the Syriza party. He is hoping to regain political favor and his title tomorrow at the election.

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President Obama has recently said that he will not support a bill that would cut funds to planned parenthood. This has been a acontroversial topic in the news lately because many Americans are in favor of cutting the funding because planned parenthood contributes to abortion and the use of tissue from fetuses for research. President Obama is not for the cut of funding because many Americans would not have access to the healthcare that they need that is currently being paid for throught planned parenthood.

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Federalism

1.) Federalism is the "mode of political organization that unites seperate states or other polities within an overarching political system in such a way as to allow each to maintain its own fundamental political integrity."
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2.) There are approximately 195 nation states in the world.
3.)Ten countries have a federal system of government. They are: America, Russia, Germany, France, India, Mexico, South Africa, Canada, Switzerland, Australia, and Brazil.
4.)Most countries that practice federalism are made up of previously seperate entities.
5.)Unitary means "a sovereign state governed by a single unity."
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6.)Twenty five countries have a unitary system of government. The five largest by population are: China, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Japan, and Philippines.
7.)The difference between a unitary and federal government is that in unitary is the central government has the power to make all of the decsions while federal delegates most of the power to local governments. One advantage of a unitary government is that there is a set form of policies to direct the nation, which makes law making easier. A disadvantavge of unitary is that they have to disregard local differences because they can't accomendate everyones preferences. A advantage of federal is that they give local governments more power. A disadvantage of federal government is that they do not have uniform rules throughout the nation. 
8.) 

I believe that this shows that the states want the federal funding but not the federal oversight.

9.)

The federal government is to involved in the details of medical treatment. Cancer Patients wanted to use marijuana for medical purposes because it reduces the effects of chemo. The govenrment is shown here busting into a mans roon while he is undergoing treatment with anti maijuana jackets on.

10.)

The federal government is made up of two political parties which are dicotimies of each other.

11.)The video used a three layer cake as an example of federalism. They describe how the local government deals with issues such as trash pick up, state govenment deals with issues such as education, and national government deals with issues such as space exploration.
12.)

In this picture there are still three levels of government but two of them are intermixed and share duties. This is unlike the example in the video because it suggested that the three layers never intermixed.

Politics Today

Rachel Maddow is a reporter on MSNBC. On her show Thursday night she condoned Donald Trump for signing the pledge not to run as a third party canidate if he is not elected as the republican representative. Maddow characterizes this a huge mistake. She believes that by doing this he has given away the leverage that Trump held over the Republican party to not trash him because he may eventually be running against them. Trump has come out saying that he signed the pledge to avoid any further  judgement such as that recieved at the beginning of the first presidential debate.

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Martin O'Malley is a 2016 Presidential canidate who has recently taken a strong standpoint on Syrian refugees. America has agreed to take in 6,000- 8,000 refugees in the 2016 fiscal year, but O'malley is calling for more saying that is not enough. He believes that if Germany who has one fourth of the population of America can take in 800,000 refugees America should beat that.He believes that America should take in at least 65,000 refugees.

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Kim Davis presides over a clerk office in Kentucky. Recently she has been in the spotlight because she has refused to isse gay marriages to anyone since the Supreme Court ruling in June. On Thursday Davis was sent to jail for disobeying the orders of US District Judge David Bunning. The first gay marriage was issued that friday morning.

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Hilary Clinton has been under the microscope about her use of a personal email for confidential emails that related to her job as the secretary of state for months. Recently, some the emails have been deemed classified which is a major no no in the government. Clinton has come out in her defense and said that she did not know that the emails were classified at the time and did not think about using her personal email as a crime but instead just convient. She has now come out and admitted that it was a mistake, but she really did not mean any wrong by it, but many Americans are still quite skeptical.

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Scott Walker, governor of Wisconsin, is in the 2016 race for presidency. In his interwiew with NBC's meet the press Walker stated that he was not opposed to building a wall on the northern boarder. He said that this idea originally came up at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire. He stated that it would all be about securing the boarder. He is also a proponant for builing a wall on the southern boarder. That idea originally came from fellow republican candidate, Donald Trump.


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Monday morning the stock market suffered a huge drop following a large drop in Chinese stock. Dow Jones fell more than 1,000 points. The Standard and Poor's dropped 4.5%, and the Nasdaq fell 5.1%. In other words NOT GOOD.

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A Claifornia bill passed in the Senate Assembly on Monday. This bill prohibited drones from flying over private property below 350 feet. This comes after the argument that people beleive that they have privacy in their own back yard that does not include people being able to watch them from ablove. If the drone operator has permission from the property owner or if it is their own property they are still permitted to fly in that zone. They are also allowed to fly over streets and public areas.

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This past friday and saturday individuals and mainly familie's stormed the Macedonian boder from Greece. Most of these people originally fleed from Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria to escape the ever appearent turmoil present, but Greece is not much better considering their rocky economic statis. Most of the families final destination desires were in the prosperous EU countries such as Germany, but in order to get there they had to use the Macedonian train lines. The Macedonia government did not want to take any part in this and ordered there military to block the border. Many children, elderly, men, and children have been injured in the fight between border patrol and the desired immigrants.

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U.S. military equipment has been flowing into Lebanan, a country located between Syria and Israel, for over a year. This has occurred because of the increasing threat that ISIS and al-Queda pose to the country. The Obama administration is hoping that the Lebanese military, with the help of the U.S. military equipment, with be able to prevent further havoc from the terroist groups. This backing does not come without the possiblility of backfire. The main fear is that the equipment will be used by the Hezbollah, a key ally of Iran and foe of U.S. ally Israel.

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A growing problem in the state of California is the lack of water. One of the solutions that has been put into effect is using water that was once injected into rock formations to release oil and gas to water crops. Although this may be a solution to the problem many are left to question whether or not there are negative benefits in the water. Test have shown that nothing that would harm anyones body is present but they have been labeled as unreliable. Since the water is used to grow crops a bill has been proposed that would require crops that have been watered by the filtrated fracking water to be labeled as so, leaving the choice of is it healthy or not up to the consumer.

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