This week, a 16-year-old boy attacked his fellow classmates with knives, leading to his arrest in Pennsylvania. Following the health care enrollment deadlines, Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced her resignation after an era that saw extensive health care reforms sweep the country. Finally, Internet users were notified of the Heartbleed Bug, forcing millions to question the Internet's security.
Welcome back to NEWSFLASH, giving you the week's biggest stories!
Boy, 16, Charged as Adult in Pa. High School Stabbings
Alex Hribal, the 16-year-old suspect in a stabbing rampage at a Murrysville, Pa., high school, will be tried as an adult due to the attack’s severity.
Hribal slashed and stabbed students with two kitchen knives Wednesday at Franklin Regional Senior High School. He injured 20 students and a security officer before an assistant principal tackled him to the ground.
Four people are in critical condition, with one 17-year-old student on life support.
Hribal faces four counts of attempted homicide, 21 counts of aggravated assault and one count of possession of a weapon on school grounds. He was charged as an adult, but his lawyer is seeking to have the case be brought down to juvenile court.
Hribal’s motive for the attack is still unknown, leaving only speculations of what could have led the teen to attempt murder.
Kathleen Sebelius Resigns
Kathleen Sebelius announced Thursday her intention to resign as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, ending a five-year period marked by the evolution of one of the country's most comprehensive health services overhauls to date.
The former Kansas governor is stepping down following the passage and implementation of President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. This includes the rollout of Healthcare.Gov, which subjected Sebelius to overwhelming criticism, leading her to admit that she had not foreseen the technical difficulties that prevented many Americans from enrolling in health insurance policies.
But Sebelius' resignation has nothing to do with the criticism launched at her, according to the Obama administration. Sebelius had reportedly informed the president in March that she would resign once the ACA enrollment period ended.
Obama is set to nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, to replace Sebelius. Burwell previously worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as well as President Bill Clinton's Administration.
Heartbleed Bug Threatens Internet Security
Web users flew into a panic this week as revelations surfaced that a destructive bug, known as the Heartbleed Bug, was stealing Internet data and possibly leaking it to hackers.
The bug was discovered on Monday, when it was revealed that the popular Web encryption program OpenSSL had a flaw that exposed hundreds of thousands of websites to data theft. Many of the websites affected belong to huge companies, including Google, Amazon and Netflix.
Web teams scrambled to fix security gaps in their systems, but email servers, phones and ordinary PCs could still be vulnerable. The bug affects some firewalls as well, leaving developers to secure all possible products.
The Heartbleed Bug reportedly went undetected for two years before its discovery this week. This lengthy time period suggests that an enormous amount of data was put into the hands of hackers without any indication.
A list of websites affected by the Heartbleed Bug was released, giving users an idea of which account passwords and protection settings should be changed.