COVID Update

According to The New York Times’ COVID-19 dashboard, there have been over 76 thousand new cases each day of COVID in the United States as of Feb. 17. Around 2 thousand cases are concentrated in Michigan, and out of the new daily Michigan cases, roughly 48 are in Kalamazoo County. 

Local News

Kalamazoo residents, city commissioners and the mayor met on the morning of February 19th to discuss areas of concern in the community and identify priorities for improvement.  Issues like housing, flooding and gun violence were brought to light.  Funds were also a part of the discussion, and according to WWMT, “The city’s housing director introduced a $8 million dollar housing strategy in which $3.5 million dollars will go toward new affordable housing.” 

On Monday, Feb. 21, Portage Public Schools lifted their mask mandate for all students and teachers. This follows the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services easing back on mask mandates throughout schools.

On Monday, Feb. 28, Barbara Allen, the sixth-generation great-granddaughter of Sojourner Truth will be coming to the Loy Norrix cafeteria after school to give a presentation. There will be a Q&A to follow. 

The Loy Norrix Audio Visual club is calling for all Loy Norrix seniors to submit videos and photos of their time at Norrix to be used in the Senior video that will be shown at the class of 2022’s graduation. The link to submit media can be found here. 

National News 

On February 22 the United States women’s national soccer team was given, by their parent organization the U.S. Soccer Federation, a $24 million settlement following a gender discrimination dispute. This now leads to equal pay between the U.S. men’s and women’s soccer teams. 

International News

After weeks of increasing tensions between Russia, Ukraine and NATO, Russia has launched long anticipated attacks on Ukrainian military targets. Ukraines Ambassador, Vadym Prystaiko, has said they don’t have enough people or equipment to defend themselves. G7, which consists of leaders of the U.S., Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the U.K. met Thursday morning to discuss what to do. On Thursday, more military support from the U.S. is expected to arrive in Eastern Europe. Right now, there is a huge worry about what will happen to Chernobyl, which is located near the Russian-Ukrainian border, and not far from Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city. Joe Biden is expected to make more announcements Thursday afternoon. 

On Feb. 20, the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics came to an end with the closing ceremony. At the conclusion of the games, Norway was in first place with 37 medals total (16 gold, 8 silver and 13 bronze) and the United States finished in fourth with 25 total medals (eight gold, 10 silver and seven bronze). 

Joining the Feb. 18 list of United States medalists are:

• 2-Women’s Bobsled Team (Gold)
• David Wise – Men’s Freeski Slopestyle (Silver)
• Alex Ferreira – Men’s Freeski Halfpipe (Bronze)
• Women’s Ice Hockey Team (Gold)
• Brittany Bowe – Women’s 1000m Speed Skate (Bronze)

The U.K. is removing their COVID restrictions, which means that the 10 days of quarantine following a positive COVID test that they used to enforce will no longer exist.  Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this new take on COVID protocols on Feb. 21.  In a statement to parliament, Johnson explained, “because of the efforts we have made as a country over the past two years we can now deal with it in a very different way, moving from government restrictions to personal responsibility.”

On Feb. 23, Colombia became the latest country to decriminalize abortion. According to CNN, “The country’s Constitutional Court ruled in favor of legalizing abortion up until 24 weeks of a pregnancy.” This ruling follows landmark decisions in Mexico last September and in Argentina in December of 2020, all while the future of the United States’ stance on abortion remains in contention. 

On Feb. 20, Buckingham Palace announced that Queen Elizabeth II tested positive for COVID-19.  The Queen is 95 years old but only has mild symptoms.  According to a Time article written by Eloise Barry, “The Queen is fully vaccinated and has had a booster shot.”