SPASH News: The school year is nearing the end with only two months left. However, it’s not time to shut those brains off yet. The highly anticipated AP exams will be from May 7 to May 18 at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point (UWSP). For people taking an AP exam, make sure you know the specific time(s) and date(s) for your exam(s). There will be three to four exams per day, but only one day for each specific exam. The schedule can be found on the CollegeBoard website, or by just googling AP exam schedule 2018. It will be here in no time, so pull out those Princeton review books and study those Quizlet flashcards.

National News: Teachers across the nation are becoming fed up with low wages and poor school conditions. This is after a succesful West Virginia teachers strike that ended with a 5% raise. Oklahoma teachers, who are paid the least in the nation, were offered a $6,000 raise, although unions demanded a $10,000 dollar raise. Kentucky teachers also plan to protest a new pension bill and fight budget cuts. Joining in, Arizona teachers have asked for a 20% pay increase and are planning to protest. But these protests go beyond just pension pay and raises, these protests are also about education budget cuts. Oklahoma teachers are asking for a $200 million increase in schools. Several teachers have pointed out effects that budget cuts have had on schools, such as textbook shortages, broken heating, and outdated teaching materials, not to mention buildings becoming decrepit. These strikes represent a growing sentiment among teachers and Americans, who see the budget cuts to schools as harming communities, and are predicted to spread to more states.

State News: This past Tuesday, Wisconsin held its elections for the State Supreme Court. Democrat Rebecca Dallet and Republican Michael Screnock faced off in Wisconsin’s 72 counties, with Dallet proving to be the more popular candidate. This election, in particular, has shown the state something relatively new, and that is a rising wave of navy blue. According to The Daily Beast, in many counties that are considered “swing counties,” a change occurred. Many of these counties voted for the Democrat, as opposed to the anticipatedly more popular Republican. This has largely gone against recent presidential election trends. For example, one of these “swing counties,” by the name of Grant, was won by then president Barack Obama in the 2012 election over Republican Mitt Romney. The deficit was small then, only a 1% difference. However, in 2016, Donald Trump won the same county over his adversary, Hillary Clinton, by a much heftier margin of 20%. It came as a surprise to many when Dallet won this county with a margin of about 2%. This is not the only county where this sudden change has occurred, as the same can be said for others such as Door County, Lincoln County, Winnebago County and others. This sudden change could quite possibly be the harbinger of a blue uprising in Wisconsin.