School:
Lynbrook Science Olympiad participated in the Santa Clara County Regional Championship at Milpitas High School, where 36 teams from 22 high schools across the country competed.
Lynbrook’s two teams placed fourth and seventh overall, qualifying the school for the NorCal State Championship. Senior Manank Doshi and sophomore Vyaas Baskar won first place in Detector Building; junior Thomas Wu and freshman Ian Chen won first place in Dynamic Planet and junior Chris Liu and Baskar won first place in the Optics challenge.
Community:
After years of Indigenous-led legal battles and advocacy, the Berkeley City Council unanimously voted to return 2.2 acres of native land to the Ohlone community, which settled there over 5,700 years ago.
The decision to transfer the land title to the Sogorea Te’ Land Trust marks another step in the ongoing efforts to restore Indigenous land rights. Plans for the site include the establishment of a commemorative park featuring a shellmound and a cultural center that will house cultural artifacts and facilitate educational programs about Indigenous communities.
National:
The House of Representatives passed legislation that would ban TikTok if its China-based parent company, ByteDance, doesn’t sell its stake in the platform, due to concerns over the privacy of its users. Following a 50-0 committee vote, the House floor passed the bill with a 362-65 vote in March. However, senators and other lawmakers have expressed skepticism regarding the impact of the bill on millions of the app’s users. Passage of the TikTok bill would require a majority vote from the Senate.
International:
On March 22, armed assailants barged into a large concert hall in Moscow, Russia, resulting in the deaths of over 60 people and injuring 145, 115 of whom were hospitalized and five of whom were children.
The attack took place as crowds gathered for a performance by the Russian rock band Picnic. Assailants set fire to the venue days after President Vladimir Putin was re-elected in an electoral landslide in the Russian presidential election that ended on March 17.
