Shuyan Yan (PO ’23) In Zhongguancun, a well-known tech hub in Beijing, China, there is a joke circulating that if a billboard falls on 10 pedestrians at midnight, 8 of them might be software engineers, and the other two must be program managers. In the Chinese technology industry, many sarcastically joke about working overtime, and seeing employees leaving office buildings at midnight is...
Kathryn Parker (SC ‘23) With the recent election shifting the balance of power in the Senate to the Democrats, a divided Congress struggled to address the COVID-19 pandemic and its economic repercussions. Throughout his campaign, Biden pledged to provide the American public with a relief package should he become president. Since he took office, Congress has been fairly supportive of this mission...
By Kenyamarie Mahone (PO ’23) On February 23rd 2021, Akquile Pollard, better known as Bobby Shmurda, was released from Clinton Correctional Facility. Pollard, a 26-year-old New York rapper who gained esteem for his hit single “Hot Boy,” was released after serving 6 years for criminal possession of a weapon and conspiracy to murder. In the years following Pollard’s arrest, fans and...
Andy Liu (HMC ‘23) The lights first went out three weeks ago, but Texas has suffered from mass utility failure ever since the winter storms of February 10th, 2021. The outages have had a tremendous impact on Texans, leaving five million without power and twelve million without water at their peak. In the political wake of the disaster, local politicians initially blamed the halting of renewable...
By Camryn Fujita (SC’21) Former President Donald Trump and his allies have faced intense legal fallout since the certification of the 2020 election results and the January 6th storming of the U.S. Capitol. Last week, attorneys for Fox News petitioned a New York state court to drop the defamation suit brought against the network by voting technology company, Smartmatic. Smartmatic, the...
By Christopher Tan (PZ ‘21) Consider a brief thought experiment. An influential investor owns a number of cheap shares. They begin spreading lies about why they think these shares will rise and use their influence to sell the shares at an inflated price to others. Before they are caught and the stock’s prices fall, the investor would have profited a considerable amount of money. This is illegal...
By Sasha Rothstein (HMC ’23) Over the past two-and-a-half months, America’s 100 million active TikTok users have been launched into the deep end of fraught US-China relations. Citing national security concerns over the Chinese-owned app, the Trump administration issued multiple executive orders to ban TikTok in the absence of an acquisition by an American company. While temporarily...
Andy Liu, Mudd ‘23 Despite opposition from organized labor groups, the most expensive ballot measure in California history won by a comfortable margin last Tuesday, with voters approving Prop 22 by a 58-42 margin. Prop 22 classified rideshare and delivery drivers as contractors rather than employees. This exempted corporations such as Uber, Lyft, and DoorDash, who spent over two hundred million...
By: Liz Johnson (PO ’24)One of the most heavily militarized zones in the world is the Taiwan Strait, a 110-mile wide strait that separates China and Taiwan, a self-governing island that China claims as its own. In 1954, both Taiwan and China tacitly agreed to recognize and not cross this median line, since then it has served as an unofficial border between the two. Before 2020, this median...
Jon Burkart (PO ’24) If the past 6 months have proved anything, it’s that nothing is wholly immune to COVID-19. Institutions of higher education (IHE) are certainly no exception. On October 15th, National Student Clearinghouse reported that average undergraduate enrollment for the fall 2020 semester is down 4%, and overall enrollment is down 3% compared to last year. This trend has hit four...
