NAMED NATIONAL FOUR-YEAR DAILY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR FOR 2020-21 IN THE COLLEGE MEDIA ASSOCIATION’S PINNACLE AWARDS
Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2022
Volume 159 No. 37 WWW.SJSUNEWS.COM/SPARTAN_DAILY
SERVING SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY SINCE 1934
Unknown missile hits Poland By Alessio Cavalca STAFF WRITER
On Tuesday morning, Polish officials reported that a Russian-made missile fell in the eastern part of the country, near its border with Ukraine, killing two people and targeting the readiness of combat units in the country, according to a Tuesday CNN article. Although the provenance of the projectile, defined by Polish authorities as an isolated incident, is still not clear, it took place after Russia launched its biggest missile attacks on Ukraine cities in more than a month, according to the CNN article. Three U.S. officials told AP News in its Tuesday evening article that preliminary assessments suggested the missile was fired by Ukrainian forces at an incoming Russian one, amid the crushing salvo against Ukraine’s electrical infrastructure that day. Sabrina Pinnell, San Jose State political science senior lecturer, said the fact that the missile landed in Poland means that there will eventually need to be a response from the U.S. government. “I am sure that Poland is probably waiting for that and maybe, talking to the U.S. government right now,” Pinnell said. “But think about the implications of that, this may, in fact, be a direct attack
Where did the missile land?
Warsaw
Poland
Kyiv
Ukraine
The missile landed outside the rural Polish village of Przewodow, about four miles west from Ukraine’s border on Tuesday and killed two people Tuesday. A statement from the Polish Foreign Ministry identified the missile as being made in Russia, but officials still can’t confirm who fired it. The Polish government said it was investigating and raising its level of military preparedness.
CONFLICT | Page 2
INFOGRAPHIC BY CAROLYN BROWN AND BRYANNA BARTLETT
ANALYSIS
Republicans fail to ride ‘Red Wave’ to House and Senate By Nick Zamora STAFF WRITER
PHOTO ILLUSTRATION BY BRYANNA BARTLETT
Student-made app could grow social life By Rainier de Fort-Menares STAFF WRITER
What if there was an app to find friends and local hangouts that’s designed specifically for students at San Jose State? That’s what computer science students Seema Vora, Surabhi Gupta and Isita Bagayatkar were wondering before they created Xircle in 2021. Vora said they felt the need for a social app like Xircle because SJSU is a commuter school with few opportunities to socialize on campus. “You happen to sit next to the right people in your classes, maybe you make a few
friends, maybe you won’t,” Vora said. “We have 32,000 students at SJSU. Why base it on luck of meeting the right people when we can help you meet and explore and connect you with people that you wouldn’t have ever met?” Gupta said the founders competed in Intel’s 2020 Hackathon and at that time, Xircle was a website with a very basic algorithm to match a couple of test users. The feedback they got from the judges helped turn the website into an app. A year later, the app was first launched in SOCIAL | Page 2
Media pundits and news anchors in the weeks leading up to midterms elections on Nov. 8 forecasted decisive and overwhelming Republican wins throughout several key races for the House of Representatives and Senate to no avail. Despite insistence that a Republican takeover would overwhelm the incumbent president and Democratic party, no Republican ‘Red Wave’ materialized. Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, said during a Fox News election night panel that, “This is an absolute disaster for the Republican Party.” James Brent, director of the masters of public administration program and political science professor, said the midterm results we are seeing is because of an elusive young voter block and biased preliminary polls. “I mean, this was a huge victory for the Democrats,” Brent said in a Zoom call. “I mean, they lost the house. I mean, it’s ‘Oh they lost the house.’ But no, this was a huge
You basically have a lot of Republican-leaning polls that were being issued and a lot of the mainstream media were simply picking up on that saying, ‘Hey, look, there’s this other poll that says Republicans are going to win.’ James Brent
political science professor
win . . . for the Democrats. They have every right to feel great.” He also said abortion rights and gay rights are topics that younger voters, specifically college students, care about and that they are ready to vote to protect those. “Well, I don’t think there’s much doubt that most of what ELECTIONS | Page 2