Fyre Festival? Boba? Blood clots? Check out this News Segment for the Week of April 19th.

Since 2010, American leaders have been participating in the slow, yet steady process of removing troops from Afghanistan. In August of 2010, there were nearly one hundred thousand American troops located in the war-zone. By the end of Obama’s presidency, the numbers had fallen to slightly less than ten thousand. In the following years, Trump brought the number down even farther, hitting the mark of only twenty-five hundred troops by the end of his term. By the time Biden was inducted into the Office of The President, he was faced with a decade of futile attempts by past leaders and left with only risky options to move forward. On Wednesday, Biden announced his new plan, citing his goal not to pass this war onto a fifth U.S. president: American troops will be completely withdrawn from Afghanistan by September 11th, 2021. 

After the recent recall of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 Vaccine, there has been a spike in fear surrounding the unknown aspects of the vaccines being administered across the United States. In an effort to further examine the likelihood of blood clots forming post-vaccine, Oxford has put together a recent study with a resounding conclusion: chances of blood clotting are 8 to 10 times greater in people who contract COVID-19 than in any Western-developed vaccine recipient. Both the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and the AstraZeneca vaccine (which has yet to be approved by the U.S.) have been the subject of recent concerns, as both show higher instances of blood clotting in recipients. This Oxford study could become a key factor in deciphering the relationship between serious blood clots and variants of the COVID-19 vaccine. 

It’s been four years since the Fyre Festival catastrophe took place, and now the people who bought tickets are finally being compensated for the false advertising scandal. Fans purchased tickets on the upwards of $1,595, with the promises of outstanding music and accommodations. However, upon their arrival, people were met with flimsy tents and cheese sandwiches as well as day-long waits for plane rides home. The festival’s co-founder, Billy McFarland, is currently serving six years for his act of cheating over 80 investors out of $26 million to fund the so-called event of the decade, which later turned out to be one of the worst planned events of the century. The demise of the Fyre Festival has since been documented by both Netflix and Hulu.

COVID-19 has brought about a surplus of delays on imported goods, and boba is being hit hard right now. Just a few days ago the popular tea shop, Boba Guys, posted on their Instagram account to warn customers of the sad news: if your local boba shop hasn’t run out of boba yet, they will soon. As the pandemic continues to rage on, imported goods are becoming increasingly difficult to come by, especially those that come from Asia. With 99% of all boba in America being imported from Asian countries rather than being manufactured here, the current shipping back-up in the U.S. is taking a toll on the American boba industry. On top of that, even the boba that is manufactured here is reliant on tapioca starch from Asia, all of which is currently packaged at sea. In the meantime, Boba Guys recommends finding something yummy at your local boba shop sans the tapioca balls so that you can continue to support local businesses. 

San Jose State’s sports medicine director, Scott Shaw, resigned in August following numerous sexual misconduct allegations. In 2009, Shaw was cleared to continue working by the university’s human resources department despite 17 misconduct allegations from female swimmers. The new investigation that was opened earlier this year has now found the ex-sports medicine director responsible for multiple acts of sexual misconduct spanning across the years 2009-2020. University president, Mary Papazian, has responded to the issue with the promise of adopting “a number of survivor-centric resources and policy changes.” Despite this, San Jose State’s sports medicine department is currently under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division as well as harsh scrutiny by members of the community for allowing Shaw’s abuse to span across a decade. 

As the availability of the COVID-19 vaccine continues to rise, the combination of appointment no-shows and vaccine resistance has led to a new-found pile up of doses in some states. With the estimation that 75% of the United States’ population must be fully vaccinated before the virus can be contained, the signs that vaccines are going unused is concerning. West Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi currently report the highest number of unused doses in the nation. Together, these four states carry nearly 14.1 million doses that have gone unused. However, the issue of wasted vaccine doses is country-wide, with even the best performing states leaving around 11% of doses unused. West Virginia’s COVID-19 director, Clay Marsh, stated that “We’re right on that interface of having more vaccines than arms to put them in,” proving the point that American’s indecisiveness surrounding the vaccine is beginning to lead to a pile-up.