News Briefs: East, local and national related news

East

With the announcement of the 2020-2021 Homecoming candidates on Oct. 1, the queen, king and attendants will be announced during halftime at the varsity football game on Oct. 15. Though there will be a homecoming court, there will be no dance due to COVID protocols.

The queen candidates are seniors Megan Biles, Sarah Bingham, Sydney Herpich, Logan Lowrey, Claire Perkins-Rock, Ellie Peters, Sophie Rice, Maisie Sheets and Elinor Zugazagoitia.

The king candidates are Henry Bunte, Lawder DeSantis, Thomas Dreyer, Sullivan Goettsch, Raymond Hu, Reilly Kenney, William Lowry, Thomas Paulus and Trevor Paulus.

For the crowning, the candidates will all be socially distanced and masked. Only parents will be the additional fans able to attend, but there will be a livestream.

“I was really excited when I first heard. It’s always exciting getting any award or honor, but I think they mean more when they come from your peers and friends.” Goettsch said. “It was also pretty cool because it’s one of those things that are always in movies or TV shows about high school, and now I get to experience it in a way.”

The voting for king and queen will take place, virtually, on Oct. 12 and 13.

Local

Summer Salt, an ice cream shop in Corinth Square, is hosting a fundraiser for Breast Cancer awareness on Oct. 13 from 3-9 p.m.

East students who are employees at Summer Salt will be working during the fundraiser, such as sophomores Morgan Turpin, MJ Wolf, Graham Mosher, Meredith Byrd and Sarah McConwell.

This fundraiser is happening in replacement of a SHARE bake sale that was canceled due to COVID-19.

Wolf and Shutzler work at Summer Salt, and decided this event would be an fun alternative to the SHARE bake sale, which Wolf is a chair for. They spoke with their boss, who also thought it was a great idea and wanted to be a part of the fundraiser.

15% of the proceeds will go towards Breast Cancer Awareness, and everyone working the night of the fundraiser will be donating the money they would normally earn to the cause. That night, they’ll also be holding a raffle for a $50 gift card to Summer Salt, each ticket costing $1.

“I’m excited that Summer Salt is going to be part of something that benefits others,” sophomore Meredith Byrd said. “I’m also glad that I get to be part of it as well.”

Along with ice cream, they’ll be selling pink-themed baked goods, such as cupcakes and cake pops. They chose to have a certified baker make the treats instead of having the volunteers make them and not accepting donations to keep everything more sanitary and COVID-friendly.

National

The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to three scientists — Harvey J. Alter, Charles Rices and Michael Houghton — for discovering the Hepatitis C virus.

Hepatitis C is an infection caused by a virus that has negative impacts on the body, such as inflammation and liver defects. With more than 200,000 U.S. cases every year, the virus is spread by contact with contaminated blood.

Alter is a senior investigator at the Clinical Center’s Department of Transfusion Medicine, Houghton is a Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology and Rice is the Professor at the Rockefeller University, New York. From 2001 to 2018, Rice also was the Scientific and Executive Director at the Center for the Study of Hepatitis C, where he remains working today.

According to ABC News, Alter, Houghton and Rice will share the $1 million cash reward.

The scientists hope that this discovery will lead to a decrease in cases and lower the severity because it will now be caught sooner. Currently, there is no vaccine for the Hepatitis C virus, but the research in this field is still taking place.