Los Angeles Times March 6 "California braces for battle with Trump administration over student loans" Author: David Lazarus The event of the student loan laws being addressed by a memo from the Education Department was directed towards California. This memo was addressing how federal loan services should be the ones in charge of student loans, according to the Education Department. California however, has certain laws that restrict them from ripping off their clients. This memo was from the Education Department and was obviously directed towards the laws the the state of California specifically has against what the memo was referring to. This event occurred recently and California refuses to do anything about it as they disagree with the memo and want to stick with their current way of dealing with loans. The memo that was sent out sated that California and other states should back off their student loan laws and allow the student loan collectors to be more involved in the process. However, the laws that California has is to prevent student loan collectors from taking more money from the person. Larger student loan collecting companies like Navient are being sued because they take more money than they should. The laws that California has against this only ask that they disclose information about taking extra money to the client instead of secretly taking more than they should, nothing more. They are not prevent them from doing their jobs, only protecting the client from losing money. Currently, California is considering every legal option they have in order to respond. In my opinion, I think that California is making the correct decision in protecting their laws and their people by not allowing big companies to take more money than they should. The purpose for these laws are to protect the clients from being charged more than should be allowed and to protect them from being taken advantage of by bigger companies. As said in the Los Angeles Times article on "California braces for battle with Trump administration over student loans" by David Lazarus, "If protecting consumers from financial abuse was a distinctly federal interest, the Trump administration wouldn't be systematically crippling the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, leaving it up to the states to look after people's financial well-being." I will be commenting on Chloe Reeves and Nia Asbill's blogs. Source: Los Angeles Times Author: David Lazarus March 6, 3:00 AM
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Book: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
At this point in the book Mare and Maven have been captured by the city guards because they found that they were part of the Scarlet guard after Farley (leader of the guard) ordered an attack on a weak point in the royal castle. Cal and his warriors instantly came out to defend and their plan was to get Mare to make Cal join their side by making him think she was in love with him because she knows that he would give up anything for her. Unfortunately the plan goes sour and Cal is betrayed that Mare was in the guard this whole time. He turns her and Maven into his men and they are sent up to the king and queen for judgement. Upon arrival Mare defends Maven, telling them that they should not kill him, she expects him to do the same but he doesn't. Instead he turns to his mother and the queen uses her powers to make the king under her control. She torments him through his mind and does the same for Cal. She eventually makes Cal kill his own father and Cal is devastated. Maven had been using Mare this whole time and him and his mother order Cal and Mare to be killed. When in the arena faced with executioners, they have to fight their way out, Mare eventually kills the man silencing her powers and takes control of the electric barrier above her, making it so that they cannot harm them. Then the Scarlet Guard comes from the sewers below and take out the small army in order for them to escape, then the book ends. This series does have another book so I think that in the next one Mare and Cal will be driven by their shared hatred of Maven and join the Scarlet Guard permanently to seek revenge. I think that the guard will finally start looking for the list of people like Mare and recruit more for their army. Possibly some people from all cities, red cities, the gray city, maybe even a couple silvers as well. I think that everything in this book definitely points towards a huge rebellion because that how plot lines like this usually go. All in all, although I thought that the plot line of the book was a lot like others in its genre, it was original in the sense of how it was written. It was very difficult to put this book down once you've started reading and I can't wait to read the second book. I will be commenting on Karley Saxon and Lily Fletcher's blogs. Book: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Where I last left off Mare was running with the royal guards to safety. They decided to take Mare and the rest of the royal silvers to another castle in the main city so that they will be safe, not knowing that Mare and Maven are in the Scarlet Guard and are on the inside. As they travel there a new civilization is presented to the readers, one of them is the Gray town where everything is made, where their resources are turned into what they need from items to food and all electricity and technology. The other civilization that is presented is the silver town, a town where the silver bloods who don't have as strong of powers live in peace. When they arrive Mare is forced to give a speech about how they will do all they can to destroy the Scarlet Guard which is not easy for her to say. After they are settled they go to a large building to watch a play and climb up in the vents where Will (Mare's friend who is in the Guard) is there to meet them. Mare found a book that Cal's uncle who she was very close to, left her before he disappeared. In this book was a list of people who were like her, who had powers even though they had red blood. She gives this list to the leader of the Scarlet Guard after climbing through the vents and ending up in the tunnels where the Guard has hidden a railway with which they use to travel. It is important to find these people before the silvers find them. If I were in the book in the current situation I would probably be closest to Maven as he's kind of the voice of reason most times throughout the book. Though he's not the main character, Mare can be a little impulsive and doesn't really think things through. I think that especially in a situation like the one they're in, it is extremely important to think things through as they are a small organization up against an entire civilization. If I were in Mare's situation I would do my best to stay undercover in the castle and find as many chances as possible to gain useful information, either by staying on good terms with people who know things or otherwise. I think that the main thing she's doing wrong is being too impulsive, in order to succeed in the circumstances she needs to be as discreet as possible and a lot of the time she will snap or not think things through. Other than that, I personally think that all of the twists that the book is taking are intriguing and I can't wait to see what happens in the end and start the second book. I will be commenting on Karley Saxon and Lillie Fletcher's blogs. Book: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
Currently being about halfway through the book, a lot more has happened. To summarize, the main character Mare discovers that she has powers with electricity, surprising as she is a red blood. This causes a lot of commotion in the silver's palace and the king and queen decide to make up a lie about her past and keep her with them. Her story is that she was a silver war hero's child and her parents died in battle, being brought to a red's village to live her life. She doesn't take kindly to being taken from her friends and family, but they promised to keep her family safe if she kept up the lie. Now being on the inside, Mare joins the Scarlet Guard which is a group of red bloods planning to overthrow the silvers and helps them with their plans. On the place I stopped reading the Scarlet Guard has infiltrated the castle and Mare is running away from the scene. As for the current relations with other characters, Mare visited her family with the eldest prince to say goodbye, only to figure out that her older brother had died in the war. She was very close with him and becomes extremely upset. Another character is the younger prince, Maven. In order to keep the secret, she was instructed by the queen to get engaged to Maven in order to make it less suspicious. Over this time Maven has joined the Scarlet Guard with her and the two have become close. Another person that she is close to is Kilorn who she recently visited when she went to say goodbye to her family, she then figures out that he has joined the Scarlet Guard and is upset because she's kept him safe all these years only to find that he's putting himself in danger. Comments on Karley Saxon and Lillie Fletcher's blogs. Book: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
So far in this series I really enjoy the characters and the plot line is very interesting. The main character, Mare, is a thief in the small town of Stilts and their society is split up between the red bloods and the silver bloods. The silver bloods have powers, from super strength to mind control. The red bloods live in small towns where they don't have much money while the silvers live better lives. Her sister, Gisa is very talented in sewing with silk and is given a job in the silver's city. Mare's friend Kilorn gets out of his apprenticeship because his mentor got in an accident, if you don't have a mentor then you have to go to war. Mare forms a plan to prevent them going to war and has to get a lot of money for the Scarlet Guard to smuggle her and Kilorn out and to safety. She goes into the silver city with her sister and attempts to steal from them but ends up getting the both of them caught. While still in the city the Scarlet Guard makes an attack on the silver's castle. She goes back home and eventually is summoned for a servant job in the silver's palace. I predict that Mare will go through a lot of trials to get the amount of money she needs to escape. She might have an advantage being on the inside and might team up with the Scarlet Guard as well. Kilorn isn't in the same place as Mare so I predict that something might happen to him while she's gone. According to CNN "Mount Mayon volcano alert raised after ash and lava spill out" by Eric Cheung, on January 22, 2018 Mount Mayon in the Philippines erupted several times overnight, causing a large amount of lava and ash to spread over kilometers. There was a thick column of ash above the volcano, spreading over five kilometers, eventually covering Guinobaton, a small town, with a cloud of ash and difficult visibility. This affected thousands and unfortunately, is not getting much better. Along with the ash, those closer to the eruptions may have experienced two earthquakes similar to an explosion along with several bursts of lava. Along with these threatening outbursts from Mount Mayon, it's alert level has raised from a three to a four as the people near it grow more and more worried of the country's most active volcano. Luckily, over 27,000 people have been evacuated in fear of more to come. This particular volcano has a history of dangerous explosions, one of them being in 1814, one of the biggest eruptions, killing around 1,200 people. We hope that this time to be more cautious which is why there have been so many evacuated. In my opinion, evacuating in advance was a good move to make, staying safe is the top priority. This volcano has a past and I think that it is great that they're doing everything they can to keep everyone out of danger. Although I do also think that more people should be evacuated around the area as this could be quite unpredictable and everyone should be out of harms way.
For more comments, I will be on Henna and Chris's DPs. |
AuthorSavannah Frank |