Interacting with Current Events: The first First Nations Premier 🍁 + A Shocking Space Discovery 🌌

Interacting with Current Events

Part 1: Wab Kinew, the first First Nations Premier of a Province

Link to this article: https://winnipeg.ctvnews.ca/premier-wab-kinew-from-rapper-to-reporter-to-manitoba-s-top-political-office-1.6588342

Summary: 

This article is about how Wab Kinew became the first First Nations Premier for Manitoba on Tuesday Night. It also talks about his victory speech and all the important topics he covered, such as his life story and what his goals are for the future. This article tells us about his experience as a young man and why he decided to run in office in his 30s and 40s.

Why is this issue important? How does this affect us?

This news doesn't just affect Manitoba, but also the rest of Canada too. The two things I found in the article that stood out to me were his inspiring life story and what his party is going to work on improving in the future. Kinew is an example of someone who turned his life around by pursuing something he was passionate about. He noted that the reason he ran for premier's office was because of his troubled past and to show that it is not to late to turn your life around. In the article, it says that he faced some criminal charges and wrote some offensive lyrics in his rap songs, but later decided that "because he's been able to make good on a second chance at life that he has something to contribute in how we can improve things." In his victory speech on Tuesday night, he shares that what makes him such a good candidate is the perspective he has from his life. His NDP party has also stated that they're going to invest more into social housing, crime, and healthcare, which are three very significant current issues. He has pledged "support for searching the private Prairie Green Landfill north of Winnipeg for the remains of two slain Indigenous women." which is something none of the other parties have done yet. He talks about bringing justice for those families of the murder victims, which is so important. Him making history as the  first First Nations premier and his notes in his victory speech also affect First Nations youth because on the night of his victory, he directed a lot of his inspiring comments towards  them.

Two other articles about this:

https://calgaryherald.com/opinion/columnists/braid-manitoba-wab-kinew-rise-division-defeat

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/oct/04/canada-wab-kinew-first-nations-premier-manitoba

Are there any differences in the way these three articles discuss the issue?

In the first CTV News Winnipeg article, there is a whole section talking about how his past resurfaced as soon as he was in office. It mentions in detail all the instances where he got in trouble, such as when he was charged for impaired driving, and when he faced two domestic assault charged. This article could also be biased against the Progressive Conservatives because it mentions the times that they failed to take action (ex. opposing searching the landfill for the remains of two Indigenous women.)

The "Calgary Herald" articled focuses more on what he and his party are going to do moving forward, not completely focusing on introducing Kinew as a person and talking about his past too much. This article could have a bias towards the NDP party because it calls Kinew's actions impressive multiple times. "Second, and most impressive, is how Kinew handled the sneaky attempts to destroy him with his Indigenous heritage and past."

Part 2: NASA's New Telescope may have found potential evidence of life

Link to the article:

https://nypost.com/2023/09/14/nasas-new-telescopes-stunning-discovery-biggest-hint-of-alien-life-so-far/

Summary of this article:

A team of international astronomers may have just discovered evidence of life 744 trillion miles away from Earth! From collecting data from their new telescope, they have found an exoplanet that contains methane and CO2, leading them to believe there are aliens there. It says that researchers believe this could be the best bet of discovering life outside of thes solar system. 

Personal Reflection:

This discovery can be life-changing to many people. First of all, evidence of a habitable exoplanet and potential signs of life is a massive breakthrough in astronomy for scientists and researchers. Although actually getting there is another feat for the future, many people, including myself, can find this information very fascinating and want to know more about space. I think it's so interesting how far telescopes can see and how hard these astronomers have worked to uncover this. One Australian academic wrote "The more exoplanets we find in habitable zones, the greater the chance that they’ll be able to support some form of life, and eventually, we’ll detect the signature of such life"

Two other articles about this:

https://www.nasa.gov/universe/exoplanets/webb-discovers-methane-carbon-dioxide-in-atmosphere-of-k2-18-b/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2023/09/12/nasa-exoplanet-water-life/70830603007/

Since the NASA article is directly from their website, it has a lot of astronomy language and terminology that regular people reading the news would probably not understand. (Such as "hycean worlds" and "phytoplankton"- super big scienc-y words) It is probably written for people who have a lot of knowledge about space or study that in school. 

That's why the NASA article is very different from the USA Today and New York post. Those two are geered towards everyday people who read the news, see an interesting headline and click on the article to find out more. They leave out most of the science stuff and talk in a way that anyone could understand.