News briefs: Catch up on school, local and national news

East

The East chapter of FCCLA— Family, Career and Community Leaders of America —a national organization for different service project opportunities, is working on their fourth service project for the Ronald McDonald house this year, preparing snack bags in the foods room for the families staying in the houses in downtown Kansas City.

The bags are made because they are easily accessible for the families that are staying at the houses, according to FCCLA volunteer and junior Paige Lischer.

The students participating brought different snacks like Nutri-Grain bars and Poptarts to fill the bags with after school on Tuesday, Jan. 17, according to foods teacher Samantha Abel who is in charge of the East chapter of FCCLA.

East only participates in assembling the bags once a year, but the East chapter has participated more this year because of Lischer and her passion for the Ronald McDonald service project. 

“I love how one person can contribute one bag and then that can turn into 100 bags,” Lischer said. “It brings me so much joy to be able to help the families in need.”

Local: 

Comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF) — a prehistoric comet that has not been seen for 50,000 years — will be visible to Kansas residents in early February.  

It will be closest to Earth and most visible on Feb 1. The brightness of the comet is notoriously unpredictable, but by then it should be visible to the naked eye in the dark night sky, when passing by in close proximity to the earth, according to the Kansas City Star.

This is the first comet visible to the naked eye since the comet NEOWISE, two years ago. Many observers and astrophotographers hope for the comet to be visible to catch rare photographs as it passes through a certain region of the sky near the northern pole.

The comet was discovered on March 2, by the Zwicky Transient Facility. It was first discovered as a tiny 17th magnitude smudge five times further from the Sun than Earth. 

Sophomore Ellen Bowser who is interested in astronomy and plans to have a career with it in her future is excited for the comet to make an appearance over Kansas.

“I think it’s really fascinating,” Bowser said. “We never get to see something this rare. It’s very exciting to me that we get to experience it.”

National:

The state of California was put on flood watch on Jan. 14 following unpredicted heavy rainstorms. 

90% of California remains under flood watch as the unpredicted storms continue to rage on. Torrential rain, widespread flooding, mudslides, landslides and heavy mountain snow are ongoing hazards in the state of California right now.

According to npr.org, several regions of the state are experiencing power outages with heavy rain, wind and snow. President Biden declared the storms a major disaster and  has ordered federal aid to help people affected by the floods. 

East Students on the local Top Gun lacrosse team traveled to California over the weekend of Jan. 14. While the tournament was originally scheduled in San Diego, the players moved to Norco — a city about an hour and a half south of Los Angeles — due to excessive flooding.

Lacrosse player and junior Henry Meuten went to fields he was supposed to play on for the tournament and they were extremely muddy and unplayable. 

“The flooding was pretty bad,” Meuten said. “People went to the fields and realized that they were absolutely horrendous.”