Breaking the Bubble (03/31/2023)

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Kyle Putt, Graphics Manager / The Bucknellian

Madison Kurtz, Staff Writer

Domestic

Last Monday, a shooting in a private Christian grade school in Nashville, Tenn. killed three children and three teachers. The shooter, 28 year old Audrey Hale, was armed with at least two assault style weapons and a handgun, and was killed by police inside The Covenant School. Police have not identified a motive and do not have evidence that the victims were specifically targeted. They do believe that the location of the shooting was premeditated, as there is evidence written in the manifesto obtained by police at the shooter’s residence. Hale legally purchased seven firearms from five different gun stores, three of which were used in the shooting. The victims of the shooting are nine-year-olds Evelyn Dieckhaus, Hallie Scruggs and William Kinney, as well as 61-year-old Cynthia Peak, 60-year-old Katherine Koonce and 61-year-old Mike Hill.

The Biden Administration is set to auction off over 73 million acres of water in the Gulf of Mexico for oil and gas drilling. The size of the plot is more than double that of the Willow Project. The Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management will hold the lease sale on April 5. This move was driven by Sen. Joe Manchin who added it to the Inflation Reduction Act. Environmental groups have filed a lawsuit to stop the lease sale, arguing that the Interior Department’s environmental analysis is flawed. George Torgun, the attorney for environmental law group Earthjustice said, “There’s nothing in the IRA that required it to be so large…It’s going to lock in fossil fuel development in the Gulf for the next 50 years.”

International

39 people were killed and 29 were seriously injured in a fire at a migrant detention facility in the border city of Ciudad Juárez, Mexico. The fire started when detained migrants heard of their impending deportation. They lit mattresses on fire in protest and the blaze spread rapidly. Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador stated in a press conference that, “They didn’t imagine that it was going to cause this terrible tragedy.” Many of the deaths were due to suffocation, and those in critical condition were sent to four nearby hospitals. 

Two of the European Union’s biggest transportation unions conducted a walkout last Monday, March 27 in Germany, and it is regarded as one of the country’s most severe demonstrations in decades. The trade union, known as Ver.di, demands a 10.5 percent pay raise to compensate for increasing energy and food costs across the nation. 400,000 workers in this union alone took part in the strike, paralyzing eight major airports including those in Munich, Frankfurt and Hamburg. Ships are also unable to depart from Germany’s largest port in Hamburg. While many German employers criticize the strike, the public is more supportive. 55 percent consider the walkouts “rather” or “fully” justified.

Protests and strikes broke out in Israel last Monday over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to overhaul the country’s judicial system. His plan would give the executive branch absolute control over the appointment of courts and would prohibit the courts’ ability to review legislation, declare it unconstitutional or declare actions by the executive branch. Tension in the country has increased over the past three months, but the eruption of protests were a result of Netanyahu’s recent firing of his defense minister who had outwardly opposed the move for judicial changes. The massive protests have pushed Netanyahu to postpone the proposals, which mellowed protesters but also creates concern about the future of democracy in Israel.

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