Journ. 133: Prof. Craig: Headline Exercise, Part 1
For this exercise you will choose ANY THREE 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.
- An Air Canada plane collided with a fire truck while landing at New York’s LaGuardia Airport Sunday, killing the flight’s pilot and copilot, injuring dozens and temporarily shutting down the the New York area’s third-busiest airport, officials said.
Around 11:40 p.m., a Jazz Aviation flight operating on behalf of Air Canada struck a Port Authority Aircraft Rescue and Firefighting vehicle, which was responding to a separate incident, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey said in a statement.
“Emergency response protocols were immediately activated,” the statement said. “The airport is currently closed to facilitate the response and allow for a thorough investigation.”
The plane was carrying 72 passengers and four crew members, the airline said.
- NEW YORK (AP) — Armed federal immigration officers in tactical gear moved through terminals at some of the busiest U.S. airports Monday, standing near security lines and checkpoints after President Donald Trump ordered their deployment during a partial government shutdown that has disrupted air travel nationwide.
The Trump administration said it would supplement Transportation Security Administration staffing at certain airports but provided few details about exactly what they would be doing. Still, after intensified immigration enforcement and protests in cities across the country over the past year, their presence has unsettled some travelers and raised new questions.
ICE officers are being sent to help TSA at some airports as lines grow longer.
On Monday, journalists observed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and agents patrolling terminals and lingering near long lines of passengers at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International, John F. Kennedy International in New York, Newark Liberty International in New Jersey, George Bush Intercontinental in Houston and Louis Armstrong International outside New Orleans. A handful of other airports — including Phoenix’s Sky Harbor International — also confirmed ICE would be on-site. Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said his office was monitoring the deployment of federal officers at O’Hare International.
Federal law enforcement officers are a routine presence at international airports. Customs and Border Protection officers screen arriving passengers, and Homeland Security Investigations agents conduct criminal inquiries tied to cross-border activity. But immigration agents are rarely visible at TSA checkpoints, the front line of domestic air travel.
Monday’s deployments came as hundreds of thousands of Homeland Security workers, including from the TSA, have worked without pay since Congress failed to renew DHS funding last month.
- DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Airstrikes battered Iran and Iranian missiles and drones targeted Israel’s Tel Aviv and sites across the Mideast on Tuesday, even as President Donald Trump said the United States was in talks with the Islamic Republic to end the war.
With thousands more U.S. Marines on their way to the Gulf, both sides firing barrages and Iran denying any negotiations are taking place, the war’s tempo remained high a day after Trump delayed his self-imposed deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Tehran’s chokehold on that crucial waterway has snarled international shipping, sent fuel prices skyrocketing, and threatened the world economy.
Pakistan offered to host diplomatic talks, but Iran remained defiant, vowing to fight “until complete victory.”
Any talks between the U.S. and Iran would face monumental challenges. Many of Washington’s shifting list of objectives — particularly over Iran’s ballistic missile and nuclear programs — remain difficult to achieve. Meanwhile, it’s not clear who in Iran’s government would have the authority to negotiate — or be willing to, as Israel has vowed to continue taking out leaders after killing several.
Iran remains highly suspicious of the United States, which twice under the Trump administration has attacked during high-level diplomatic talks, including with the Feb. 28 strikes that started the current war.
- Many consumers are guilty of filling drawers or closets with old laptops, cellphones, fitness trackers and other electronic devices once they are no longer needed. It’s hard to know where to recycle those items, or it seems costly and inconvenient.
The world generates millions of tons of electronic waste — also called e-waste — each year. According to the United Nations’ most recent estimate, people worldwide produced 137 billion pounds (62 million metric tons) of e-waste in 2022, and only about 22% of it was properly recycled. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that less than a quarter of e-waste is recycled in the U.S. each year.
Keeping e-waste out of landfills is important because the devices contain materials that can harm the environment. Electronics can also contain precious metals and rare earths that are hard to source, making recycling valuable to businesses.
- MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Students at the University of Alabama filed a federal lawsuit Monday challenging the suspension of two student-run magazines — one primarily focused on Black students and another on women’s issues
The lawsuit accuses university officials of engaging in censorship and viewpoint-based discrimination.
University officials in December informed the editors of the magazines Nineteen Fifty-Six and Alice that they were immediately stopping the magazines. A university official told editors that the problem was that the magazines had a perceived target audience and cited guidance from President Donald Trump’s administration regarding diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses, according to the lawsuit.
The lawsuit accuses university officials of violating the First Amendment rights of students and asks for the magazines to be reinstated.
- PORT ARTHUR, Tex. — A large explosion at a Valero oil refinery in Port Arthur, near the Texas Gulf coast, shot plumes of smoke into the air and forced some nearby residents to shelter in place on Monday.
Port Arthur Mayor Charlotte Moses said there were no fatalities or injuries and said "Valero is working diligently to contain the fire." As of late Monday, there were no air quality issues, she said.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said on social media that "emergency response coordinators and regional staff have been deployed with handheld and mobile air monitoring assets" to the refinery.
Local news outlets cited a message sent out over the Southeast Texas Alerting Network in reporting that the shelter-in-place was lifted and an area highway reopened just after 5:30 a.m. Tuesday, nearly 12 hours after the explosion.
The explosion comes amid a spike in gas prices driven by uncertainty over the global oil supply because of the Iran war.
The refinery has about 770 employees and can process about 435,000 barrels of oil per day, according to Valero's website.
- 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.
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 ->