The best way to describe this week is madness. March Madness that is. The college basketball phenomena hit the country on Tuesday and Starr’s Mill students have been busy creating their brackets, attempting to predict the impossible to predict. One thing that is not impossible to predict, however, is the news, as it is right below this paragraph. With plastic in a whale, a busted business, and liberation in Syria, The Prowler has the stories.

88 pounds of plastic found inside dead whale’s body (3/18)

On Monday, it was reported that a dead whale was found in the Philippines with 88 pounds of plastic trash inside the body. This is an unusually large amount plastic, a common threat to marine wildlife.

The 1,100-pound whale, measuring 15-foot long, was specifically found in the town of Mabini with a variety of plastic products. The owner of the D’Bone Collector Museum in Davao City attended a necropsy on this whale and said it was the worst collection of plastic inside an animal he has ever witnessed.

Due to the plastic, the whales get a false sensation of fullness without having any nutrients they need to survive. Therefore, this leads to reduced weight, energy, and swimming speed, lowering their defenses to predators. Plus, there is no way for the whales to digest or get rid of the plastics in their body.

This event has brought renewed focus to the problem of plastics in the oceans around the world.

March Madness begins (3/19)

On Tuesday, basketball fans began to stir in the streets and on the couch. People all over the United States painted their faces and put on their favorite jerseys. Spring is finally in the air, but March Madness has also begun.

Known to annual spectators, the first round usually results in a few unexpected upsets on the courts. The most recent upset is when Iowa, ranked number 10, beat Cincinnati, the number 7 ranked team, with a sore of 79 to 72.

While there has been a ton of excitement this week as it is, the madness has only just begun. With each new round the tension increases exponentially, and each swoosh of a made bucket makes fans and students alike hope for their team to just advance one more time.

Islamic States being eliminated in Syria (3/20)

President Donald Trump says that by tonight the U.S. backed forces will finally liberate the last pocket of Islamic State’s land in Syria. Although Trump had previously said that the Islamic group had been defeated, different sleeper cells of fighters have resurfaced.

The siege of the land had been halted by the large amounts of citizens living among the occupied territory. Many of these citizens had family members who were apart of the Islamic State militia.

As of today, it has appeared that the fighting had finished, making it seem that the U.S. troops had emerged as victorious. The defeat of the group would end the self-proclaimed rule of the caliphate, which at one point reached from Syria and Iraq.

Fayette businesses busted for underage alcohol sales (3/21)

On March 8, eight workers at multiple businesses were found selling alcohol to people under the age of 21. In cooperation with the Department of Revenue,and the Fayette Police Department a total of 21 businesses were checked. The offending establishments were a supermart, a convenience store, and a few restaurants.

The locations that were caught offending are Kwickie/Flash Food, Thai Jasmine, Village Cafe, Olde Courthouse Tavern, Oz Pizza, Olive Garden, Your Pie (Fayetteville location), and Food Depot. An officer under 21 went in undercover and asked for an alcoholic drink to prove the occurrence.

The employees that were caught had their serving license suspended. They also were cited and will appear before Fayetteville Municipal Court.

Georgia lands new battery plant (3/22)

With the help of some massive incentives, the state of Georgia just landed its biggest jobs deal in a decade. SK Innovation is moving one of their battery plants to Jackson County, Georgia. The state of Georgia and Jackson County itself offered roughly $300 million in grants, tax breaks, and land.

The incentives were offered to SK Innovations in hopes that they would construct a new electric car battery plant along I-85 in Commerce. On Tuesday, the company held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the construction of the $1.7 billion factory. The factory will employ roughly 2,000 workers and generate batteries for more than 250,000 electric vehicles per year when working at full-capacity.

The factory will be constructed on 300 acres of land located roughly 65 miles northeast of Atlanta. This will now be the largest project in Georgia since the KIA Motors plant opened in 2009. The grant offered to SK Innovations is second only to the $410 million that KIA was given for locating in the state.

While large incentive packages may be controversial, they are also key to importing business investments to the state of Georgia.