“Don’t bury me.” 6-year-old Fareed Shawky pleas as doctors try and tend his missile wounds.

  Though he is just a child, 6 months of war in his country, Yemen, has showed him exactly what happens when people die–they get buried.

“Don’t bury me,” Shawky cries again.

Meanwhile, his father stands across the room, smiling, trying to will away his child fear.

His father, al-Thamry Shawky tries to keep calm, yet tears rolled down his face as he hoped Fareed wouldn’t have to feel afraid.

Alas four days later, Fareed died from head injuries. The boy’s relatives hurriedly buried him-save his father that couldn’t break him promise.

Upon hearing of this death, Ahmed Basha, a local photographer, sorrow filled, posted a video online of Fareed begging for his life.

Even when little else on Yemen’s war seemed important, this video was picked up by social media and quickly gained attention.

Little Fareed is bringing the war we once forgot back to life, say activists.

Fareed’s story is now symbolic of Yemen’s struggles. Using hashtag #dontburyme, activists call for an end of bloodshed. This audio reminds then of similar stories in other countries such as Aylan Kurdi  from Syria.

This hashtag originally started in Arabic, but as news spread, it became translated to English.

“A child in #taiz told his father after he was injured: “Do not bury me.” Sadly the father could not [fulfill] his son’s call #Dontburyme” Kawkab Ahmed, a Turkish observer, said on Twitter.

His mother is obviously devastated as she explains how Fareed was her whole life. She also blames his death on Houthi rebels because he was just playing hide-and-go-seek when the missile hit him. Four other children were also wounded.

“All of a sudden I heard a loud explosion,” al-Thamry Shawky told Basha, “I ran out into the street with no shirt to look for Fareed. Where is Fareed?”

Neighbors soon informed him that Fareed had been taken by an ambulance because if his injuries. He then rushed to be by his boy’s side. Sadly, he didn’t look to good. Rubble had fallen on Fareed’s head and shrapnel dug into his small body all over his skin.

Shortly after being his father to save him, Fareed fell into a coma and died last Saturday.

“Fareed was my whole life,” his mother says. “It was as if someone snatched my heart when I heard him say, ‘Don’t bury me.'”

Aside from being funny, I chose this person and article because it shows that sometimes we don’t need to try and dig for some bigger truth from something so black and white. Using this for instance, when the man bought a ticket for one place simply because it was a little cheaper. We try to see the big moral in the world even when it can just be exactly what it seems. Also, this reminds me of Robert Frost’s poem, “For Once, Then, Something” Where as humans, we are always looking for a deeper meaning but often the truth is elusive. Therefore we should stop searching so hard. Stop questioning so much and simply enjoy life for what it is.

http://www.humansofnewyork.com/post/131419838846/i-lost-my-id-twenty-years-ago-and-havent-been

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An emergency meeting will be held Friday, Feb. 6. over whether the school should rent computers for Journalism, because of a three-week shutdown of software at the school, after a security breach, that would cause a major setback for the yearbook.

The cause for this shutdown is that a breach in the system was found by Ed Robles, district technology director. He discovered that the school’s system had been hacked, resulting in the loss of several files including tests and grades. As of now, no suspects have been found though the police department has started an investigation.

“The police are getting closer to the hacker…” Robles said, “He or she only left a few bread crumbs for us to follow.”

Because of this, a tradition going back 22 years, might not make it this year. “Yearbook day” is scheduled for May 29th. However, this year, with the computer shutdowns it might not be possible, disappointing everyone.

Not making the deadline for the yearbook “…would essentially kill an important tradition at the school,” Rodney Stephens, yearbook adviser said, “Ten years ago…I asked the principal if I should eliminate the event, and he was floored that I would even ask.”

Even though having this shutdown will be a huge inconvenience, officials believe it is something that had to be done in order to prevent any further harm.

“We understand the inconvenience of the shutdown, but it is necessary.” Robles said.

All students (even the ones that aren’t in journalism), are affected by this. Many not able to come back at a different time other than the end of the year, when it was originally scheduled.

“I am going out of state for college, and I am leaving the week after school is out,” Reggie White, senior, said, “I will certainly not be able to come back for a signing party in the summer or fall.”

Hearing this information, members of the yearbook committee are worried but still hope for the best. Desperately needing the computers, to finish in time for the company.

“If the board doesn’t approve the $500 expenditure, I am not sure what we will do,” Rodney Stephens, yearbook adviser, said, “I would rather not think that way. I am hoping for the best and crossing my fingers.”

South Carolina flooding: Dams breached,

more trouble ahead

                           Originally wrote by Holly Yan and Ray Sanchez, CNN

Though the rain stopped, South Carolina is dealing with a whole new set of problems. A dam breaks, billions of dollars of damage is done, and the river hasn’t even hit his highest point yet.

Officials warn that they must be extremely careful in this situation. Caution has to be taken for about the next three days.

“The next 36 to 48 hours are going to be a time that we need to continue to be careful.”   Gov. Nikki Haley  said, “We still have to be cautious,”

Haley has provided an estimate of the “disturbing” damage cost but also said that state and federal Emergency Management Agency officials were making assessments.

“It’s hard to look at the loss we’re going to have,” Haley said. “This could be any amount of dollars.”

Affecting about 16 water systems, more than 400,000 state residents were under a ‘boil water advisory’, a public health advisory or directive given by government or health authorities to consumers when a community’s drinking water is, or could be, contaminated by pathogens, an infectious agent, said Jim Beasley, a spokesman for the S.C. Emergency Response Team.

The latest on this giant flooding problem is below.

Since Saturday, 35 dams are being monitored while 11 dams have failed in South Carolina, the state’s Emergency Management Division said.

One massive failure at Overcreek Bridge dam in Richland County’s Forest Acres sent flood waters roaring downstream and forced evacuations near Columbia.

Also in Richland County, officials allowed water to breach from one other dam. The controlled breaches are to help officers  “…prevent a much larger incident and a much larger amount of water escaping from the dam,”  emergency management spokesman Derrec Becker said.

National Guards have been helping with sandbagging operations and other mitigation efforts.

As of now, 17 people have died due to these weather related issues: 15 in South Carolina and 2 in North. At least 9 drowned and six died in traffic accidents, reported South Carolina’s Department of Public Safety.

North Carolina also reported to deaths in traffic accidents in Cumberland and Jackson counties.

There has been 175 water rescues and 800 people are living in temporary housing said Haley.

70 miles of interstate 95 is still closed with five to eight bridges still undergoing structural checks.

Everyone in the Carolinas is affected by this, including the deceased.

Caskets have been seen floating down the river after being uprooted from the cemetery and washed away.

While in an interview, Wayne Reeves, pastor of New Life Ministries in Summerville, saw a casket float down the river and proceeded to head into the waist-deep water and retrieve it.

“That’s somebody’s family out there,” he told CNN affiliate WCBD-TV. “That’s (a) family suffering. That’s their family there that popped up from under the ground. And I think it’s the human thing to do.”

It turns out that they family was watching as Reeves carried the casket, still adorning white and pink flowers, out of the water.

“This family don’t want to sit on the edge of this road all night long watching their family members bob in the water like that,” the pastor said

“If that was my mom or my dad, I’d walk through hell and high water. And today it happened to be high water.”

To add on top of all of this, apartments that people were forced to evacuate have found to be looted.

Monday, Pamela Courts arrived at  her apartment and found not just flood damage but signs of theft.

“Overnight, we had a break-in, so whatever was upstairs they came and took: TVs, jewelry, everything,” she said.

And yet the rivers are still rising. The flooding is far from over and the river isn’t expected to crest for another to weeks.

This affects both me and the world because though I don’t live in the Carolinas, I have family friends that do and the amount of damage and death is devastating.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/06/us/south-carolina-flooding/

                                                                                                                  Retold by Hailey Narvaez

Since 1937, more than 1600 people have committed suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate bridge. This is just one of many suicide hotspots located in the world. Considered such because people use it so frequently to take their lives.

A new theory emerges that says different types of interventions will help to prevent what is happening or at least diminish it. At these places such a  cliffs, bridges, or other high sunmits, suicide rates skyrocket.

Jane Pirkis, a professor at Australia’s University of Melbourne in the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, and her colleagues have done a study that shows the affect of placing these interventions in 18 hotspots in the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, China and Europe.

Their results found that putting   up barriers ans railway platforms reduced suicide risks by 93 percent and providing  help numbers  cause  a reduction of 61 percent.

“These numbers are phenomenal,” said Dr. Eric D. Caine, director of the Injury Control Research Center for Suicide Prevention at the University of Rochester Medical Center. Though Caine was  not involved in the study, he wrote a commentary on it which was  published in the journal Lancet.

Sadly, interventions at these  hotspots will not have a huge impact on the overall suicide rate because they are only a small percentage. Out of approximately 40,000 people in the US that commit suicide, 52 percent use guns, 25 hanging, 16 poisoning, while only 2 percent use tall heights or 1 percent in from of moving objects.

Even though putting interventions in place are a good idea, “we have got to have a strategy where fewer people come to suicide attempts, (because) once someone is determined to die, it is much harder to intervene,” Cain said. This idea should include helping the mentally ill and abused he added.

To summarize, the analysis shows that there are three strategies can help significantly: providing self help information, restricting access to sites, and making  it easier for another  person to help.

Impacting and encouraging a person with ways to get help through the phone is a decent way to get to people easily. However, it has had a backwards effect in the past by ‘advertising’ hotspots subsequently increasing rates.

By restricting access to sites, you greatly decrease the amount of suicides in those areas (between 62 and 99%). Some suicide hot spots where barriers were linked with fewer suicides include Ellington Bridge, Memorial Bridge, Gap Park, and many others.

Stationing  police and other  officer s on site have helped intervene in cases. This will also be  more cost efficient. However, it will require a person to be there at all times which could be a little difficult.

To conclude, new studies reveal that suicide hotspots could be effaced simply by doing the above things.

This effects both me and the world because it is helping a person, full of potential, to have another chance at turning their life around and living with just a simple solution. Also, though it is just a small percentage, and even if it only saved one person; to the world that might just be another number or stat, but to their family or peers, they could  be their whole world.

My Katpaw committed suicide last month and him being such a great man, affected everyone that knew him. I received a message from his wife late  that day saying, “I’ll bring very same  news to the people I love. I lost a very close loved one this morning. If anyone knew a wonderful man with a huge heart that never poke harm of anyone, I lost  him. He is in heaven. That is my wish for everyone to know. I am very sad and heartbroken but I am okay. I will travel  the journey that the Lord provides for me. No phone calls please.” The week before I was talking to him about college, music, cars, just life I’m general and he seemed perfectly fine. There’s no reasons to go into the what-ifs at this point but I still believe this is a fulfilling anecdote.

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/23/health/saving-lives-worlds-suicide-hot-spots/

Saving lives at 18 of the world’s suicide ‘hot spots’

By Carina Storrs, Special to CNN