As the courtroom bailiff swore in the witnesses one by one, each team member was put on the spot to see if their three months of hard work would pay off. On Feb. 2, 4, 9 and 11, the mock trial team competed in the county competition held at the Santa Clara Courthouse.

On Jan. 26, in extremely rainy weather, four cars driven by four upperclassmen returning from lunch collided on Saratoga-Sunnyvale Road. None of the students was injured, but the accident called attention to the problem of students driving without "having their year," thereby breaking a state law known as the "year rule."

State laws dictate that a driver may not transport other people with the exception of siblings or adults 25 years or older within his or her first year of having a license. In addition, these young drivers cannot drive between 11 p.m. and 5 a.m.

Gary Sasaki, the founder of a digital entertainment consulting company known as DIGDIA, gave a fascinating presentation on the future of 3D movies and television at the second Industry and Academia Connections Program (IACP) meeting in library on Dec. 9.

Sasaki described different forms of 3D visuals and how they could be viewed.

Senior Christine La was one of 10 students who attended the presentation.

"We learned quite a lot about the glasses people use to view 3D items and [Sasaki] even proposed that people can see 3D graphics without glasses," said La.

A new Supreme Court case has sparked discussion about the principle of the separation of church and state: Salazar v. Buono. In 2001, Frank Buono, a National Park Service employee, challenged the presence of a cross in the Mojave National Preserve in California, which is considered federal land. A district court ruled in his favor , and it looked as if if the cross would be removed. But in an end-around maneuver, Congress designated the cross a national war memorial, and it remained.

The newly founded Quiz Bowl club will host its first tournament Nov. 8, and officers, such as president Vijay Menon, are excited about this milestone event in their new club.

"I am pretty happy about the fact that we are getting a tournament organized," said Menon. "We are working hard to get things done and look forward to the date."

Menon has invited other schools to participate in the competition, such as Bellarmine College Prep and Mission San Jose High.

Statistics from the Department of Immigration show that more than 22 million illegal immigrants have recently found a new life in the United States. Every day, this number goes up as people unlawfully cross the border from Mexico. However, despite the current financial crisis, government officials must provide illegal immigrants with basic necessities, since they are contributors to the prosperity of the economy.

Halloween came a month early for physics teacher Kirk Davis, who dressed up as Sir Isaac Newton on Monday, Sept. 28, to educate students about the life and importance of the historical figure.

The Friday before, Davis told his five physics periods they would have a substitute. So students were surprised when a man wearing a wig with an apple in it and a black gown appeared in front of the class and began teaching. The "sub" declined to be called "Mr. Davis" and instead insisted on being addressed as "Mr. Newton."

This past June, another teacher joined the ranks of the married. Not only did chemistry teacher Kathy Nakamatsu and economics teacher Todd Dwyer tie the knot with their longtime significant others, but U.S. government and U.S. history teacher Margarita Lozano also recently got hitched.

Lozano, now known as Margarita Morrelle, met her current husband, Charles Morrelle, at a party in Los Angeles about two-and-a-half years ago.

The media spend days discussing the legacies of journalist Walter Cronkite and Sen. Ted Kennedy. Broadcast journalists devote weeks to covering the appointment of America’s first Hispanic Supreme Court chief justice. Whole forests of newsprint covered the cause of American pop star Michael Jackson's death. In stark contrast, news outlets at large spend very little time providing the American people with proper updates on the Afghanistan war.