On March 21 the Health Care Reform Bill, which was supported by all Democrats and opposed by all Republicans, barely made it through the vote it was 219 to 212. A couple of days later the President signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into the law. It is supposed to help 32 million Americans without health insurance obtain coverage. Critics said that it was too expensive to help everyone without health insurance and would allow government to intrude too much on American lives.

John McCain said”This bill will bankrupt our great nation.” These are some parts of the health care bill. insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions. Agencies run by the states will allow people who currently cannot afford health insurance. Young people can now be covered by their parents insurance plan until they are at least age 26. But, as you might notice the law requires people to have health insurance.

David Sills is thirteen years old and has already made a verbal contract to play football for the university of Southern California. JS says that his arm could be messed up before junior high and they might not want him and then he would not have a scholar ship for college. If that happens he might not even get into college because he focuses all his time on football he may not even have a social life. Ben Anderson ,13, said sports should be fun not work they make you grow faster than you should.

JS says there have been countless burnout and depression and extreme practice can give you career ending injuries. They can also be expensive like plane rides to a different state or a different country and the parents will worry about their kids. Jay Granat says they might thrive under enormous pressure. I don’t think that is very healthy for the kids at that age. If they are only thirteen then they don’t know what they are getting them selves into if they sign a contract there is no way out.

Australia is experiencing wildfires, floods, and dust storms. What started the wildfires were the high winds that snapped a power line then sparks started and the wildfire began. The wildfire destroyed more that 2,000 homes and killed 173 people. It took more than a month to extinguish the fire.

Now Australia relies on burning coal for their electrical power which is a contributor to greenhouse gases. Scientists believe not all of Australia’s  climate changes are not all unnatural. Bob Carter an earth scientist believes the carbon dioxide is dangerously warming the planet. These climate changes are beginning to take place now and we need to do something about it.

Colorado State University is naming hurricanes that are still coming to the U.S. from the Atlantic Ocean. The hurricanes should begin on June 1st, we only have a little while to prepare. The conditions will dissipate by summer and the Atlantic surface temperatures will be tropical leaving perfect weather for a hurricane. The hurricanes will be class three and class three hurricanes wind speed is at least 111 mph. They have predicted at least eight hurricanes. 

The landfall of the hurricane is about 69 percent. There is a 58 percent chance of a hurricane in the Caribbean. There will be hurricanes on June 2 and August 4. They said the hurricanes will be like the ones in 1958, 1966, 1969, 1998, and 2005. The hurricane season should end November 30 but there have been later predictions

Have other people noticed but we are having so many earthquakes this year. The one in Chile is the most recent it happened at 3:34 a.m. it killed 700 people and left 2 million homeless. The Haiti earthquake killed millions and will never compare to Chile’s earthquake . The people in Hawaii were releaved because not even a day had passed by after the quake when the tsunami warning had passed.

Alberto Rozas said he fell 13 floors holding on to his seven-year old daughter and survived it with her. Cars were tossed and buildings were destroyed what used to be a perfect beach getaway is now a clean up job. Looks like Chile’s president Sebastian Pinera has a lot of work to do. My question is will there be more earthquakes if so how long do have to prepare for them and how devastating will they be.

The US’s government has three branches the  executive which is the president and his cabinet. The president’s job is to lead the branch, make sure everyone follows the laws, carries out governmental obligations, lead the military, direct foreign policy, and he can veto bills. The Legislative branch is the congress they pass bills, removes the president or vice president, declares war, and approves treaties. The Judicial branch has the Supreme Court who reviews laws to see if they are constitutional, they serve as the country’s top appeals court, the Chief Justice presides at any trial to remove the president or vice president.

Venezuela’s government has something in common with the US’s we both have a Presidential-Legislative Democracy which means the president lead the government, sharing power with a legislature and the courts. President Hugo Chavez who is the president of Venezuela and was elected in 1998 and re-elected in 2006. The only thing keeping them alive is the oil that we buy which is bad because he called our recent president a “devil” during the UN speech so they are not doing so well on our good side.

Is dog racing cruel to dogs? On March 6th thousands of dogs in Alaska do a dog sledding race for more than 1,150 miles long. I think that is very cruel to the dogs even though they are built for that dogs die in this race and yet they still do the race every year. Yes they do give the dogs mittens and yes I think the mittens look cute on them but they need to be more carefull with their dogs.

The temperatures are below subzero people die in this race to they can get lost or get caught in a blizzard. So not only are the people risking their dogs lives they are risking theirs a well. I know people say that PETA over reacts but they do spend most of their lives in cramped kennels just like at a pound! It is good that they give the dogs breaks every few hours. What if (since the sled person is whipping the dogs) the dog has a heart attack because it is being worked so hard and the weather conditions are so bad.

Haiti’s Earthquake has devastated millions. About one million of the people are homeless and over 150,000 were killed, the destruction was massive people are sleeping in tents and on the streets with no food, water, or medical care. It is hard to get to them because the airports, roads, and seaports are all destroyed. You can’t communicate with them because they have no power they are just stuck there. They were already the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere now they are way to far in debt it will take years to get them out of debt.

Kids from all over the world are setting up donation places to help the people at Haiti. People from Jamaica, Boston, and Massachusetts have raised more than 350 dollars. If you would like to help out you can go to these sites below doctorswithoutborders.org, unicefusa.org, oxfamamerica, pih.org. The people in Haiti depend on you please visit those sites and see what you can do.

I don’t think we should be fighting in Afghanistan. They already have the poorest towns and schools. Are we just doing that to be mean or make ourselves feel better about our economy? Speaking of schools, Greg Mortenson built his own school, and while driving to a safer place (because of the war) he spotted about a hundred school students packed into a public toilet room. As he said “It was quite noisy because nearly 100 students were packed in like sardines.”

The teacher asked Greg if he wanted to see the rest of the school. They walked down a hill that leaded them to a toolshed it was ten by eighteen feet long there were about a hundred children in there all “packed like sardines”. These children where from fourth to sixth grade had no books, paper, or pencil and they were still doing well in school. Greg soon left to catch his plane with his students, later he called the local education office and they said they had never even heard of the Simdara school district, they also said they would put in a school and give them school supplies.

Cyberbullying is a huge issue today and it is a felony. Anna and Miranda used to be friends and then Anna decided she didn’t want to be friends with her if she was going to be mean to her. Miranda wanted to get back at her she got some friends and started to say mean things to her on the internet. People are saying that Cyberbullying is worse than normal bullying because you can get away from it when you get home but Cyberbullying when ever you turn on the computer or cell phone they show up.

Girls are more likely to be involved in Cyberbullying because we gossip more, we solve our problems with words and boys solve their problems with their fists. The way to stop Cyberbullying is that you have to save the messages and report them to the police and never reply to them. Anna said that she felt better after she stopped the Cyberbullying . Her grades went up and she made new friends.