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Showing posts from May, 2018

The American Penny Needs to Die

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By Mark Lazar The production of the penny starts in the First US Mint that was founded in 1792, which produced these one-cent coins along with other coins, like the quarter, dime, half dime, and half cent. The pennies were made of 100% copper, but two forces were working to stop this, ensuring this would not remain: the buying price of copper, which went up, and the worth of the penny, which went down.                               This forced the US Mint to change the makeup of the penny to 95% zinc and 5% copper, but because of this, the worth of copper in older pennies increased over 1 cent, so people began to melt pennies for profit. If the government was thinking logically, the story of the penny would have ended here, with the government seeing that pennies weren't worth making, and being satisfied that their citizens were melting them, seeing the benefit to the economy, and we could move on to the more efficient rounding system of countries like New Zealand or Canada. But, n

2018 NHL Playoffs

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By JJ Lin and Jordan Robinson (Above) Jonathan Toews celebrating his victory in 2015 Every hockey player and fan has a dream of lifting the Stanley cup and another chance has arrived for another team to achieve one. The Vegas Golden Knights, the newest team added to the National Hockey League, is blowing through the playoffs, as they destroy the Los Angeles Kings as well as the San Jose Sharks. The LA Kings and the San Jose Sharks are now eliminated from the playoffs. As for the other teams that didn’t make the playoffs, such as the New York Rangers, they are devastated. The New York Rangers haven’t missed the playoffs since 2010, until now. The much hated Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup two years in a row. (2016 and 2017) With the New York Rangers and the Chicago Blackhawks out of the way, they could win their third consecutive Stanley Cup if they manage to defeat the Knights. There also some unexpected teams that made the playoffs, such as the Winnipeg Jets, Min

HPCMS Book Chronicle Update

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By Isaac Allen Cummings in Collaboration with Ms. Ho ...with your Reading. Adopt a Series…Seriously! Why Reading a Series Makes Sense If you liked one of the books in a series, chances are you’ll enjoy the others. You already know the characters and their traits, like old friends or enemies! Stories in a series have a familiar story structure. You clearly love how the author writes (their style or craft). Reading series of books contributes to vocabulary growth! You may actually read faster because of all the above and because you may want to finish other titles in the series! Spy School  By Stuart Gibbs To All The Boys I’ve Loved  By Jenny Han Maze Runner  By James Dashner Legend  By Marie Lu Lunar Chronicles  By Marissa Meyer March  By John Lewis  Science Comics  By Various Authors  Devil’s Line  By Ryo H

“Cash Me Ousside” Girl: Where Is She Now?

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By Maggiie Parente Throwback to 2016, at the Dr. Phil show. You may remember the “Cash Me Ousside” girl for going viral due to her famous catch phrase telling Dr. Phil to fight her outdoors. She became a meme for a while, but used her opportunity for fame and became an internet personality and a rapper with a big whooping net worth of $600,000 with her stage name ‘Bhad Bhabie.’ She signed her record deal with Atlantic Records and made her first song “These Heaux,” which now has over 61 million views on Youtube. She has more than 4 million subscribers and 12 million Instagram followers and her newest song “Gucci Flip Flops” is with Lil Yachty. What success for a young girl in just over a year. After she released her first song, which was very successful, she released even more music and did remixes with YBN, Rich the Kid, Asian Doll and more! And now, she’s doing what all her fans have been waiting for - a tour! Rumors have been flying around that this tour will let h

PS4 v. Xbox

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By Vanessa Ramos and Stacey Chavez Hello our names are Vanessa Ramos Stacey Chavez and we are in the 6th grade and we are here to write about a comparison of the famous Xbox and PS4 (playstation 4).   To be honest we think that the PS4 is the best because of what you can do on the console. Other people might disagree. A lot of people find the games to be addicting (like us). One of the PS4 games people love playing is for example one of my favorite games, Call of Duty. Then you have Grand Theft Auto, Fortnite and more. Besides the PS4, let's talk about the Xbox. In my opinion, we think that the Xbox is just a copy version of the PS4, otherwise known as as the Playstation 4. The Xbox has similar games. But we think that the Xbox is just a ripoff of the PS4. Now let's hear from the students of HPCMS and see what they voted for. And le

Stereotypes Are the Worst

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By Alexa Perez Hello, it’s your friend Alexa. I have something to ask you: do you know what stereotypes are? Stereotypes are a belief or judgement that society imposes on us. For instance, one kind of stereotype is that girls’ favorite color is pink or that boys’ favorite color is blue. And then some stereotypes are unnoticeable like in “Disney Princess” movies. One movie that I noticed has a bunch of stereotypes is the Disney movie Brave . In the movie Merida is a princess. Her mom wants her to be a perfect princess. But, when she tells her what a princess needs to do, she explains many stereotypes about what princesses (aka women) should and shouldn’t do. Another stereotype is not in a Disney movie. It is in The Book of Life . In the movie Maria asks if women are only here to make men happy. Then the person who was asked said yes! Can you believe that? This is harmful because it makes at least me feel that women aren’t fully needed - but they are. So here we have another stereotype y

Food Glorious Food!

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By Anita Andrade Food is something that we eat everyday to sustain our bodies that lets us be healthy. There are many types of food which is very interesting because everyone always has one type of favorite foo A few days ago, I conducted a few interviews with some students here at HPCMS to find out their favorite foods. Even though students like different foods, they have one thing in common - mostly everybody loves fast food, and only a few like healthy food such as fruits and vegetables. One thing that everyone is pizza because you take a bite then feel that cheesy hot layer on the pizza that makes it delicious. After all we are New Yorkers.                               Healthy food, such as apples, kiwi, watermelon, and orange are fruits that can also be organic. Organic food is made in many ways that consist of organic farming. This is very important for a food because many organic foods don’t have gmo’s in them and that is what helps our bodies be healthier. GMO’s are ba

Come See Peter Pan

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Long Island City - The Theatre Club is doing a play, Peter Pan! The club is run by the 8th grade Social Studies teacher Mr. Quaintance. The choreography is run by Mr.Ross. The music director is Ms. Kimble. We have all of our wonderful actors and actresses played by students. We also have the very helpful crew of students that helps the director with the audio, the set and many other things. We have interviewed some students from Peter Pan Jr about their experiences. Cassius Quinn Candall who plays Michael in the play said: “Getting to work with everyone is fun because its funny to see people in their character in the middle of scenes because it feels like you are in a different world. Peter is the funniest character to watch because he is kind of ignorant and childish, because Peter is always full of himself and all the characters are acting grown up, even though they are kids.” So Cassius is very excited to contribute to this amazing play. Then Dashiell Fisher who plays Tootles i