Egyptian Curfew Changes

"Egypt Scales Back Nighttime Curfew"
By: Raja Abdulrahim
Source: LA Times
http://www.latimes.com/world/worldnow/

Then do your summary of the article here.

Then in a new paragraph talk about the importance of the article.

A New Beginning

Each year as the end of July roles around, I begin to start planning for the upcoming school year. This is always an exciting time for me because it is a chance for me to start fresh and try new things. I am always up for learning something new and even more inclined to help my students do the same thing. Over the years, I have learned that the more outside of the box my lesson plans and expectations are for my students, the more they appear to learn. This fact has helped me to infuse various aspects of technology into my classroom. I started with a class website the first year that included forum posts and move onto blogs, SmartBoards, remotes, video presentations, and anything else I could find at my disposal. I have led the way over the past three years at my current school when it comes to technology integration and I intend to keep it that way in years to come.

If you are reading this right now it is because you are probably one of my new students for my upcoming AP Language and Composition class and are being asked to create your very first blog. This will be something vastly different for you when it comes to homework assignments because you have never done homework in this fashion. I want you to make the blog so that it reflects your personality and shows who you are as an individual. We will be using and looking at these all year, so please have fun with it, but keep it appropriate for school. I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.

Amazon Lending

Earlier this week Amazon, one of the largest Internet businesses, started offering loans to its online sellers. This is something drastically different for them. Since the inception of Amazon, they have been in the business of making money,  not lending money. By moving to a loan making business, they are not only offering up their large amounts of money to their clients, but they are also opening themselves up to potential credit risks. The idea is that Amazon would offer loans to their sellers which will in turn allow them to buy more inventory that can then be sold on the website. Amazon would get money from both sides because they would get interest from the loans as well as fees from the selling of the inventory of their sellers.

The new entity will be called Amazon Lending, but has not yet been officially announced. Emails went out earlier this week to potential clients telling them about the business opportunity and as word spread Amazon's stock began to rise throughout the week. An announcement is expected in the near future, but an official date has not been named yet.

Alistair Barr wrote the article "Amazon Lending: Company Offering Loans to its Online Sellers" was posted on The Huffington Post earlier this week.

Baby Panda Dies in Washington D.C.

Earlier today a baby panda that was just a week old died at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. This was a sad occasion because it was the first pregnancy that Mei Ziang had resulted in a live birth since 2005. In the past seven years she has had five failed pregnancies. The baby weighed only four ounces and there were no obvious signs of trauma when the baby was retrieved from the care of its mother about an hour after its final recorded sounds. The veterinarians at the zoo will do a necropsy to determine the final cause of death, but results will not be out until Monday at the earliest.

Pandas are a rare breed of animals that have a lot of trouble reproducing both in zoos and in the wild. This makes the loss of this baby panda even more sad. Because the baby panda was not yet 100 days old, as per Chinese tradition, it was not yet named. The zoo is now unsure if they will try to breed Mei Ziang again. "Baby Panda Dies at National Zoo" was written by Ben Nuckols and published today in The Huffington Post.

Chicago Teacher's Union Strike

This past week has been a difficult one for the children, parents, and most importantly the teachers of the Chicago Teacher's Union. Last week the teachers went on strike siting they were unhappy about their new proposed contracts that included stricter evaluations and less job security. Earlier today the mayor of Chicago presented the union with a new contract after a long week of negotiations. The teachers refused to sign the contract stating that they needed more time to review the contract before they could sign with a clear conscious. This means that the schools in Chicago will be closed for a couple more days. They will meet again on Tuesday, after Rosh Hashana, to discuss the idea of signing the contract. The soonest schools will be back in would be Wednesday. Even though this is a long time and a good reason to strike, parents are even beginning to picket and protest with the teachers. This could be a long strike, but if the teachers give in early they will not get what is truly right for both them and the students within their district. This article, "Chicago Teachers Strike: Union to Continue Industrial Action Into Second Week" was written by Tammy Webber and Sophia Tareen who are members of the Associated Press. The article was posted on The Huffington Post.

No More Truancy Tickets

Earlier this week in the Los Angeles Times there was an editorial article titled "Taking Care of Truants" that discusses the new changes to the truant student program for Los Angeles. The program used to entail truant students receiving rather expensive tickets for being truant from school. Officers were even reported waiting on busy routes to school to write tickets for students that were even running late to school, but were obviously on their way to campus. The program was supposed to provide a way for counselors, principals, parents, and the like to find out why students were not in school so that they could provide the proper resources to ensure that more children stayed in school and continued on the graduation. The program did not always work that way because it usually frustrated everyone involved and the process of going to court, paying hefty fines, and dealing with missing more school has made the program very difficult to not only manage by for students to navigate. This usually resulted in students dropping out rather then continuing on with their education.

A new program that is being proposed will hopefully benefit everyone involved. The new program will not hand out hefty tickets, but will rather focus on counseling tardy and truant students instead. In order for a program like this to work though, the district will need to also implement a disciplinary program that will replace the use of tickets. The program will be used for repeated truancy offenders and other minor rule-breaking. With mandatory counseling for truant students hopefully it will help to get to the root of the students problems and provide them with ways to better ensure that they are at school.

Moose Tracks Takes on Cancer

To me, ice cream is the food of the gods, but there is only really one flavor that I truly crave: Moose Tracks. It consists of vanilla ice cream with peanut butter cups and ribbons of chocolate fudge. How can this heavenly combination be wrong? I tried moose tracks for the first time when I was about twenty years old. I had just found out that I was diagnosed with breast cancer, so I stopped by the store on my way home to get some "comfort" food, which usually included ice cream. I browsed through the freezer section and the interesting packaging got my attention. I read the label and my curiosity was peaked. I decided to grab it and give it a try.

When I got it home, I grabbed a spoon and napkin and then sat down on the couch to watch my go to movie when I get depressed: The Godfather. Do not ask why I watch that movie when I get depressed, just understand that it sometimes cheers me up. Moving on, I open the lid of the carton, dip my spoon in, and take my first bite. I am in heaven. The sweet, glorious, amazing taste makes everything seem to feel better. Obviously it cannot make the cancer go away, but at least it acts as a temporary tranquilizer while I try to process and think about what is going to happen to me. Since then, I have changed my life dramatically and very rarely eat ice cream, but when I do it takes me back and reminds me of how far I have come since I survived cancer.