Civil War in Syria Raises Questions About When to Intervene

By Ja'anai Delaney for NewsHour Extra

This article, Civil War in Syria Raises Questions About When to Intervene, is about a war that is currently going on in Syria. It is a war between the military that is loyal to the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and protest fighters. "However, in an attempt to justify his brutal crackdown, Assad has blamed foreign actors and terrorists for the initial uprising and continued violence." The war is making it unsafe for innocent people who live in the country. They are fleeing from their homes to refugee camps in need of food, water, shelter, and for those who are sick, medicine. "(UNHCR) The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that over 200,000 people have fled their homes for calmer parts of Syria or neighboring countries such as Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon."
"The united Nations estimates that as many as 2.5 million people have been affected by the crisis."
The other countries do accept the refugees but they don't have enough resources to care for other people outside of their community.
"The opposition is a patchwork of groups fighting to overthrow Assad and establish a democracy in his place. The opposition includes the Free Syrian Army, the Syrian Liberation Army and fighters across the region. Terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda have even joined the fight, worrying outside observers."
The United states is wondering wiether or not if they should intervene in this fight to see if they can help those "caught in the crossfire." The U.S and other peoples are seeming supporters of the "anti-regime groups, they said that they will not get in between the war unless Assad use Chemical Weapons."
Assad is also threatening that if the U.S gets involved that they would hurt them as well, so the U.s is trying to not have anymore people get hurt in the process for a fight that's not ours.
The armies in Syria have a lot of weapons and there have been reports of city massacres.

I do not think that United States should get involved because it would do more harm than good. The U.S is always seemingly to get into some nonsense that had nothing to do with us and then it backfires, like the reason for the 9/11 attacks. The war started over a fight for oil and it backfired and killed hundreds of people in the process. I think that the U.S should just wait it out and see what happens, weither the kill Assad or her kills his opposers, I believe that us intervening would make things worse putting innocent lives in danger and there could be another attack like the 9/11.

All work no play: Why Your Kids Are More Anxious, Depressed

By Esther Entin

This article,"All work and no play," is about how children are becoming more anxious when they have no free time to play. Children don't have as much free time now as they did when their parents were younger and it's because the interference of school and parents. School and school work is taking up much more time than it has before and giving the children no free time to play. Parents are not letting children go outside and play anymore because of safety issues. Their time are being regulated and only giving them little time to themselves, which can cause depression and anxiety.
"Since about 1955...children's free play has been continually declining, at least partly because adult's have exerted ever-increasing control over children's activities," says the author Peter Gray.
The article lists five ways that play benefits children. "Play gives children a chance to find and develop a connection to their own self identified and self-guided interests, It is through play that children first learn how to make decisisions, solve problems, exert self control, and follow rules, children learn to handle their emotions, including anger and fear, during play; play helps children make friends and learn to get along with each others as equals, and most importantly play is a source of happiness."
Each benefit of play describes why children need more free time.
I agree with this article. I think that children deserve more free time because of the simple fact that most of their time is dedicated to school. The children are still young and they have to get out and explore. take an adventure and play. And then at least every decade the time children play gets lower and lower because of things getting in their way. A child being cooped up in a house all his or her life isn't going to help the child grow. they'll have a lack of responsibility because they hadn't gotten the chance to be responsible.

Philadelphia superintendent identifies schools he intends to close

Kristen A. Graham, Inquirer Staff Writer

This article,"Philadelphia superintendent identifies schools he intends to close," is about how the Philadelphia superintendent is trying to shut down 37 schools to save money. 11 of them are high schools, 22 of them are elementary schools, and four of them are middle schools. Thirty-seven schools are closing to get back $28 million. They are using excuses like, the schools aren't being used, schools haven't met the academic standards, and they don't have to pay for a lot of teachers, etc.
"This is a historic moment for us," William R. Hite Jr. said at a news conference.
Not only will people lose their jobs, but the students will have to be moved and learn to adapt to the new environment. Some good schools are being moved in to bad schools and some bad schools are being moved to good schools. For example, Paul Robeson is moving to Sayre and Communications Technology is moving to Bartram.
"Officials believe very strongly that our public-school system is an institution worth saving," Hite said.
"Many superintendents chose to kick the can and continue to just kick it down and let someone else deal with it," Hite said."There's no more room to kick the can," he said.
They plan on selling the empty schools to people who wants to buy them.

I think that this proposal is a bad idea. A lot of these children are coming from different areas of Philadelphia, so for children to travel from their original school to go to a father school is not good and is actually costing more money to hand out transpass's. I also think that the increasing the number of kids in classrooms will take a toll on the child's learning. It can cause problems and violence as well, being in a new school and the anger of getting switched can help cause fights.