Illini grad talks to students from space station

URBANA, Ill. (AP) — University of Illinois graduate Mike Hopkins earned cheers from an audience at his alma mater when he spoke via NASA video hookup from the International Space Station.

"University of Illinois, Fighting Illini, I hear you loud and clear, and I'm ready to answer some questions," Hopkins said, standing in front of an Illini flag in the space station on Tuesday.

Hopkins had 10 minutes to answer questions from Illini aerospace engineering students at the University of Illinois National Center for Supercomputing Applications. He is a 1991 engineering graduate and was co-captain of the Illini football team.

The News-Gazette reports (http://bit.ly/17wF8oW ) that Hopkins has spent six months aboard the space station.

Students had to send in their questions ahead of time so Hopkins would be prepared to answer. They asked him about what he does at the space station, living in space and the future of space travel.

"The station is even more amazing than I ever thought it was going to be," Hopkins said.

Hopkins said his favorite thing to do in space is float.

"It doesn't get old, even just in the middle of the work day as you go floating around from one module to another. It's just fun," Hopkins said.

Then he did a flip.

Sophomore Nick Fulton said he would like to be an astronaut and found Hopkins' talk insightful.

"It was interesting to see his viewpoint and to talk to him while he was in space," Fulton said.

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Information from: The News-Gazette, http://www.news-gazette.com

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Student’s Duck Dynasty t-shirt deemed ‘threatening’

Hunter Spain, a student at Dinwiddie High School in Virginia, was told to remove the t-shirt he was wearing, which featured Si Robertson from the popular reality show, Duck Dynasty, because the message was thought to be ‘threatening.’ The t-shirt included one of Si’s signature quips, “I will hurt you physically and metaphysically.” As reported by WWBT NBC 12 News, Hunter’s mom Edna-Jo Spain did not agree with the school saying, "For this to be considered as a threat to the school. I just, I couldn't understand it. I couldn’t understand it…Anybody that ever watches Duck Dynasty knows that Si Robertson is famous for his little funny slogans and his little jargons." Hunter was told by his teachers to either go home or wear the offending shirt inside out. Hunter explained, "I'm not going to look stupid in front of all of these young ladies in the school. So, I decided to get a different t-shirt."

WWBT reached out to David Clark, the Dinwiddie Public Schools Superintendent, for comment. Clark said, "If you are a Duck Dynasty fan you understand the meaning of the shirt, but if you haven't watched Duck Dynasty you may question if the shirt implies violence. As a school division, we would like to keep our slogans on student shirts as non-violent as possible." Hunter said that he did not mean any harm by sporting the tee.

The members of the Spain family are big fans of the A&E reality show and apparently Hunter’s grandmother gave him the Duck Dynasty shirt. Edna-Jo shared, "We are like major fans. We’re getting ready to go on the Duck Dynasty cruise next summer."

Hunter isn’t the only person this year that has caught flack because of a t-shirt’s message. In September, Isaak Fuquay, whose father is an injured retired Army Corporal, was told by Shadow Mountain High School in Phoenix, Arizona to take off his shirt that showed an eagle with a gun supporting wounded warriors because it featured a weapon. Also, in August a Florida family was kicked out of Universal Studios Orlando because the patriarch, Christian Jarosz, was wearing a shirt that read, “Police Street Crime Unit.” The park said it was a violation of their policy banning non-law enforcement personnel from wearing shirts that may falsely identify them as law enforcement.

More information: WWBT, KTVK, WSVN

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Students filming fake robbery almost get in real police shootout

Students filming a fake robbery looked a little too real to police, and their movie project almost turned into an actual shootout.

It all started, local station CBS2 reports, when passerby Linda Bergslien thought she was witnessing a robbery at Classic Coffee in Glendora, Calif., where the filming was taking place Thursday morning.

She immediately called 911.

“They had masks on, and the one had a gun in his hand, and it was clear they were ready to enter the building,” she told CBS2.

A sergeant and two officers arrived and they thought it was the real thing, too. They shouted for the students to drop their weapons and get down on the ground, but one student froze and didn’t drop his (toy) gun.

Capt. Tim Staab of the Glendora Police Department told CBS2 that one of the officers got ready to shoot just as his partner was able to take the gun from the student.

“When he didn’t drop the gun, one of the officers reached out and pulled the gun out of his hand,” Staab said.

Then one of the officers noticed a camera.

“You’re shooting a short film?” an officer is heard saying. “In a store with a man with a gun?”

Glendora police said the students had not obtained a permit to film, so the shoot was news to them.

“It was extremely reckless,” Staab says, “and thank goodness our officers responded in the right way.”

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Engineering students use dance to solve problems

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) — Engineering students at Northwestern University are getting a leg up on the competition. They're learning to swing dance in a for-credit class called Whole Body Thinking.

Joe Holtgreive (HOHLT'-greev), an assistant dean at the McCormick School of Engineering, started the class to help future engineers break outside their comfort zone.

Holtgreive says the course, led by Northwestern University Professor of Dance Billy Siegenfeld (SEE'-gen-feld), is teaching students known for left-brain thinking to use more of the right side of their brains.

The students include biomedical, mechanical and chemical engineering majors who say they're learning more than dance. They say the class is teaching them to think on their feet and work collaboratively with dance partners — skills they say will help make them better engineers.

See the video here: http://bit.ly/12O445R

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Two California students lose fingers in tug-of-war

LOS ANGELES (Reuters)-two high school students in Los Angeles-area had fingers cut off while taking part in a tug of war contest "spirit week" group, authorities said Tuesday.

A boy and a girl from South El Monte High School have been admitted to a local trauma center Monday afternoon after their fingers were cut during the tug-of-war at lunchtime, said fire officials and the school district.

Students underwent surgery to reattach the severed digits, El Monte Union High School District Superintendent Nick Salerno said.

"I am also a father, and my heart goes out to these kids and their families. For me the thing is incredible, "Salerno told Reuters. "I've been in tug-of-wars myself, more than I can even count, and I've never heard anything like this."

Salerno said that the two boys, who were not identified by authorities, were both student athletes participate in annual activities designed to Boost school spirit and participation.

"The activity of that day was tug of war. Unfortunately, the rope broke and both students had several fingers cut off, "he said, adding he had no further details on how the injuries occurred.

A spokesman for Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center said both students were listed in stable condition. She declined to elaborate on their condition or the result of the surgery.

Salerno said that the school district had provided advice to students South El Monte High School, which serves approximately 1,500 students in El Monte, a city of about 115,000 people in the San Gabriel Valley North of Los Angeles.

(Reporting by Dan Whitcomb; Editing by Steve Orlofsky, Cynthia Johnston and Leslie Adler)

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