Journ. 133: Prof. Craig: Headline Exercise, Part 1
For this exercise you will choose ANY FIVE of the stories listed below, and provide the following for each:
- Five to 10 key words about the topic that could be included in a headline
- A suggestion for one or more standard headlines
- A suggestion for one or more creative headlines
You will meet in groups to create these, and we will reconvene in a few minutes to discuss them. Please save these into a document -- you'll need them for the second part of the headline assignment.
- A potent fall cross-country storm will cover 40 states and bring severe weather to the central U.S. and days of heavy rain to the Northeast this weekend and into early next week.
The storm is currently working its way east through the Rockies after dropping record-setting rain on California earlier in the week and heavy snow in the Sierra.
The Midwest will see heavy rain by Friday, while the Ozarks and Mississippi Valley will have to contend with a severe weather threat in addition to the rain before the system reaches the Northeast by Sunday.
- KYIV, Ukraine — Russia battered Ukraine’s energy facilities with hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles in its latest heavy bombardment of the country’s power grid, authorities said Thursday.
Eight Ukrainian regions experienced blackouts after the barrage, Ukraine’s national energy operator, Ukrenergo, said. DTEK, the country’s largest private energy company, reported outages in the capital, Kyiv, and said it had to stop its natural gas extraction in the central Poltava region due to the strikes. Natural gas infrastructure was damaged for the sixth time this month, Naftogaz, Ukraine’s state-owned oil and gas company, said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia fired more than 300 drones and 37 missiles at Ukraine overnight. He accused Russia of using cluster munitions and conducting repeated strikes on the same target to hit emergency crews and engineers working to repair the grid. The Ukrainian power grid been one of Russia’s main targets since its invasion of its neighbor more than three years ago.
Attacks increase as the bitterly cold months approach in a Russian strategy that Ukrainian officials call “weaponizing winter.” Russia says it aims only at targets of military value.Russian state media company VGTRK came under a hacker attack on March 18, disrupting online broadcasts of Rossiya-1 and Rossiya-24 channels.
- Waymo plans to launch its fully driverless ride-hailing service in London in 2026, the robotaxi firm said on Wednesday, as it looks to expand its footprint to major international cities.
Waymo has grown slowly but steadily over the years in the United States despite tough regulations and expensive technology. Earlier this year, Waymo started collecting data in Tokyo, Japan and testing its vehicles operated by human drivers in cooperation with Japanese taxi firm Nihon Kotsu and with Go, which operates a mobile app for hailing taxi rides.
In London, Waymo said it will collaborate with vehicle financing firm Moove as it prepares for the rollout, and is actively engaging with local and national regulators to secure necessary approvals. Waymo vehicles are now on the way to London, where safety drivers will start testing the vehicles before fully autonomous operations begin next year, a Waymo spokesperson said.
Waymo currently serves more than 250,000 paid trips every week with about 1,500 vehicles in U.S. cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Arizona, Atlanta, Georgia and Austin, Texas.
- The J.M. Smucker Co. is suing Trader Joe’s, alleging the grocery chain’s new frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are too similar to Smucker’s Uncrustables in their design and packaging.
In the lawsuit, which was filed Monday in federal court in Ohio, Smucker said the round, crustless sandwiches Trader Joe’s sells have the same pie-like crimp markings on their edges that Uncrustables do. Smucker said the design violates its trademarks.
Smucker also asserted that the boxes Trader Joe’s PB&J sandwiches come in violate the Orrville, Ohio-based company’s trademarks because they are the same blue color it uses for the lettering on “Uncrustables” packages.
Trader Joe’s boxes also show a sandwich with a bite mark taken out of it, which is similar to the Uncrustables design, Smucker said.
Smucker is seeking restitution from Trader Joe’s. It also wants a judge to require Trader Joe’s to deliver all products and packaging to Smucker to be destroyed.
- A Dartmouth College alumnus has paid a fine in connection with his role in the hazing of a Dartmouth undergraduate at a college fraternity 13 months ago.
Milan Williams, 38, of Los Angeles, pleaded no contest to a charge of student hazing, on Sept. 15 and paid a $1,116 fine, according to court records.
Williams, a 2009 Dartmouth graduate, was one of three men charged with hazing a 20-year-old sophomore who was pledging to join the Omega Psi Phi fraternity in 2024.
The student reported that he had been paddled with a wooden paddle multiple times on the buttocks, which left visible injuries, and after being forced to eat a raw onion was pressed to eat the regurgitated onion he had thrown up during initiation rites for pledges, according to police and court documents.
A second Dartmouth student, Alexisius “Q.” Jones, who at the time was a senior and member of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity, pleaded guilty to a violation-level offense of failing to report student hazing and was fined $1,000 plus $240 for a statutory penalty assessment in June, according to court records.
In the aftermath of the hazing incident Omega Psi Phi was found in violation of the college’s Greek life policies and suspended for three years. The fraternity “is not eligible to resume operations at Dartmouth until winter term 2028,” according to the college.
- DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Cafes across several Gulf Arab states started selling coffee and other cold drinks in baby bottles this month, kicking off a new trend that has elicited excitement, confusion — and backlash.
The fad began at Einstein Cafe, a slick dessert chain with branches across the region, from Dubai to Kuwait to Bahrain. Instead of ordinary paper cups, the cafe, inspired by pictures of trendy-looking bottles shared on social media, decided to serve its thick milky drinks in plastic baby bottles.
Lines clogged Einstein stores across the Gulf. People of all ages streamed onto sidewalks, waiting for their chance to suck coffee and juice from a plastic bottle. Pictures of baby bottles filled with colorful kaleidoscopes of drinks drew thousands of likes on Instagram and ricocheted across the popular social media app TikTok.
Soon, however, online haters took note — the baby bottle drinkers and providers faced a barrage of nasty comments.
Last week, the anger reached the highest levels of government. Dubai authorities cracked down. Inspection teams burst into cafes where the trend had taken off and handed out fines.
- PENSACOLA, Fla. — The Florida Department of Law Enforcement has arrested a mother and daughter accused of illegally accessing hundreds of student accounts to rig a vote and crown the teen daughter as her school's homecoming queen.
Laura Rose Carroll, 50, and her daughter, 17, are charged with offense against users of computers, computer systems, computer networks, and electronic devices; unlawful use of a two-way communication device; criminal use of personally identified information; and conspiracy to commit these offenses.
The alleged scheme took place at Tate High School in Pensacola, where Carroll’s daughter was enrolled. Carroll worked as an assistant principal at an elementary school in the same district at the time.
In October 2024, hundreds of votes for Tate High School’s Homecoming Court were tagged as fraudulent, with 117 votes originating from the same IP address linked to Carroll’s phone.
Carroll’s daughter was still crowned homecoming queen, however, video and pictures online show.
Multiple students later reported that Carroll’s daughter described using her mother’s access to Focus, the student information system, to cast votes from students’ accounts.
- A Los Angeles man is suing over 50 women for negative posts they allegedly wrote about him on social media, claiming the messages are false and defamatory.
Stewart Lucas Murrey is suing the women on a variety of charges including defamation, sex-based discrimination, intentional infliction of emotional distress, libel, invasion of privacy and more.
The lawsuit stems from posts and comments the women are accused of writing in a Facebook group called “Are We Dating The Same Guy?” The private group involves members sharing dating advice while warning others about men who are potentially harmful, dangerous or not to be trusted.
Murrey alleges the women posted a variety of false things about him including that he is suspected of murder or involved in a murder case, that he had several domestic violence charges against him, that he had tried to extort money from women he dated, that he had sexually-transmitted diseases and that he lied about being an attorney.
MONROE, Washington — Not satisfied with the amount of money they found in a Starbucks safe, two robbers allegedly went to work filling coffee orders and pocketing the proceeds.
The pair served at least 18 unsuspecting customers over a half-hour period early Friday morning and fled with an undisclosed amount of cash, Cmdr. Rick Dunn said.
The holdup early Tuesday began before opening time, when a woman was allowed to use the shop's restroom, Dunn said. After her accomplice also entered, the two approached the manager with guns, demanded that the safe be opened and took the money.
The man then donned a Starbucks apron and he and the woman ordered an employee to assist them at the drive-up window, where they filled orders from 18 to 25 customers before fleeing. The other two employees were confined to a back room.
- OKLAHOMA CITY – Management of a south Oklahoma City mobile home park urged its residents this week to not speak out about a 13-foot-long cat-eating albino python still in the neighborhood. Residents claim that the park’s management knew about the python since January and did nothing.
“The only reason they finally did something was because a resident snapped a picture of it,” said a resident wanting to remain anonymous in fear of eviction from management. He had been living in the park for 10 years. “Them sending out a warning to us to not talk to media, it’s intimidation all the way.”
Over the last couple of months, residents say they’ve been concerned at the amount of cats missing from the neighborhood. Then a picture of the yellow albino python slithering near one of the homes gained traction online.
The snake was originally thought to be five feet long and a ball python. But when an expert was hired, he found that it was a reticulated python and was around 13 feet long eating the cats.
On to Part 2 ->