A personal connection to asian hate crimes in the U.S., as told by Arcadia staff writer Rosie Hassel.

While most Americans watched Georgia’s nail-biting senatorial election from afar, the Women NBA’s Atlanta Dream, an American professional basketball team based in Atlanta, Georgia, took matters into their own hands, using social media to spread their message on the importance of voting. Consequently, by the time January 5th 2021 arrived Democratic Senator Rev. Raphael Warnock secured 51% of the votes, leading to a monumental victory over Republican Senator Kelly Loeffler, co-owner of the Atlanta Dream. Both Warnock’s and Democrat Jon Ossof’s win in Georgia successfully turned the state blue, giving Democrats the control of the Senate.

The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed environmentalism to the back of many citizens' minds as the importance of public health has exponentially risen. As the pandemic continues to impact our lives in various ways, it continues to change the way that our society conceptualizes our interaction with the environment and highlights current tensions between environmental protection and public health, ultimately altering our foundational understanding of environmental law.

On March 11th, 2011, just over 10 years ago, a magnitude 9.1 earthquake struck just off the coast of Japan, followed by a tsunami whose waves hit 128 feet in some places less than an hour later. Nearly 20,000 people died or are presumed dead in the wake of this disaster, and the implications have been profound. The earthquake and subsequent tsunami destroyed entire towns. Even the very geology of the planet was altered. 10 years later, some residents of towns in the Fukushima prefecture are still not able to return home.

The tension between Russia and the West is escalating to an unprecedented degree. It started in March 2021 when the U.S. and E.U. announced sanctions against Russia in response to the poisoning of Alexei Navalny. With these sanctions, the U.S. government began a journey towards the destruction of any remaining relationship between the West and Russia.

Some might recall Gangnam station from the old viral song “Gangnam Style.” Others who are better versed in Korean culture might picture a thriving metropolitan center full of skyscrapers, bustling people, and flashing neon signs. However, for many Korean women, Gangnam station is both a memorial of a horrible hate crime and a symbol of the Korean feminist movement.

February 1, 2021 marked the downfall of any democratic progress in Myanmar. The previously ruling military seized control of the country, arresting State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President U Win Myint, handing power to Min Aung Hlaing, the Commander in Chief of the military. Mass protests at this subversion of democratic progress have been met with violent tactics, including use of water cannons, rubber bullets and live ammunition, resulting in the deaths of many civilians. While in and of itself somewhat of an illusion, hopes of democratic progress have been dashed in Myanmar, illustrating yet another example of democratic backsliding and the growth of authoritarianism worldwide.

June 21st will mark the fourth anniversary of Mohammed Bin Salman’s ascendancy to the title of Saudi Crown Prince. His relatively short tenure as de-facto ruler has proved to be an unprecedented one, for no previous Saudi ruler in recent memory has been as bold or nakedly ambitious as this one. Now trying to untangle the Gulf Crisis, the question inevitable emerges for the Biden Administration: what to do with MBS?

On the night of January 11, 2020, Taiwanese people, regardless of each individual’s political leaning, huddled in front of TVs, phones, and out in the cold in wait for the presidential election results. After four years of leadership under President Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) suffered a crippling defeat in regional elections two years prior, the next president was surely going to change the political direction of Taiwan.

As of March 26, 2021, the effort to recall Governor Gavin Newsom appears to have made it onto the ballot. California will see its second gubernatorial recall election in under two decades. The Golden State is a very different place than it was in 2003, when Governor Gray Davis was defenestrated in favor of movie star Arnold Schwarzanegger, and betting markets show Newsom as the strong favorite — but Davis was expected to sail out of the recall at the beginning, too. Why was Davis an easier target, and should Newsom worry that he too will be “sent to the cooler”?

On April 22, 2020, 20-year-old US Army Private First Class Vanessa Guillen, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, received a text asking for assistance in the armory from a colleague. Once she entered the armoury, she was never heard from again. When she didn’t report to work the next day, her command did what was expected of them, and started an investigation into her disappearance. The painful irony is that if Vanessa had believed her command would also do what was expected of them in the case of sexual assault and harassment, a different investigation would have taken place, one that most likely would have prevented her death.

When it comes to the debate over the powers of the Supreme Court few have considered the advantages of opening up the floor to the general public. Especially in the case of Roe v. Wade, which a majority of the Court now wishes to overturn, a decision that would influence people’s lives, bodies and futures, should be dealt with democratically, meaning that everyone’s input should be heard.

Under the felony murder rule, which applies in more than 40 U.S. states, a person can be found guilty of murder if they participate in any felony that leads to a death. In some states, the felony murder rule makes criminals responsible for murder if their co-conspirator in a lesser felony, or even a responding police officer, kills someone while the crime is taking place. Some of the people convicted for felony murder did not intend for the killing to take place, or did not know it was happening.

Many scholars have argued that the exchange of facial recognition data could create serious surveillance problems for our democracy, but in the midst of a pandemic, when our online presence and technology use intensifies, this exchange has only become more profitable.

On October 6th 2019, then-President Donald Trump made the decision to withdraw United States military troops and aid from northeastern Syria, leaving the Kurds, an essential ally in the fight against the Islamic State, on their own and at the mercy of attacks from Turkey. This sudden step back from the West was another move in destabilizing an already fragile geopolitical climate in the region. Indeed, in the days that followed US withdrawal, the Turkish military attacked Kurdish territories in Turkey and northern Syria. This was another episode in the ongoing struggle of the Kurdish nation, scattered across four countries with borders arbitrarily drawn by former colonial powers.