The Roar selects summer’s top 9 news stories

0
2038

By Karissa Erven

The White House was was illuminated in rainbow colors Friday, June 26 in celebration of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage across all 50 states.
The White House was was illuminated in rainbow colors Friday, June 26 in celebration of the Supreme Court’s historic ruling legalizing same-sex marriage across all 50 states.

While Cougars were enjoying their summer traveling, tanning and taking a break, they may have missed some of what was going on in the rest of the world. To get caught up, here are what The Roar staff determined were the top nine news stories of the summer.  

1. The Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage was legal in every state in the U.S.A on June 26. In the 5-4 ruling, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority with the four liberal justices. America has been dealing with equality and freedom restrictions since our Founding Fathers were around, but with time and effort the United States is slowly achieving absolute equality in more ways than one.

2. The Women’s National US soccer team won their third World Championship title July 5 in a 5-2 win against Japan. This is the first World Cup the women’s soccer team has brought home since 1999.

3. Sandra Bland was arrested in Waller County, Texas on July 10. Officer Brian Encinia pulled her over for failing to signal a lane change. She was arrested for assaulting a public servant. Three days after her arrest, she was found hanged in her jail cell. The controversy is over how the officers say she died. She was found hanging from a partition, with a plastic trash can liner around her neck.

4. South Carolina removed the Confederate battle flag on July 10 with over 10,000 people cheering “Take it down! Take it down!”

5. Cecil, a well-known lion living on the Hwange Game Reserve in Zimbabwe, was lured away from the sanctuary and killed July 1. The hunter who killed Cecil was identified as American Dr. Walter James Palmer, a dentist in Minneapolis.

6. The California wild fires that have been burning since June 17 are affecting not only California, but Southern Nevada. The smoke pours over the mountains that divide California from Nevada and make the air look like fog, but it is in fact smoke.

7. American soldiers Anthony Sadler, Spencer Stone, and Alek Skarlatos helped stop a terrorist attack on a train in France on Friday, Aug. 21, earning them each the Legion d’Honneur, the highest civilian award in France for the second time.

8. Toxic waste, carrying heavy metals such as iron and copper, was spilled into the Animas River in Colorado on Aug. 10, turning the river a bright orange. Multiple cities surrounding the river declared a State of Emergency and many others worked to avoid the river altogether. An estimated 1 million gallons of wastewater spilled out of an abandoned mine area in the southern part of the state.

9. Most people would have looked at the moon on July 31 and thought it to be normal, but it was a blue moon. A blue moon is the second full moon in a calendar month. For a blue moon to occur, the first of the full moons must appear at or near the beginning of the month so that the second will fall within the same month (the average span between two moons is 29.5 days). The last blue moon occurred on Aug. 31, 2012. There will be about 15 blue moons within the next 20 years.