On November 21, 2022, Indonesia’s West Java Island was hit by a 5.6 magnitude earthquake. An earthquake’s magnitude scale ranges from 1 through 8, 1 being very light and 8 being extremely severe. Although 5.6 magnitude isn’t too high on the Richter scale, lots of damage was done to Indonesia. The earthquake was located inland, close to many buildings and homes, which caused lots of destruction. The earthquake’s epicenter was just about 6 miles underground and there were as many as 140 aftershocks recorded by November 23, just two days after it happened. This caused significant damage including many missing people and of those found, more than 260 dead and more than 2000 injured. Children are very prone to these earthquakes as they are in many buildings such as schools and about 37% of deceased were children. Since the Indonesian infrastructure was not built with quake-proof designs, there were many destruction of buildings, roads, bridges, and homes — all of which contributing to loss of lives. The Indonesia government, the military, the Red Cross, and other non-governmental organizations are all in Indonesia trying to find and save as many people as possible. Overall, Indonesia is being heavily affected by this earthquake with the death count continuously rising and the impaired infrastructure further affecting the economy. The role of government becomes increasingly more important in situations beyond human control by not only supporting its citizens with daily needs of food, clothing and shelter, but also by working with its allies and making meaningful investment for fixing infrastructure and returning order.

Throughout the history of the United States, inflation has been a common problem. Inflation is a general increase in prices and fall in the purchasing power of money. Over the past decades, inflation has been around 3-4% annually; however, during the last year, the average inflation rate has shot up to 8.5%. This has led to many problems such as the recent stock market crash, raised costs of living, gas prices rising, and much more. Overall, the rising inflation has affected America’s economy enormously. Federal Reserve has therefore taken action to raise interest rates in order to combat inflation. In addition, the Inflation Reduction Act which was recently signed (Aug 16, 2022) is designed to create clean energy jobs, make the tax code fairer, revitalize American manufacturing, and lower the healthcare costs. This legislation lowers drug costs, healthcare costs, and energy costs, fighting climate change and taxing wealthy corporations. Furthermore, this act is meant to create good paying new jobs across the country, lower the deficit, and ask the ultra wealthy corporations to pay their fair share. With inflation affecting our economy for too long, the government has taken steps to lower the inflation rates through interest rate hike and new legislations. In the coming days and months, we will learn whether these steps will create the desired effect.

The James Webb Telescope is a space telescope designed to conduct infrared astronomy. Infrared astronomy specializes in observation and analysis of astronomical objects using infrared radiation.  Infrared radiation allows the observer to see light from very far distance, which is not visible to the human eye. The James Webb Telescope is roughly as big as a tennis court (a tennis court is 78×36 ft) and is folded to fit in a rocket so that it can be transported to the outer space, and the telescope is designed to unfold itself in space. Previously, in 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched and had similar goals of exploring the universe. However, the Hubble telescope was not powerful enough to look into deep space and this led to the next project of James Webb Telescope, which is built with a 21-foot mirror, more than two and a half times larger than the Hubble and was launched on December 25, 2021. Unlike the Hubble telescope which orbits the earth, the James Webb Telescope is in an orbit about one million miles from earth (four times the distance from earth to moon) and goes around the sun (like planets), providing unprecedented views into the vast universe. This telescope has four main goals of, to search for light from the first stars and galaxies that formed in the universe after the Big Bang, to study galaxy formation and evolution, to understand star and planet formation, and lastly to study planetary systems and the origins of life. The James Webb Telescope has sent back some of its first images recently of distant galaxies and stars. It has also discovered some unseen clouds and evidence of star formation and galaxy’s central black hole. Recently, this telescope detected a distinct signature of water on a hazy exoplanet (that is, a planet that orbits a star outside the solar system) which is about 1,150 light years away. This exoplanet is called WASP-96B and the Webb telescope is spending a considerable amount of time on this world, which is nothing like Earth. WASP-96B is considered a “hot Jupiter” and is little larger than Jupiter. This exoplanet is of high interest because of the presence of water detected, which is strongly correlated to the origin of life. This means that WASP- 96B may possibly have life on it, and scientists are further studying it. On this exoplanet, however, the temperatures are very high, exceeding over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. So, if there truly is a species on this planet it will be interesting to see how it can survive these extreme weather conditions. Overall, we can see how the James Webb Telescope is a great step that would help us learn more about the universe and the origin of life. It is continuing to do lots of research in the deep universe and helping the human society gain a deeper understanding of the cosmos.

The Roe vs Wade Case has been a controversial court case across the United States for some time and the latest Supreme Court ruling has brought this back to public attention. To fully comprehend why this case is so controversial, we must first understand what is it, and the perspectives from both sides. The Roe vs Wade was a Supreme Court Case about abortion. Abortion is the deliberate termination of a human pregnancy, and it is commonly done in the first 28 weeks of the pregnancy. This case first started in the 1970’s but was reopened this year (2022). In the year 1973, the Supreme Court made the decision allowing women in the United States to have the fundamental right to choose to have abortions without excessive government restrictions- making it a constitutional right. However, since then the topic of abortion has remained controversial with views split across the government party lines. The Republican Party is pro-life (meaning they do not support any abortions) and the Democratic Party is pro-choice (meaning that women have the choice to get an abortion if they want one). This has caused many arguments and discussions across the United States, with both sides arguing against one another. The topic of abortion is often mixed with religious belief and this topic has been an ongoing debate for decades. This year the Roe vs. Wade case was reopened, and the Supreme Court overturned it on June 24, 2022. This created major public reactions and debates across the United States. With the Supreme Court ruling to terminate Roe vs. Wade provision, the abortions are no more a constitutional right for women at the federal level. However, each individual states can choose to either allow or stop all abortions. The power is moved back to the states, and this will affect tens of millions of people across the country dealing with pregnancy problems. Overall, we can see how the topic of abortion has caused many arguments, discussions, and court cases in United States history and how no matter what the outcome is, there are people that are unhappy with this on one or the other side of aisle.

Between Ukraine and Russia, a notorious conflict is going on currently. The relationship between these two countries has been quite hostile since the Ukraine Revolution of Dignity in 2014, which was followed by Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

To fully understand this conflict, we must first establish some context from a historical standpoint. The Ukraine-Russia conflict has been happening for a long time since the Soviet Union in Russia. The Soviet Union was the communist government of Russia and spanned control across Europe and Asia. Ukraine used to be a part of Russia when they were a communist state but when the Soviet Union disbanded in 1991, Ukraine became an independent country. The Ukraine Revolution of Dignity happened in Feb 2014 at the end of the Euromaidan protests (which was the objections against Ukraine government’s decision to not sign the European Union – Ukraine Association Agreement, and instead choose closer ties to Russia). People didn’t like this decision as they didn’t want Ukraine to be closer with Russia since they were previously closer to Russia during the Soviet Union. In the Revolution of Dignity, there were dead clashes between protestors and the security forces in the Ukrainian capital for the outing of the elected president in order to overthrow the Ukraine government. This was a 5-day revolution which then eventually led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. The annexation of Crimea was in February and March 2014 in which Russia invaded and took the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine and then made it a part of Russia. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine because President Vladimir Putin said that Russian troops in Crimean Peninsula were going to ensure proper conditions of the people of Crimea. Putin just wanted more territory and land as Russia lost lots of territory when the Soviet Union was disbanded. Since then, Ukraine and Russia have had a tense relationship.

 On February 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine as an act of aggression. This caused a mass refugee crisis in Ukraine with more than 4.6 million Ukrainians being forced to leave the country. Russia did this as President Vladimir Putin feared having too many NATO countries near the Russian border. NATO is an alliance between many countries and Russia is not a part of it. Ukraine wanted to join NATO but before they could, Russia invaded Ukraine in an attempt to stop them from being a part of NATO. After this first invasion, Russia kept on attacking Ukraine through many different ways such as bombings, military invasion, etc. Since February 24, 2022, more than 3000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine. To me, it  is absurd that innocent lives are being lost  from this conflict. Innocent men, women, and children are being forced to leave their country because of this conflict. This conflict is ongoing and has been continuing since early 2022. It is currently June 2022 and for the past 4 months, the conflict has been getting worse and worse with more and more people dying. The United States is now involved as the US is sending aids to Ukraine, such as, the 34 billion dollars for new military, economic, and humanitarian support. The United States cannot physically get involved because of the NATO agreement. In Article 5 of the NATO charter, it says “an attack on one member is an attack on all of its members.” Meaning, that if the United States gets involved with attacks against Russia in support for Ukraine, this would lead to a global war. This global war could then possibly lead to a nuclear war which is not the ideal outcome for anybody. With this, the United States and all other NATO countries have not engaged physically. We can understand how this Russia-Ukraine conflict has become a global problem in which countries around the world are now helping Ukraine. There are many major effects that come forth from this war. Some effects are the fast-moving refugee crisis, unprecedented sanctions against the major economy, and a huge shakeup in global relations.

Overall, we can see how this Russia- Ukraine conflict has been happening for a long time, creating adverse impact to the society and the world around us. Ukraine is struggling and being heavily harmed by Russia, and it is time that something is done to alleviate the situation.