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One of the largest manhunts in California’s history ended Feb. 12 when Los Angeles ex-police officer Christopher Dorner’s body was identified among charred remains of a burned down cabin in Big Bear Lake, Calif. “Medical examiners have positively identified the body of the renegade former Los Angeles police officer Christopher Dorner, the man authorities say killed four people and wounded three others in a vendetta against his old comrades,” Matt Smith of CNN wrote. Along with the nation, members of the BYU-Hawaii ohana were shocked by the police officer becoming a killer. “You can tell he wasn’t well to do what he did. Sometimes people go bad,” said Roy Yamamoto, director of BYUH’s Campus Safety and Security. “I don’t know all of the issues in his personal life, but there might be something that may have caused him to go bad. That’s why we need to be aware of everything, including in our own area, in our own families sometimes.” Yamamoto urged staff and students to report incidents to help prevent situations like this. “He definitely had issues but he was also hypocritical. He was against all these bad people but he himself was a bad person,” said Jordon Furtado, a sophomore majoring in social work from Oahu. “Personally, since my father is a police officer, that kind of hit home that some police officer would go rouge and would kill other police officers,” he added. According to CNN, Dorner was fired from the Los Angeles Police force in 2009 for falsely claiming that a training officer whom he worked with kicked a subdued suspect. Dorner appealed his discharge in court but was unsuccessful in doing so. As a result, he launched a killing spree against the LAPD, targeting officers and their families. He wrote a 23-page manifesto describing his contempt for the LAPD and the higher-ups in the police force saying nothing has changed since the 1990 scandals. The first of the killings happened on Feb. 3. Monica Quan, the daughter of Dorner’s police representative and her fiancé, Keith Lawrence, were killed by Dorner. Police said he then killed Michael Crain, an officer from Riverside and wounded Cain’s partner in their patrol car on Feb. 7 in an apparent ambush. “I know most of you who personally know me are in disbelief to hear from media reports that I am suspected of committing such horrendous murders and have taken drastic and shocking actions in the last couple of days,” Dorner wrote in his manifesto. “I’m not an aspiring rapper, I’m not a gang member... I am an American by choice, I am a son, I am a brother, I am a military service member, I am a man who has lost complete faith in the system, when the system betrayed, slandered, and libeled me,” Dorner’s manifesto says. Dorner barricaded himself in a cabin in Big Bear, standing off with police in a shootout that ended when tear gas launched into the cabin sparked a fire, burning Dorner and causing his death.

Lightning struck again as the University of Connecticut Huskies won both the 2014 men’s and women’s basketball National Championships. 10 years ago, UConn accomplished the same feat—The only school ever to do so.On Monday, April 6, an unlikely No. 7-seeded UConn men’s basketball team beat No. 8 seeded Kentucky in a tight championship game 60-54. The next night, the 1st seeded and undefeated UConn women’s team steam-rolled undefeated Notre Dame 79-58, marking another historic moment as the first time in NCAA women’s basketball history that two undefeated teams faced each other in the title game. “I think it was really impressive that both teams won and I think that it says a lot about the school and it’s coaches,” said freshman Denise Davis, and exercise science major from Cobleskill, New York, “Clearly, UConn knows what they are looking for in both coaches and players.”The Lady Huskies finished with an impressive 40-0 record and an even more impressive record of 13-0 in national title games. This is the fifth time Coach Geno Auriemma has led the women’s team to an unbeaten season and the ninth time that he has won the National Championship. A solid senior class, especially senior center Breanna Steward, who won the Associated Press Player of the Year award, led the women’s team to one of the best years in school history. “It means we’ve done something no one else has ever done,” said Coach Auriemma. “I’m flattered and grateful and all things that come with this kind of accomplishment.”Unlike the women’s team, the men’s run at the national title came as a complete surprise to college basketball. This years’ NCAA tournament was full of surprises and upsets that pitted No. 7 seed UConn against the No. 8-seeded Kentucky Wildcats. The Huskies were led all tournament by Senior Shabazz Napier, who had 22 points in the national championship game. “I see my guys enjoying it,” said Napier. “That’s the most special feeling ever.” With the win, UConn became the lowest seeded team to win the national championship since the 1985 Villanova squad.

Seven score and 11 years ago, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln set the precedent for America’s national holiday Thanksgiving. On Oct. 3, 1863, a month before the Gettysburg Address, President Lincoln set apart the last Thursday of November “as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise.” Abraham Lincoln Online says on Sept. 28, 1863, a 74-year-old magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, wrote a letter to Lincoln urging him to have a “day of our annual Thanksgiving made a National and fixed Union Festival.” She had written several of his predecessors who ignored her petitions. Hale explained, “There has been an increasing interest in our land to have a thanksgiving held on the same day, in all the States; it now needs National recognition and authoritative fixation, only, to become permanently, an American custom.”Abraham Lincoln Online says prior to 1863, each state celebrated its own Thanksgiving holiday at different times. Lincoln quickly responded to Hale’s request with a proclamation recorded by U.S. Secretary of State William Seward.“I had no idea who made Thanksgiving an official day,” said BYU-Hawaii student Alisson McDaniel, a sophomore in elementary education from California. She said Lincoln is her favorite president and she is thankful for a nation with strong traditions. McDaniel said Thanksgiving is her favorite holiday of the year.“I like that Sarah Josepha Hale didn’t give up on making sure that our country would always have a day to set aside to celebrate thanksgiving together,” said BYUH student Carina Aldrich, a junior political science major from Utah.After reading the President’s proclamation (below) BYUH student Justin Kolilis, a junior in exercise science from Washington, said, “President Lincoln was a rad president. He did a lot of great things for our country, and I’m glad this was one of them since Thanksgiving is my favorite.”By the President of the United States of America.A Proclamation.The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, the order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. The population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with a large increase of freedom. No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and Union.In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States to be affixed.Done at the City of Washington, this Third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States the Eighty-eighth.By the President: Abraham LincolnWilliam H. Seward, Secretary of StateSource: Abraham Lincoln Online.