According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a sanctuary is “a place of refuge or protection,” and this is exactly how the term is being used now in politics and media. A sanctuary city is a city that welcomes illegal immigrants and refugees. If a city has adopted this policy, their police force will be instructed to disregard federal regulations regarding the deportation of their undocumented populace.

Even though switching to daylight saving time has made our mornings before school dark again, it is pretty fair to say that spring is here. The time our frozen selves wearily trudged through the day in a school that should really have invested more in heating are over. With spring also comes decision time for seniors as they receive college acceptance (or rejection, but if you say it in parentheses, they don’t exist) letters. But, something more stressful than college is also on our way before the school year ends: IB and AP testing.

Though the news may be fake, the spread of this journalistic misinformation is all too real. The fake news epidemic has engulfed our country, with an estimated 500 million Americans having been exposed to some form of false information or uncited statistic. With such a widespread presence in our daily lives, one may ask, where exactly is this fake news? How may one come in contact with such wicked tomfoolery, which abuses the curiosity of the innocent to lead them into reading total bogus?

It’s hard to believe that just a month ago, we freshmen tackled our first finals week and successfully began our second semester. Flashback to our first week of high school when we ninth-graders huddled in the halls with our schedules in hand, scrambled to find our friends during lunch, and ultimately, tried to understand how high school works. Just as we got used to our old schedules, they changed again. We now understand how things work at Minnetonka High School. This insight is largely thanks to the dedicated seniors and advisors in Minnetonka’s First Mates program.