WHO: E. coli outbreak may be from super-toxic new strain

E. coli is spreading all over Europe. Already 18 people have died and over 1,600 have been sick by it. They're unable to pinpoint the food that started it all, but their idea is raw tomatoes, cucumbers, and lettuce. 500 victims have developed kidney failures. Previous outbreaks have E. coli have affected children and old people, but this time it's the adults, especially women, that are being affected by the disease. There may be some new cases to occur in the next few days, but they're doing the best they can to treat these people and prevent others from getting sick too.

I always used to say that my mom was paranoid when she'd get nervous about what food we were eating, but now I see why. It can be very dangerous if it's not in the right condition or not cleaned properly. I hope that they're able to treat these people and help them get better. I especially hope that this doesn't somehow spread to the United States and affect people living here.
http://http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43248315/ns/health-food_safety/

Syria's sorrow: 'So many children have been killed'

Images of dead children are spreading all over Syria through the mass media. The government tried stopping a protest, and ended up killing at least 25 children. Already 1,000 have been killed. People leading the Syrian revolution are using the pictures as a way to spread awareness and recruit followers to their mission. The government is trying to calm things down by doing an investigation to find out who killed a 13 year old boy.

I don't think having the government do one investigation will help calm anybody down. These people are obviously upset for a reason and the government doing just one thing can't change that. They should be doing 1,000 investigations if they're going to be doing any because 1,000 kids have died. All of this is leading to even more protests. They should find a way to communicate peacefully so nobody needs to die at all.
http://http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43240788/ns/world_news-mideast_n_africa/

House GOP lawmakers press Obama on spending

On Wednesday, Obama was pressed for more information about budget cuts and spending. Both Republicans and Democrats were at the meeting stating their sides, but no real decisions were made. They couldn't reach an agreement of how to reduce debt. Even though no major things were decided, the meeting was productive because it gave both Democrats and Republicans a chance to state their sides and look each other in the eye about this situation.

I'm glad that the meeting was productive, but shouldn't they already have been able to look each other in the eye? I mean they're professionals and that just kind of made it sound like they hate each other. Hopefully more meetings like this will take place so they can come up with a plan to reduce the country's debt. With such a difficult problem, it will take lots and lots of planning.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43235216/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

Home prices drop into double-dip territory

Home prices in metro areas have reached an all time low since 2002. This is the 8th straight month in the country that housing prices have dropped. They've fallen further than they did for the Great Depression, and it took us 19 years to recover from that. Prices won't stop dropping until the number of foreclosed homes for sale drops. Minneapolis had the worst drop in March at 3.7%. They took a poll and 92% of homeowners said that it is a bad time for them to sell their house. This is going to be a very slow recovery.

I was really surprised when I saw that Minneapolis had the worst drop out of all the big cities in the nation. You read about this going on, but until it hits more close to home you don't really realize it as much. I hope that we have a way to dig ourselves out of this hole so that the housing market can begin to improve. There's so many people affected by this. Homeowners are having trouble selling their house for its true value because foreclosed homes are cheaper. Also, businesses that rely on home builders aren't able to prosper because not as many homes are being built. I'm sad that people got into this mess and a little upset that they let this happen because this is what my generation is going to be dealing with when we are looking to buy homes for our families.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43222187/

Woman dies when told of her father's Joplin death

A tornado, described as "the most evil looking thing you'll see in your life," went through Missouri, killing more than 120 people. When one woman was told of her father's death from the tragedy, she had a heart attack and died. They're relating her death to the storm. Officials are still in search and rescue mode. 9 people have been rescued since Saturday, and they're hoping to find even more. This twister was the worst since the 1950's and the 8th worst in entire U.S. history. People are still unsure with the total number of people still missing.

When I was younger and a bad storm would go through Alexandria, in a way I hoped a tornado would come through so that I could say I lived through one. I don't' know why I was so stupid because I obviously didn't know the consequences that come out of them. Houses are torn down, belongings are lost forever, and many people die. I hope that search and rescue teams are able to identify more people as time goes on, and I hope those people are still living. As we keep getting affected by natural disasters in this country, we need to keep helping each other out in whatever way we can. I know all of those people affected by the Joplin tornado will remain in my thoughts.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43164471/ns/weather/

As Mississippi River rises, a hero emerges

The title of this article makes it sound like there's a knight in shining armor that's saving everyone from the flooding of the Mississippi River. This hero isn't a person at all; it's the flood control system. In the early 1900's, the Mississippi River had a huge flood, similar to the recent one. We learned from history, and engineers came up with a 2203 mile long levee system built along the river. Because of this system, many cities and people living in those cities have been saved from the massive amounts of water. One downfall is that the levees push water up the river's tributaries, causing floods in more rural areas. Those areas don't get any extra money coming in to fund for added infrastructure.

I wasn't aware of all the flooding until today, but my heart goes out to all of those affected by this disaster. I feel like flooding is a very underestimated natural disaster when it's compared to hurricanes, earthquakes, etc. It's good for us to remember how terrible this really is so that we can do what we can to help those affected. People have to evacuate their homes and go live in shelters, leaving everything they're used to behind. I know that certainly wouldn't be an easy thing. I hope that this passes and that we can learn from history again to come up with an even better way to tame the river.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42973616/ns/us_news-environment/

Boosting the Minimum

One major economic issue going on in the United States is whether or not minimum wage should have been increased or should be increased again. With so many families living below the poverty line in recent years, everyone feels something needs to be done. It was found that a family of four earning $20,444 was living in poverty. We can't develop a huge gap between the wealthy and the middle class because we can look at people's salaries and see how big the difference is. In 2007 minimum wage was increased from $5.15 an hour to $7.25 an hour. Some people greatly supported this change but others don't think it's the solution to or problems. Along with the increase in wages, there were significant tax cuts to businesses. Those who are against raising the minimum wage say that there definitely shouldn't have been more tax cuts to businesses because there were so many just recently. They also say that it only affects a small number of the workforce, mostly teenagers, which wouldn't dig us out of this recession we're in. On the flip side, some people believe it will improve our economy a lot. They say that it was completely unfair for people who were working full time and earning minimum wage to still be below the poverty line. If anything, minimum wage should be able to keep them at the line or slightly higher. Since more people will be making more money, they will spend more of it, thus boosting business revenue and the total income of the United States all together.

Poverty: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty

Salaries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salary

I personally think that increasing the minimum wage was necessary, but I don't think it needed to be quite as drastic. Since many of the minimum wage jobs are taken by teenagers, who usually aren't supporting a family, I don't think they should earn as much as a mom or dad working to feed their children. Also, the businesses shouldn't have received such large tax cuts. Doing both of these things at the same time greatly reduced the amount of money the government was taking in, and in hard times like these, we should have eased into this process. Also, raising the minimum wage brought them just to the poverty line. They won't have extra money to spend like people were saying. The only people who may have extra spending money would be those teenagers, but with college costs so high, many of them are looking to save that money so they aren't in a pool of debt when they graduate. I just don't think raising the minimum wage helped our problems. House majority leader Richard Armey also believed that increasing minimum wage was not a good idea. In face he promised to fight President Bush on increasing minimum wage with "every fiber of his body." If someone as high up as him sees the downsides to this, why didn't others?

Article: http://http//www.criticism.com/policy/republicans-minimum-wage-policy.php

Issue #1:http://http://katieb123456.blogspot.com/
Issue #3: http://dparkinblogs.blogspot.com/