Global Glide is a weekly news feature that gives a brief summary of major current events in the nation and in the world. Tune in to find out what’s going on!

Global and National News:

Friday School Shootings at Northern Arizona University and Texas Southern University

On Friday, October 9, a student at Northern Arizona University got in a fight with several fellow  students, ran to his car, grabbed a handgun, and shot at the students, killing one and wounding three.

All three assault victims were members of the same fraternity, while the shooter belonged to a different fraternity. Investigators reported that the victims seemed to have been shot multiple times.

The same day, an 18 year-old student was fatally shot at Texas Southern University. These incidents add urgency to the problem of gun regulations and school safety in the United States.

Twin Suicide Bombings at Turkish Peace Rally Kill at least 97 People

Two bombs went off almost simultaneously at a peace rally in Ankara, Turkey, on Saturday,  killing at least 97 people and wounding some 250 others. The bloody incident occurred outside of the Turkish capital’s main train station, and investigators believe that two suicide bombers were responsible for the fatal blasts.

The ill-fated peace rally mostly consisted of members of Turkey’s workers’ union and other organizations. President Obama and the Pope have both spoken out about the tragedy, expressing deep sadness over the fact that peaceful demonstrators were targeted.

Current searches have not yet revealed the culprits behind the bombings, though suspicions are high that Kurdish rebels or an Islamic State group were involved. Whatever the case, the explosions emphasize that Turkey is facing tough times.

Bordering war-ravaged Syria, Turkey currently holds more Syrian refugees than does any other nation, and it has seen repeated fatal conflict with Kurdish rebels over the past few months. Authorities fear that Saturday’s massacre will aggravate these already-high ethnic tensions.

Apocalypse Averted as Asteroid Passes Earth

A 2.6 kilometer-long asteroid safely passed Earth on Saturday. As the giant safety hazard approached, NASA confirmed that the asteroid would miss our planet by 15 million miles and pose no threat.

Some people worried that the asteroid’s coming would bring doomsday, just as others speculated that the blood moon lunar eclipse several weeks ago could mark the end of the world. Obviously, neither event did.

Statistics hold that Earth will be safe from space mass collisions for a long time; there is only a 0.01 percent chance of a hazardous object hitting the planet in the next century. A person thus has a higher chance of being hit by lightning than Earth does of being impacted by an asteroid anytime soon.

Sea World Barred From Breeding Whales in Captivity

Last week, the California Coastal Commission banned SeaWorld from breeding orca whales at its San Diego location. This restriction proved to be the main cost for approval of the park’s $100 million plan to expand and improve its orca habitats.

SeaWorld strongly opposes the new constraint, arguing that the verdict dooms the park’s eleven whales to extinction in captivity. Killer whales are also the park’s top attraction, though vehement public criticism related to the 2013 documentary Blackfish has damaged the park’s whale enterprise and annual attendance totals.