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A Note from the Editor in Chief
Dear Middle School student and faculty,
Welcome back to school! It's great to see new faces and be on this new campus (new for some of us). Thank you for taking the time to read the INTL Inquirer and hope you enjoy it! I am Ryan in 7th grade, and I am the new editor in chief for the newspaper club. Our leadership team includes me, Tessa, Lois, and Ms. Degreef as the supervisor. If you want to join, we meet on Week A, Tuesdays at room D101 during lunch. Happy Halloween!
-Ryan
Halloween's Ghost Past
Lucie (7th)
Halloween is a holiday celebrated every October 31st. It is a holiday where people dress up in costumes and trick or treat for candy, but was it always like that? Halloween dates back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain. The Celts lived about 2000 years ago. They lived in what is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and northern France. The day of the festival marked the end of summer, dark, cold winter, a time of year that was often associated with human death. Celts believed the night before the new year (their new year was November 1st) the boundary between the dead and the living were blurred. On the night of Halloween the Samhain festival, where they thought when the ghost of the dead returned to earth, was celebrated. On the night of Halloween, the Celts thought it was easier for the priests to make predictions about their future. During the predictions, the Celts wore costumes usually made out of animal skin and heads to try to tell each other fortune. At the end of the celebration, the Celts light the fire to give them luck for the coming winter. After 2000 years, Halloween has adapted into the Halloween we know today.
Cristiano Ronaldo's Epic Return
Ethan (7th)
Cristiano Ronaldo is a Portuguese soccer player widely renowned as the best soccer player of all time. He’s recently returned to his former club Manchester United after more than 12 years apart. Just on his first game back, Ronaldo managed to score multiple goals for Manchester United. Ronaldo made his professional soccer debut at Manchester United as a 17-year-old back in 2002. Over 19 years, he’s won trophy after trophy (32 in his career) in England, Spain, Italy, as well as Portugal. After 6 years in Manchester United, he transferred to Real Madrid, and in 2018, he went to Juventus. Finally, this year, Ronaldo came back to his original club Manchester United after being away for so many years, for over 17 million US dollars. On his first game back, Ronaldo scored two goals against Newcastle United, winning the game for his team 2-0. In his second game, he scored yet again, against West Ham United, allowing Manchester United to win 2-1. This is an amazing start to the season for Ronaldo and a great addition to Manchester United’s roster.
Giants Postseason Loss
Ryan (7th)
The San Francisco Giants had the best record in the 2021 Major League Baseball season. The second-best team was the LA Dodgers, who are the Giant's biggest rival and arguably the biggest rivals in the history of baseball. Both teams had amazing pitchers, big hitters, and great fielders. This was a huge best of 5 postseason series - possibly the biggest in their history.
The Giants pitched their young starter, Logan Webb, in game one. He’s been their best pitcher late in the season. Webb pitched extremely well, striking out ten batters in eight innings and allowing no runs. The Giants easily picked up a 4-0 win. During game two, the Dodgers overwhelmed the Giants with their extraordinary hitting and won 9-2. The legendary Max Scherzer pitched game three for the Dodgers. He gave up an Evan Longoria solo home run which ended up being the deciding run of the game. The Giants won 1-0. All the Giants had to do was to win the next game to beat the Dodgers. But after Giants starting pitcher Anthony DeSclafani got pulled out early, the Dodgers came out on top with another blowout 7-2 win.
(Click the arrow to read more)
With the series now tied 2-2 back in San Francisco, the winner of game 5 would advance to meet the Atlanta Braves. The Giants had their young star Webb pitching again. The Dodgers were supposed to pitch Julio Urias, but to mess up the Giants lineup they changed it to Corey Knebel. The Dodgers scored first on a single but the Giants tied it up with a huge Darin Ruf solo home run. Now in the eighth, another young star Camilo Doval came in as the closing pitcher. Doval blew the tie by giving up an RBI single to Bellinger but got out of the inning. It was now 2-1 in the bottom of the ninth, Max Scherzer, the starter, came in. He got Crawford out and “Late Night Lamont” came to pinch-hit. He got his nickname because he was red hot in the late innings. After an almost home run foul-ball, he was called looking on a third strike. Down to their last out, Wilmer Flores came up to bat for the Giants. He fell behind on a 0-2 count and check swings at a ball. The home plate umpire appeals to the first base umpire and unbelievably he called it a strike. The game was over and the Dodgers won 2-1. Looking at the replay, he did not swing. The entire Giants season comes down to a bad call. Even though they did not make it far into the playoffs, with their excellent team, they will surely make a name for themselves next year.
Human vs Human
Humans vs Earth
The Murder of Gabby Petito
Emory (7th)
22 year old Gabby Petito and her fiance Brian Laundrie, were going on a road trip, driving from city to city while living in their van. Gabby didn’t know this but this was her last adventure. She got into a vicious fight with her fiance and was last seen in Salt Lake City at a motel also in Ogden. Gabby made her last call with her mom when she was visiting Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. (Click the arrow to read more)
Then just a couple of days later Brian decided to visit back home to North Port, Florida with a new headcount of one. Up until recently, Brian Laundrie had been on the run. Brian was not cooperating with the police and requested a lawyer. Gabby’s family had not heard from her since Aug. 25. At first, they just assumed she was out of cellphone range, but days kept going by and there was not a peep from Gabby. Gabby’s family was very worried Gabby was in danger and she was not safe. Gabby’s family was right because police had found her body in the woods of Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park. Gabby had died from strangulation, assumed to have been killed by her fiance.
Recently on October 21st, human remains and a backpack belonging to Brian Launderie were found in a Florida park near his home. And by the 22nd, Brian was confirmed dead using dental records to identify him. No further information has been found.
May Gabby Petito rest in peace.
Spooky, Scary, Palm oil
Lucie (7th)
You may or may not know what palm oil is? It’s found in an average Nutella jar at home or maybe you do not know what it is at all. Palm oil is edible vegetable oil from the fruit of oil palm trees. Whether you have heard of it or not, palm oil is used everywhere, from food to beauty products or even your cleaning products (such as soap and detergent) and biofuel. (Click the arrow to read more)
Even though we use palm oil in abundant amounts, it does not mean it is all acceptable. Palm oil plantations are found everywhere. The countries that produce the most palm oil are Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, and Colombia. Because there are so many plantations, palm oil is very cheap. It can be used as a replacement for butter and vegetable oil. Since we use so much palm oil companies continue to plant additional palm oil plantations to get more money. These companies burn down illegally protected forests to plant their plantations. This demolishes the habitats of many animals and others that are in fear of extinction. Hence, they burn down plenty of trees contributing to solving climate change.
Unfortunately, a substantial amount of palm oil plantations allow kids to work on their plantations. Kids are given an impossible amount of hard work to be completed on the plantation for hardly any pay. Since the work requires a vigorous amount of strength to do, most people bring their children (if they do have children) to work. That prevents these kids from having a full and fulfilling education.
Although it may seem all products which include palm oil are bad, this is not always the case. Some palm oil plantations have an RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certificate. It means that the plantations do not burn down protected areas, give a reasonable wage, and do not let children work at the plantation, and keep the workload at a manageable level. If you do decide to buy products that have palm oil in them make sure to look for this logo that proves it is RSPO certified.
The Future of Transportation
Connor (7th)
Ever been stuck in traffic and wish you could fly to get to your destination? Well, now you can! This newly-invented, electric ‘helicopter’ has six rotors, can fly like a plane, and can go up to 200 miles per hour. It is called the Joby Aviation electric helicopter. "It's significantly safer, significantly faster, and significantly quieter than the helicopters that are out there today," Paul Sciarra, Executive Chairman of Joby Aviation and Co-Founder of Pinterest. For example, the all-new electric helicopter can get from the LAX Airport to Newport Beach in 15 minutes, when it takes a car more than an hour. However, wouldn’t all these rotors be loud? Actually, according to the creators of the electric aerial helicopter, it sounds just like a car a mile away from you. It’s so quiet it's unbelievable. You can see the sound for yourself here. The Joby Aviation electric helicopter will be able to seat 5 in total, with 4 passengers and 1 pilot. The creators of this aircraft had to relieve urban congestion on their minds while creating this chopper. This company has caught the eye of both NASA and Toyota, with both of them agreeing to help out with the project. The new luxurious type of transportation hopes to be released in 2024.
9/27/21 Volleyball: The Game Against Seacrest (Republished)
By: Lois and Tessa (7th)
The INTL Dragons volleyball team led by team captains Esther Salanon and Yara Abuelsorour had their first game of the 2021 - 2022 school year. Their first game was against Seacrest school from Half Moon Bay. Seacrest traveled almost 25 miles to the lair of the dragons at our Willows campus. (Click the arrow to read more)
Seacrest came out on top in each of the three sets, by scores of 25-6, 25-8, and 15-8; however, that did not discourage the Dragons! In fact, it served as a motivation for a determined INTL team to improve in future games. Some of the players felt that they needed to have better communication on the court, and the Dragons learned by observing the strengths of their opponents and hope to incorporate some of Seacrest's skills into the Dragons' game plan. When Marie R, one of the volleyball players, was asked what she learned about the other team's strong points that could be beneficial to their team she said “[Seacrest] has AMAZING setters. [...] Now we know that if we want to win, we’ll have to set a [higher level].” One of the captains, Esther commented “We need to get better at receiving serves.” The Dragons have a positive outlook on what improvements can be made and on what's to come.
After watching the volleyball team practice, the impression is very clear that this team has its own community that supports one another by clapping and cheering. The team's sense of collaboration was said repeatedly to be one of their strongest points. When team captain Yara was asked a question about the game she replied, “We had a lot of team spirit which kept us motivated and pushing.” This camaraderie was evident on the court.
The players' responses showed that they appreciated their teammates and surroundings. When Emory M. was asked what she thought about her team captains, she said “Yara our team captain and our co-captain Esther are really good captains, Esther always has positive team spirit and pushes us to our full limit and Yara is really good at playing volleyball.”
Everyone on the volleyball team is pumped for their next game against the Seacrest B team. Although we're all curious to see how their B team plays, many are excited to be playing their first away-game. Go Dragons!!!
The INTL volleyball team includes: Sophie Miralles, Emory Mckinney, Anna Leventopoulous, Mathilde Minty, Yara Abuelsorour (Co-Captain), Amandine Becle, Marie Redondo. Sophie Melchiorri, Naya Salahieh, Claire Brisson, Esther Salanon(Captain), Liya Damji, Clémence Gaillard.
Is the Taliban back for good?
Kiya (7th)
Many people around the globe have just recently been hearing about the devastating Taliban returning to Afghanistan. Our US troops were fighting for Afghanistan against the Taliban for 20 years, which is the longest wartime for the US in history. President Biden made the decision to withdraw our troops from the ongoing war on the 30th of august, 2021. But what went on behind the scenes? (Click the arrow to read more)
The US government had borrowed billions of dollars from nearing countries to sustain the war. In total, after the troops left, the US had spent over
$2, 000,000,000,000 (2 trillion dollars) on the war and most of it wasn’t even America’s money. Many people and organizations investigated this and they said if the war had continued to 2050, they would have spent over $6,500,000,000,000 (6.5 trillion dollars).
Now, the US has to pay back billions of dollars and it will take many, many years to complete that task.
Of course, with every war comes death. Hundreds of thousands of people from both sides of the war were killed, and it wasn't just American troops and the Taliban who endured this, it was innocent Afghan people.
Those were only some of the sacrifices made during the war, but they all made a small difference to the lives of the Afghan people, particularly women and young girls. Now, the percentage of female Afghan teens able to read is 37% which doesn't seem like a lot, but in Afghanistan, it is a drastic improvement from when there were no US troops. The infant mortality rate has also dropped noticeably by 50% since the U.S and other Afghan citizens started to overthrow the Taliban.
Still, many U.S citizens and high-risk Afghans are still in the dangerous country. Because the U.S troops left before the Taliban was rid of, we believe that the Taliban will continue to gain power, and all the progress the American soldiers made will be lost. And Afghanistan will regress back to the once disastrous country that we wanted to help 20 years ago. We all hope that something good will come out of our fighting that is long-lasting, but we don't know what's going to happen next.
Last Laugh
Mateo (6th)
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