Summary
In our news wrap Wednesday night, the U.S. Senate gave final approval to the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows $770 billion in spending — about 5 percent more than last year. A federal appeals court in New Orleans lifted a nationwide ban on a federal vaccine mandate for health care workers. Hong Kong firefighters averted disaster and saved 770 people from a skyscraper that caught fire.
Five Facts
Directions:
Choose one or more of the stories to record the Five Facts questions as well as the focus and media literacy questions below.
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Who
are some of the individuals or groups of people mentioned in the news summary?
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What
stories are covered?
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Where
do some of the stories take place?
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When
did those stories occur?
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Why
did the event(s) take place?
*Bonus:
How
do you think the NewsHour's producers decided which stories made it into the news summary?
Focus Questions
Why does the U.S. spend so much money on its military budget? How does it compare to other developing countries? Should we spend more or less? Explain. If you're not sure, how could you go about finding the answer to this question?
Media literacy
: The U.S. military has not always taken action in
defense
of a direct threat to America's national security, such as the Vietnam and Korean Wars. Sometimes the threat may have been indirect or action may have been carried out "preemptively," as was the case in the Iraq War. President George W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and many others in the administration argued that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, or WMDs, as justification for invading that country. None were ever found. (Click
here
to see how U.S. military spending compares to other countries.)
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Why do you think politicians, corporations, the news media, and as a result, much of the public, uses the term "defense" instead of "military" (defense budget, defense spending, Department of Defense, etc.)?
