After a long, tiring week of school Panthers are ready to relax and rewind with a home game against Griffin. But the game isn’t all there is to look forward to. Our news writers have a great new set of KICs, including protesters, Trump’s website getting hacked, Israel being added to passports, Hurricane Zeta, and can drives in Coweta County.     

Protesters in Poland block roads in aftermath of an abortion ban (Oct. 26)

This week, mass groups of protesters took to the streets in Poland to protest new laws banning abortion. 

Access to most abortion procedures is now restricted in adherence to the law recently passed. A majority of Polish citizens did not support a person’s right to abortion, according to a poll in 2014. 

The majority opinion has changed in recent years and is generally supported across the country. This was evidenced by the numbers of protest groups blocking streets in approximately 50 cities on Monday. Many protests continued the following day. 

As the explosion of protests in the streets only occurred this past week, whether or not these protests will affect abortion policies in Poland has yet to be seen. 

Trump’s website defaced (Oct. 27)

On Tuesday, President Trump’s campaign website was taken over and defaced by hackers. While the vandalization only lasted less than 30 minutes, Trump and his running mate, Joe Biden, are on high alert for any other possible defacement. 

Whether it was the work of cybercriminals or foreign hackers remained unclear. Whoever the hackers were, they were apparently seeking cryptocurrency, which is a digital currency. The hackers reported that they were using multiple devices and got ahold of “most internal and secret conversations” of President Trump. 

With the election only a week away, this caused extra concern. Experts on cybersecurity mentioned that this defacement could have been caused by a website administrator giving away credentials to the website.

“Israel” now recorded on American passports for U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem (Oct. 28)

The United States has now decided that passports for those U.S. citizens born in Jerusalem may now record “Israel” as their country of birth. The city had previously been disputed on whether it was in Palestine or Israel. 

In 2015, the Supreme Court declared that the President has the ability to recognize a city’s status. Two years later, Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Although Trump has proposed a peace plan for Palestine and Israel, the plan is biased toward Israel. Trump has also shut down aid for Palestinians and closed their offices in Washington, D.C. 

As the election comes to a head, this could be counted as a strategic move on Trump’s part, as his Evangelical Christian base is heavy Israeli supporters. 

Tropical Storm Zeta blows through Georgia (Oct. 29)

It took an Atlanta fire crew 40 minutes to save a man trapped in his third-floor bedroom as a tree had fallen on the home in Brookdale Drive in Atlanta. The tree fell as a result of rain bands and damaging winds from Tropical Storm Zeta.

Zeta left at least three people dead, and almost 1 million without power. A flood warning was issued in the area of Big Creek near Alpharetta as the flood stage was five feet Thursday morning, and is expected to be eight feet by Friday. 

One man died in Cherokee after a tree fell on the mobile home in a community off Bells Ferry Road, and two were found dead in Gwinnett County after a tree fell on their home. 

Georgia Power reported outages for more than 613,000 customers, and Georgia EMC reported 400,000 customers without power.

Zeta continues to move up the East Coast as Georgia begins to clean up damage from the storm.

Newnan announces 37th Annual Can-A-Thon  (Oct. 30)

Newnan’s Junior Service League is holding its 37th Annual Can-A-Thon for the Coweta Community Food Pantry. 

The public is encouraged to donate canned and non-perishable food items or money donations to representatives at either location. NJSL is also now accepting donations through PayPal.

The Newnan Junior Service League has worked for a number of years with the Coweta County school systems, local private schools, local businesses, and civic organizations. They have also worked with the city of Newnan to develop the county’s largest food drive.

 Donation sites will be on the Courthouse Square in downtown Newnan, at Thomas Crossroads, and in the Goodwill Parking lot, on Dec.1 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.