Weekly News Wrap-Up
Co-News Editor Audrey Parish discusses NATO, mask mandates, the midterm elections, prom and other top stories you might have missed this week.
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Hi everyone and welcome back to this week’s West Side Story Weekly News Wrap Up! Today I’ll be bringing you an overview of what happened in the news this week at West, in Iowa, in the US, the world, and a bit of weird, fun news to top it all off. Let’s get started!
In world news, Finland and Sweden are both considering joining NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO believes that the addition of these two countries would help strengthen security in Europe. Whether or not these two countries do join will be decided in the coming weeks.
On Monday the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania decided it will reinstate mask mandates indoors, starting on April 18. This decision was made in response to a rise in COVID-19 cases. The average number of cases on April 11, when this decision was made, was over 50% more than it had been ten days before, from 84 new cases a day to 142 new cases a day.
In Iowa news, Abby Finkenauer is planning to run against Chuck Grassely to represent Iowa in the US senate. However, Finkenauer will not be on the midterm ballots this June. In order to be on the ballot, a candidate needs to collect 100 signatures from 19 different counties each. Three of Finkenauer’s signatures were considered invalid because they did not include the correct date. She appealed to the Iowa Supreme Court, arguing that she should be able to be on the ballot, but their final decision has not been made yet.
This week, prom details were announced. This year’s prom will be 7:00 pm to 10:00 pm on May 7 at the Courtyard by the Marriott University Heights Rooftop. Admission costs $20.
A hockey team in Alberta, Canada broke the world record for the longest hockey game. 40 hockey players kept the game going for 261 hours, starting March 31 and ending last Tuesday, as part of the “Hockey Marathon for the Kids,” an event in which almost one million dollars was raised for children with cancer.
Thanks for watching and I’ll see you all next week!
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Vivian Polgreen is a junior at West. She is the co-news editor for the online publication ad it is her second year working on staff. In her free time,...

Helelia Wa Kalala is a junior at West. This is her second year on staff working as a social media editor and videographer. She enjoys editing videos as...