 All of us may already know that dinosaurs are extinct animals that lived way before we appeared. I’m going to tell you about extinction, National Geographic explains that locally extinct means that a species has died out from a native part of the world. Did you know that the Grizzly bear is locally extinct from California? NatGeo says grizzly bears are living in other parts of the world, but no longer in California. Extinct means gone from all over the world, died out, like dinosaurs, for example. Some of the popular creatures we know are endangered and fighting for survival in the wild because of habitat loss, Climate change, overhunting, and many of these threats that include human activities as a playing role. National Geographic says Extinction is a natural phenomenon and more than 90 percent of all organisms that have ever lived on Earth aren’t alive today. Humans have just made it worse by making the process faster, according to this website. Many of the important creatures that have an important role to play in their environment and nature are going extinct says NatGeo.
On Earth there are critically endangered animals that are dying and being killed every day, making their population go down, lowering numbers to extinction. BioDiversity.org says that black rhino numbers dropped by a sobering 98%, between 1960 and 1995, making it one of the most critically endangered creatures. They also explain that it will still be a lot of work to bring them back even with all the help of Africa's conservation effort and support. Another very endangered animal on Earth is the Orangutan, which according to https://www.biologicaldiversity.org they share 98% of our genes! and sadly an easy target for hunters because they are large and slow. https://www.biologicaldiversity.org explained that the wid dog is also one of the many endangered creatures because of targeted human killings, habitat loss, and competition with large predator hunters. these creatures are all trying to survive in the wild, you never know when the population numbers go down to zero. For sure there are a lot of animals that are struggling for their species to thrive in the animal kingdom. We, humans, are always doing something, we are always involved in extinction. Even though some species are still endangered humans are trying to the possible to bring them back up. according to https://www.biologicaldiversity.org, The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973. The act protects species, which populations are incredibly low. the act has been passed in many other countries helping thousands of species fight with extinction. the act helps reserve land and forbid the killings of the species. explains that https://www.biologicaldiversity.org When the species recover they are officially out of the list. The Endangered Species Act has been incredibly effective, saving more than 99 percent of the species under its protection from extinction and putting hundreds on the road to recovery according to https://www.biologicaldiversity.org. Story by Genesis Cruz-Herrara  Elephants are going extinct for many reasons. The main three are Illegal killing, destruction of habitat, and people killing them for their ivory tusks.
Many people all over the world will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to go on a hunting safari. This is where a group of local Africans get paid to take out people and take them to where a bunch of elephants is a kill them. The people that killed the elephants get to keep their tusks and whatever else they want on the elephant. This is illegal, but locals still do it because it is the best way to earn money, especially for the people that don’t have that much. We can help by donating to places that help with poachers (WWF, World Wildlife Fund is a good one to donate to.) Humans are wiping out elephant habitats at an alarming rate. We are taking over their habitat, for farming, and houses. Farming and development has led to large areas of natural elephant habitats being burned, chopped down, or otherwise destroyed. Because the soil is not good for crops, the farmers usually only stay there for 1-2 years, and then move on to a different piece of land, destroying another habitat, just to leave it again. After the farmers leave, the habitats are destroyed, so the elephants can’t go back, and live there. Scientists have estimated that 100 elephants are each day for their ivory tusks. Since the tusks sell for thousands of dollars, it is a popular sport to go find elephants and steal their ivory tusks. We can help by donating to Save The Elephants, and World Wildlife Fund. There have already been over 335 million dollars donated to WWF, just in the past 7 years, and over 400 million donated to Save The Elephants. Story by Astrid Laughlin  Have you ever drank out of a plastic cup or straw, and then immediately threw them out? Chances are, you have. Have you ever recycled a plastic bottle or straw?
Chances are, you've done that too. Did you know, according to National Geographic, only nine percent has been recycled. The vast majority--79 percent—is accumulating in landfills or sloughing off in the natural environment as litter. Meaning: at some point, much of it ends up in the oceans, the final sink. Most of it ends up gathering up into large patches. One, for example, is called the great pacific garbage patch. It is the largest accumulation zone of plastic in the world according to the ocean cleanup According to conserve the turtles,Over 1 million marine animals (including mammals, fish, sharks, turtles, and birds) are killed each year due to plastic debris in the ocean. That doesn't even include all the pollution that is made out of substances other than plastic. Scientists estimated that there are 100 million tons of plastic in oceans around the world, according to the ocean cleanup .There is so much plastic in the ocean that, according to the ocean cleanup,humans can clean up only clean up 50% of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch in 5 years. Some scientists estimate that there will be more plastic in the ocean than fish by 2050, According to national geographic The great pacific garbage patch is more than two times the size of texas, and 9 feet deep according to CNN.Thats one of the reasons it is so hard to clean it up. Another problem is the financial cost. It costs about $122 million and $489 million, according to Pricing on ocean pollutionDid you know that the money that was donated to restore the Notre dame was about the same amount of money needed for the cleanup?! The pollution on the earth is a huge problem. If we don't continue to protect our oceans, they can't continue to protect us. Here are a couple of ways you can help 1. Choose sustainable items 2. Reduce, reuse, and recycle. 3.Volunteer for cleanups in your community 4.Educate others on the situation 5.Conserve water 6.Shop wisely(organic,anti-pollution,etc) 7. Use long-lasting light bulbs and batteries 8.plant trees <3 9. Don't send chemicals into our waterways, choose non-toxic chemicals 10.drive less, walk and bike more Story by Adelina Crosson  Did you know that the giant panda habitat used to spread through central, southern and eastern China, but it has reduced dramatically by the growth in people’s logging and farming practices. Another crazy thing is the pandas used to be endangered because of people cutting down bamboo forests for towns and farming. Now they are almost extinct! According to Chinahighlights.com giant pandas live in large bamboo forests on humid and kind of high mountains that are about 1,200 to 3,100 meters above the sea level.
Currently, about 1,600 giant pandas live in over 20,000 square kilometers of habitat! Another place pandas live is the Gin mountains. Except it's a different type of panda called a qinling pandas. there are about 270 qinling pandas in the qin mountains. According to theguardian.com half of the world's 1,200 bamboo species face extinction because of forest destruction. About 250 bamboo species have less than 2,000 square kilometers. that's almost the size of London remaining within their ranges which is not that much compared to how it used to be. According to worldwildlife.org a newborn panda is about the size of a stick of butter but can grow up to be 330 pounds as an adult! According to sciencing.com some things you could do to prevent pandas from going extinct are you could use less paper because pandas live in rare bamboo forests that are getting chopped down to be made into paper! Another thing that you could do to help protect pandas is to donate to charity. The last way to help pandas is to use fewer greenhouse gases. Some ways to do this are to walk as often as you can instead of driving and pick airlines with higher occupancy rates. According to pandasinternational.org the purpose of panda reserves are to protect the panda's major food source which is bamboo and provide migrations between habitat areas. Story by Kale Kettner  Notre Dame, a church in Paris, France that has been around for 850 years caught fire on April 15th 2019. The blaze destroyed the roof and most of the upper walls. In April, the French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe announced that their will be a worldwide competition to find a new design for the church. Many of the new designs are innovative and eco-friendly. They will also support the local population. The designs must be under 1 billion euros in cost. The restoration is estimated to require 20 years or more.
Palingenesis, which is a Greek concept of rebirth is what Vincent Callebaut project is called. Vincent Callebaut is a Belgian architect who has designed over 50 buildings and is well known for his eco-friendly designs. He has proposed a new roof made of oak, carbon and glass. So the cathedral’s choir will be bathed in natural light. Beneath the glass their will be a fruit and vegetable garden that is run by volunteers and charities. It is estimated that 21 tons of fruit and vegetables will be harvested each year to feed homeless Parisians. Also a farmers market will be held every week in front of Notre Dame. The roof will provide electricity and heat. The glass roof will also provide solar power. Stockholm-based Ulf Mejergren Architects (UMA) have proposed to take away the roof and spire completely and replacing it with a giant cross-shaped swimming pool. To create “a new meditative public space”. The pool would have to be closed in the winter because temperatures can get down to -2 degrees. All in all there are some cool and crazy ideas for rebuilding the iconic cathedral. The competition will end on June 30th and the results will be announced in July 2019. Story by Maddy Peeples Sources: https://www.cnn.com/style/article/france-notre-dame-green-scli-intl/index.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Notre-Dame_de_Paris_fire https://weather.com/news/news/2019-05-16-swimming-pool-notre-dame-cathedral Nbcnews.com  This is the victim's police force photo. On Sunday, March 10, 2019, in Paris France, a woman was shot. The woman was a police officer. She was 27 and the person that killed her was a male 28-year-old. He was her colleague. Neither of their names has been released yet. There were three people there at the time of the shooting, the victim and two colleagues, one of whom shot her. How she got shot is a very interesting story.
The victim and her colleague were guarding a building at the time the shooting occurred. The building was a new police headquarters. Its name was the Direction Régionale de Police Judiciaire de Paris. The victim and her colleague were playing a gun-drawing game. The game included pulling out their guns as fast as they could. This was to see if that in the event of someone trying to break in or attack them, who would be the quicker one to draw their gun. The shot was accidentally fired hitting the victim in her head and killing her. As a result, the “Paris prosecutor's office has launched an involuntary homicide investigation.” says CNN. Along with that, the colleague was put in a detention center directly after the accident. The French daily newspaper has reported that the colleagues were ‘playing’ with their weapons. "There are regulations as to the handling of a firearm when the chamber is loaded and these were not followed," Crepin (The head of the police offices) told CNN,” says CNN. Also, this is not said to be the first time has had a police incident. Now many may mistake this case for a different one that happened in January in which a police-woman that was also shot by one of her colleagues during a Russian-roulette style game. As for the current case no names have been released and no charges have been pressed. Story by Hadley Wallace SOURCE FOR PICTURE: https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/11/europe/france-police-officer-shot-scli-intl/index.html  The Czech Republic, or Czechia, is a small mountain and landlocked country Located in central Europe it is one of the safest country in the world and the population of Czech is 10,177,300.
History As said on Ducksters In the early history of the Czech Republic, many different tribes settled the land starting with the Celtics, then the Germanic tribes, and later the Slavic peoples. The Holy Roman Empire ruled over the land for many years until the 1800s when the Austrians and the Habsburg Empire took control. After WWI, the country of Czechoslovakia was formed from the Czech and Slovak lands of the Austrian Empire. Money In the Czech Republic, money is called Korunas. One American dollar is 22.56 Czech Korunas The Czech Republic planned on adopting the euro in 2010, but the government decided not to in 2005. Even though the country is very able to adopt the euro, there is considerable resistance from most of the population. Religions & Differences As said on thefactfile The Czech Republic ranks as one of the least religious populations in the world, with only 19 percent of them claiming to believe in God. Even though there are not many people that believe in God, many people still celebrate Easter. In Czech people are much more open and closer and it seems like everyone knows each other. Story by Sophia Planicka Image from Britannica.com  Image from CNN.com Once again President Trump and Kim Jong-un the ruler of North Korea meet for the second time. They are going to meet in Hanoi Vietnam. To discuss this round of nuclear negotiations. They had their first meeting in June of last year in Singapore, as said by The New York Times. MSNBC says that Kim Jong-un is a master negotiator just like his father and grandfather. It was his idea for Trump to come to North Korea. His grandfather, Father, and now he wants to put the reunification of the Korean Peninsula under the control of his government Pyongyang. President Trump said that the talks they had were ¨very productive¨ but none of the agreements were worth signing.
North Korea has warheads and ballistic missiles and they have been proved to the full. Kim Jong-un ordered testing nuclear weapons to stop and to start mass production. North Koreas economy is very dependent on imported goods. They also depend on foreign subsidies. If they kept using those resources their defense industry would also suffer The meeting ended suddenly on Thursday, February 28, 2019. There was a singing performance and a working lunch that was canceled according to CNN. In conclusion, Trump and Kim Jong-un met for the second time and it abruptly ended the meeting was to discuss nuclear weapons. Story by Rowen Dollar-Raynolds  Norway has recently taken an interest in building a floating tunnel. Now they are in the race to build one. A floating tunnel is a submerged tube is a proposed idea for a tunnel that floats under the surface of the water. They plan for it to be deep enough to avoid boats other water traffic but not so deep they have to worry about water pressure. According to The Telegraph the tunnel that will be built in Norway will be “100 feet below the surface.” This will allow ships and boats to pass above easily but still room for submarines and water pressure safety. The tunnel will resemble two giant drinking straws.
Because of multiple breaks at seven fjords drivers have to put their car on a ferry to travel across water. The whole trip takes 21 hours, 21 hours is a long time. This is why they are now building a floating tunnel. The tunnel will allow the trip to be much faster and definitely more interesting. This construction takes a lot of work and a lot of time, this means that the tunnel won’t be ready anytime soon. Early February, 2019 it was reported at 10% done. It is said that by 2025 only about 33% of the tunnel will be done. It is expected to be completely finished around 2050. Believe it or not but the idea of a floating tunnel has been around for a while. There have been more than 100 tunnels built immersed under water. That being said a floating tunnel is different, and this would be one of the firsts to be built. The idea has been available and out in the open for a while but nobody has actually built it before. The tunnel will be built well enough and strong enough to survive through natural disasters common in water. These disasters include wave currents, earthquakes, ice growth, and marine growth. The tunnel will also be held by bottom anchoring to make sure it can survive disasters. Story by Ariella Valdiviezo Sources http://www.railsystem.net/submerged-floating-tunnel/ https://www.cnn.com/style/article/norway-underwater-floating-tunnel-intl/index.html https://abcnews.go.com/beta-story-container/International/crossing-norways-fjords-easier-worlds-submerged-floating-tunnel/story?id=60812122 Photo Sources https://www.eniday.com/en/technology_en/norways-floating-tunnel/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2016/07/norway-could-build-the-worlds-first-floating-tunnel  This a passage about the children at the border and how they are getting taken from their parents. Children separation has been going on for a while like in slavery. The revelation that more than 2,300 children were separated from adults at the U.S. border with Mexico in just five weeks quickly led to a firestorm of condemnation, it states this in the passage by cbs. On cnn it states under that controversial policy, more than 2,000 children were separated from the parents at the border from April 19 to May 31. A Customs and Border Protection spokesperson said Tuesday that 2,342 children were separated from 2,206 adults from May 5 to June 9. Previously, the Department of Homeland Security said 1,995 minors were separated from 1,940 adults from April 19 to May 31. When a parent arrives at the border with a child, whether they are apprehended by the Border Patrol or seek asylum at the port of entry, the administration separates the parent from the child and takes both into custody.
HOW THEY CAN'T FIND THEIR PARENTS Parents whose children are taken from them at the border are not told how to find them, communicate with them or reunify with them. Law enforcement does not track the whereabouts of separated children in any systemic manner. Parents can eventually call a hotline — after they serve any criminal sentence and are transferred from DOJ to ICE custody. That hotline might be able to tell them where their child is being detained or to whom they have been released, and may be able to facilitate a phone call, but that hinges on the cooperation of detention center officials. Communication is rare and often insufficient even when it does occur (it’s hard for toddlers to talk on the phone). Both the parents and their children face deportation, but the children are left to fend for themselves, without an adult who knows anything about them and their situation. Some children are too young to speak, much less explain the social and political basis of their asylum claim. THE SITUATION THEY ARE IN The kids at the border are sleeping on a cold concrete floor. They are freezing cold and don't have blankets. Their are diseases being spread one of the kids died on Christmas eve from freezing and getting a disease. Story by Lilly West SOURCE FOR PICTURE: google |
