Amber Hancock-Burns Staff Writer Nigerian-American Obinna Ukwanni decided to help his hometown in Nigeria rather than finding a six-figure job, like most graduates of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He moved to Nigeria for his eighth and ninth grade years of school when his parents wanted him learn more about his family’s heritage and background. Now as a graduate of MIT, Ukwanni has created a program with other graduates and companies in Nigeria to help students there to learn more about robotics and computers. Ukwanni grew up Washington D.C. and attended McKinley Technology High School, where he graduated as valedictorian, with focus on biotechnology. He later graduated from MIT with a Bachelor of Science Degree in Economics with some coursework in Business Management in 2014. When Ukwanni returned to the United States for schooling, he realized how far behind Nigeria was and wanted to make a difference to help boost their education on technology for teens. Meenakshi Sathish Editor-in-Chief Saudi Arabia’s rule on male censorship has been tolerated for long enough. The country’s women are done with the patriarchy that comes with the outdated law of having to be escorted by a male relative or husband in order to be out on public. Men that women can leave the house with include a father(in-law), husband, brother, or son. The idea that a woman’s son has more of a say on his mother’s whereabouts more than his mother explains the ridiculousness of the law. In a fight for their rights, women are using social media and hashtags as their arsenal. The hashtag, Stop Enslaving Saudi Women, is full of women tweeting out their concerns and anecdotes of how male guardianship is negatively affecting their lives. One of the most recent stories to surface the feed is about a woman who is forced to divorce her husband, despite her pleas, because her uncles do not think the couple is compatible. Other tweeters virtually shout against the event calling it a legal battle. User @Ifiguredit tweets, “You know, this legal battle started because she got married without her father's permission. Bear this in mind” to let others know the lack of freedom women have. McKenzie Feldman Staff Writer Welcome to Stars Hollow! Gilmore Girls fans and coffee addicts rejoiced Wednesday as more than two-hundred coffee shops transformed into Luke’s Diner to celebrate the anticipated revival of the hit series Gilmore Girls. Oct. 5, 2000 is when the show first premiered, and fans from North Carolina all the way to Wyoming got to taste what life in Stars Hollow looked like. Netflix was behind the brilliant transformation. They will be streaming the show’s four episode series revival, Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. Those longing all things Gilmore were invited to a free cup of coffee in honor of Lorelai and Rory, the iconic mother-daughter duo from the show. Social media flooded with pictures of all things Luke. Employees and fans dressed in Luke’s signature flannel and hat, posting Luke’s famous “No cell phones” sign all around. Many fans even posted pictures with Luke cutouts and Luke’s coffee cups. Quotes from the show were also printed onto coffee sleeves, adding a nice touch to the atmosphere. McKenzie Feldman Staff Writer Whenever people hear the names Katrina, Sandy, Charley, and Andrew they think of the storms that devastated this nation. Matthew is a popular name that means “Gift from God”, but over the past week it has become cringe worthy. Millions were left without power, winds exceeded 110 miles per hour with miles of destruction, death tolls reached nine-hundred and coastal roadways turned into roaring rivers, and storm surges flooded nations. Hurricane Matthew delivered some of the worst tragedies along its path as it started its slow crawl up the East Coast. First, Matthew made landfall in Haiti on Tuesday as a Category 4 hurricane. It left behind widespread destruction. Haiti was struck with wind speeds up to 125 miles per hour and heavy rain that flattened homes, razed crops, swept away livestock, and flooded villages. After experiencing a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in 2010, it seems so unfair that the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere should have to encounter another natural disaster. Also, fears of an even worse cholera outbreak and food shortages are something for the people of Haiti to be concerned about. Despite it all, Haiti’s positive spirit remains. However, Matthew had more to give. After tearing through Haiti, Matthew began to set its sight on the United States East Coast. Matthew bore down on Florida Friday morning. Grocery stores were emptied and roads were jammed as 1.5 million Floridians were advised to evacuate. The storm surge caused massive amounts of erosion of the Florida beaches, portions of state roads were washed away, houses were surrounded by rising water, and thousands of trees uprooted. Many people are grateful that the damage was not worse, but there is still a lot of work to be done. Matthew continued to crawl up the coast towards Georgia and the Carolinas. The same conditions that battered Florida, occurred in Georgia and South Carolina. Curfews were even set until daylight to avoid looting. Carolina coasts braced for flooding as Matthew made its way north. Jessica Dorcelien Features Editor The voting has begun between the five finalists for the HighschoolOT.com Student Section Showdown. This year’s finalists are the Heritage Hooligans, the Leesville Road Loonies, the Millbrook Maniacs, the Panther Creek Catamount Chaos, and our very own Apex Cougar Crazies. Our submission came from seniors Grayden Beaufort, Buddy Gelston, and Garrett Hudson. The beat was produced by Beaufort, and the song was rapped by both Beaufort and Gelston while the video was filmed, edited, and produced by Hudson. Fans have until Oct. 17 at noon to vote for the best football student section. Votes for the Apex Cougar Crazies can be submitted through the HighschoolOT application or by texting “HSOT Apex” to 313131. Madeline Rudd Staff Writer Oct. 7, 2016 marked the very first Apex High School/ Apex Consolidated High School Sports Hall Of Fame induction during halftime of Friday’s football game against Fuquay-Varina. Although it may have been wet outside, it didn't stop anyone from watching the Apex greats receive their well-deserved recognition. Graduating in 1938, Jim and Joe Mills are the oldest members. During their time at Apex they lead the baseball team to the Class B championship game and became NCHSAA hall of famers. They later played baseball at NC State and were ACC officials as well. The only selection from Apex Consolidated High School, J.E. Wilson also played baseball before graduating in 1962. After his high school baseball career, Wilson went on to play at Shaw University and was inducted into the Hall of Fame there. He later won the NCHSAA Golden Whistle Merit award in 2000; NCHSAA only gives this award to very special people, “The criteria for the award includes demonstrating leadership, performance, service and training for the betterment of officiating, possessing officiating abilities emulated by fellow officials, being regarded as a person of integrity and character in addition to a minimum of 10 years of experience as an active official,” they stated while explaining this award. Amanda Dybal Staff Writer The State Fair is a tradition for a lot of Americans in the United States. It is an occasion where friends and family go to enjoy games, rides, food, and each other; many people look forward to the shows, music, and fireworks. This year the North Carolina State Fair is full of old and new events. Opening on Thursday, Oct. 13 at 3p.m., the State Fair is a $10 admission fee which includes the Homegrown Music Festival. The festival includes 3 stages and 117 concerts consisting of Delta Rae with Katelyn Read, Super Chunk with Skylar Gudasz, a Johnny Cash Tribute, and more. This year the fair will have a few new foods. My favorites include the fried chicken and waffle kabobs, rocky road cupcakes, deep fried jello, and the man’s sandwich, which is a grilled cheese wrapped in bacon. At the end of every night (Oct. 13-23) the fair will be setting off fireworks at 9:45 p.m. Jessica Stiehm News Editor Fans of the iconic cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show will be happy to hear that the film is getting a long-awaited revival on Oct. 20. For the Rocky Horror virgins, the classic movie opens with two young lovers, Brad and Janet, who suffer a flat tire during a storm. Where else are they to go but up to the creepy castle in order to find a phone? As soon as they step into the mansion of Dr. Frank-N-Furter, their innocent night turns into a wild ride of shocking songs, creepy servants, a seductive mad scientist, and a muscular Frankenstein-man named Rocky. The new movie will feature the same story written by Richard O’Brien way back in 1975, with a whole new cast of characters and High School Musical’s Kenny Ortega directing. The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again has former Nickelodeon star Victoria Justice as Janet Weiss, Disney star Ryan McCartan as Brad Majors, Reeve Carney as Riff Raff, Christina Milian as Magenta, Broadway veteran Annaleigh Ashford as Columbia, American Idol’s Adam Lambert as Eddie, Staz Nair as Rocky, Ben Vereen as Dr. Scott, Ivy Levan as the Usherette, and the renowned Orange Is the New Black’s Laverne Cox as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Tim Curry, the original Frank-N-Furter, on stage and screen, will come back to play the film’s Narrator/Criminologist. Rhea Sodem Staff Writer Digital tools like Facebook, Youtube, and Instagram are becoming more and more popular as technology continues to improve. Social media can be used for more than posting and liking pictures; it can even save languages that are in danger of dying. Languages are depending on translating English terms used on Facebook like friend, invite, and poke. Recently, the Corsican language is slowly dying, so many speakers came together to translate Facebook terms into ones that their language can use. For example, for the word poke they made it “stuzzicà”, which means to alert or tease someone. There are two thousand speakers meet daily trying to translate symbols and Facebook terminology. All of the translations are not literal; some are general everyday dialect. Andrea Tyson Staff Writer 2016 has been a great year for recognition in beauty pageants. The winners this year have not fit into the “standard of beauty”, but these women are beautiful nonetheless. Women with tattoos, stretch marks, colored hair, and of different sexualities are gorgeous. This year we have seen the first openly gay Miss America contestant from Missouri, Erin O’Flaherty; Cierra Jackson, Miss DC, took the crown for the competitors’ Swimwear award in Miss America while wearing her natural hair; and now Bayleigh Dayton has been crowned Miss Missouri USA 2017 (a different pageant from Miss America), and she has made history in the process. Dayton is a twenty-three year old, 5’9, African-American flight attendant from Lee’s Summit, Missouri. She graduated from Baylor University in 2014 with a degree in business and administration, but she also does print modeling on the side. Dayton has done work with Sprint and Hallmark for print modeling (according to Blackgirllonghair.com). The girl has it all! She has the brains, the beauty, and the willingness to do it all, but there was still one thing she was working towards: becoming Missouri’s first African-American Miss USA, and she refused to let that dream go. |
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