In this edition of the National News Roundup, a shooting at a Connecticut elementary school shakes Americans, Obama will nominate John Kerry to be the next Secretary of State and Hurricane Sandy influences high school seniors.

Country comes together after school shooting tragedy
Twenty school children and six adults were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, CT. It was the second-deadliest school shooting in US history. Read more here.

‘The Hobbit’ has highly successful weekend in the box office, despite poor reviews
The 3D adventure received a record 84.8 million dollars during its weekend and some speculate that it could earn four times that amount before New Years day. Read more here.

Rice withdraws her name, Obama will nominate Kerry to be next Secretary of State
The current secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, will resign after the inauguration. Many suspect that she will take time off before beginning a campaign for the 2016 election, but Clinton continues to deny those rumors. Read more here.

Tom Monaghan, founder of Dominos Pizza, sues over ‘Obamacare’
He says that contraception is a “gravely immoral” practice. This is not the first time this year that a popular restaurant chain has taken action about social issues. This summer, Chik-Fil-A was called “hate chicken” after it became widely known that the company had been donating to anti-LGBT organizations. Read more here.

Hurricane Sandy becomes a disaster for many families, but helpful for some students’ college essays
Superstorm Sandy provided many high school seniors with inspiration for the already difficult Common App essay. Earlier this year, the Common App released information about changes to the widely-used online application, including removal of the prompt that allows students to write about anything that they would like. Read more here.