Reading news stories can be incredibly overwhelming. Sometimes it feels like only bad things are happening around the world. Bad news stories are important because they keep everyone informed and address topics that may be uncomfortable. Maya and Brie decided to start a series in the Corral with a few pieces of good and bad news to keep everyone on their toes. If you hear about any (good or bad) news stories that you think we should put in the paper, feel free to message @pchpublications on Instagram or leave a comment on the online version of this story on pchcorral.com. We will give you a shoutout in the paper for the story idea!

A Lucky Birth

Recently, off the coast of Southern California, a group of whale watchers saw a grey whale give birth. The passengers of the boat were off the coast of Dana Point which is located between Los Angeles and San Diego. The people on the boat including the crew couldn’t completely make out what was happening in the water. Then they saw a newborn calf come to the surface of the ocean. The crew and passengers claim that the mother brought the calf close to the boat as if she was showing off her new baby.

Meta Under Attack

On Wednesday, Jan. 4, the Irish Data Protection Commission imposed two fines on Facebook’s parent company Meta, totaling 390 million euros (approximately $414 million), which could significantly alter Meta’s business model targeting users with ads based on what they do online. Previously, Meta relied on getting informed consent from users to process their personal data and serve them personalized ads. When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) came into force, Meta added a clause to their terms of service, effectively forcing users to agree that their data could be used in order to use the apps, which still violates EU privacy law. In its final decision, the Irish regulators said Meta “is not entitled to rely on ‘contract’ legal basis to deliver behavioral adverts on Facebook and Instagram,” to which Meta responded that, “we strongly believe our approach respects GDPR, and we’re therefore disappointed by these decisions and intend to appeal both the substance of the rulings and the fines.”

New Energy

An agricultural machinery company named, New Holland, developed a new tractor that runs on liquified methane. This gives farmers the ability to save money on diesel fuel and decrease their overall emissions. This new tractor is especially interesting because the fuel can be produced by methane from cow pies. This allows for the recycling of energy, which is exactly what the agricultural industry needs. Also, the tractor runs the same as one fueled by diesel, making this an overall efficient energy solution.

The Fish Are Fighting

Due to mass coral bleaching, fish that have lost food supply are getting into more unnecessary fights, causing them to expend precious energy and potentially threatening their survival. The colorfully patterned butterflyfish are the first to feel the effect of bleaching because they mainly eat Acropora coral, so their primary food source is significantly and quickly being diminished. The loss of food supply “changed the playing field of who’s eating what,” said marine ecologist Sally Keith, which is putting 38 different species of butterflyfish in increased competition for other types of coral. When a butterflyfish wants to signal to a competitor that a section of coral is theirs, they point their noses down and raise their spiny dorsal fins, signaling aggravation. If this doesn’t scare the other fish off, one will chase the other until one or both of them eventually give up. Keith’s team of marine ecologists observed 3,700 encounters between butterflyfish. Before the coral bleaching event, though, different species were able to resolve disputes using signaling around 28% of the time. That number fell to about 10% after the bleaching, however, indicating many unnecessary but potentially dangerous attacks.

The Lucky Four

In California, four people were rescued after their car fell 250 feet off of a cliff along the coast. Witnesses called 911 after the vehicle went over a cliff on State Route 1 between San Francisco and Half Moon Bay. Rescue  officials describe the car as flipping over several times before landing wheels down. Despite this, all four people inside the car survived and are in stable condition. Two of the people in the car were young children, and all four were transported to Stanford Medical Center. The rescue team  claims they have new found hope because they never would have expected anyone in that car to survive that accident.

Southwest Is Headed South

From Dec. 22 – 29, Southwest Airlines canceled over 16,000 flights amid a massive snowstorm across the U.S., stranding approximately 1.5 million people during peak travel season. The airline lost over $825 million in revenue and added expenses, as well as countless disappointed customers. Roughly half of the cost stemmed from lost sales, the other half going to reimbursements for affected passengers. Southwest announced during the first week of January that they would provide each affected customer with 25,000 frequent flier miles, which equates to about $300. Many passengers, however, reported that they are disappointed that they did not receive a direct refund, only a voucher or credit for another Southwest flight, especially because the Department of Transportation states that a customer is entitled to a full refund by law. On the morning of Dec. 30, Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan sent out a public apology in an interview with Good Morning America: “There’s just no way to apologize enough because we love our customers, we love our people and really impacted their plans,” Jordan said. “There will be a lot of lessons learned that come out of this.”

Proven Innocence

In 1996 a teenager was shot and died at a party, and two of his friends were convicted of his murder. Darrell Lee Clark and Joshua Storey were teenagers when they went on trial for the murder of their friend. The two men were recently released from prison after more than two decades because new evidence surfaced, proving their innocence. Susan Simpson and Jacinda Davis on a podcast named “Proof” interviewed the state’s two key witnesses about the case. They found details such as; 15-year-old Brian Bowling shot himself in a game of Russian Roulette, allegedly provided with a gun by Storey. The hosts of “Proof” interviewed the party hostess, and she admitted that the police had coerced her into making false claims about Clark and Storey’s testimony. Then the hosts interviewed a man who claimed to see Clark run through Bowling’s yard, which was a defining moment of the case, but the man admitted that he doesn’t actually recall that and he often mixes up the Bowling case with a case from twenty years earlier. Also there was no autopsy done on Bowling, which would have proved the gunshot wound was self inflicted. The Georgia Innocence Project helped with the two men’s release. They claimed that the coroner was an untrained doctor who said that he had a gut feeling that the wound wasn’t self inflicted. Although police incompetence and unjust imprisonment aren’t good news, at least these two men get to go home and start their new lives.

A Shot for Bees

A biotech company announced that the USDA (United States Department of Agriculture) granted them the conditional license for their honeybee vaccine. The vaccine protects bees against American Foulbrood disease which is a bacteria-based condition that attacks colonies and is caused by Paenibacillus larvae. Honeybees have been plagued by American Foulbrood and previously the only treatment for the disease was incinerating the bees, infected hives, and equipment. Dalan Animal Health developed a solution that contains an inactive version of Paenibacillus larvae bacteria. After it is consumed by the worker bees, the vaccine will be in the royal jelly, which is fed to the queen bee. When she ingests it the vaccine will be deposited in her ovaries. This will allow every bee born from her to also have immunity. The vaccine will be distributed to commercial beekeepers and will have long lasting positive effects on bees and out environment as a whole.