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Happy New Year!
Monday, January 4, 2021
Congress passed a new stimulus package in December. Among its relief provisions are more checks to low-income individuals and families. Those who earned less than $75,000 in 2019 will get $600 and married couples who earned less than $150,000 will get $1,200. Several Democrats and President Trump pushed for $2,000, but many said that it wasn't the best way to help the economy. The whole package cost $900 billion, making it second only to the $2.2 trillion CARES Act passed in March. It also funds additional government help to businesses, and COVID vaccine production and distribution. The vaccines by Pfizer and Moderna have been approved for emergency use by the FDA, and millions of shots have already been given to front-line workers and the most vulnerable. There have been some allergic reactions to some who have received it, and many people don't want to get it at all. Still, the existence of vaccines provides hope that the pandemic will soon be over. People around the world celebrated the new year, hoping that it would bring better tidings than 2020. Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, currently worth nearly $33,000, have been steadily on the rise over the past year. Some believe that it will be the future of money, but even if it dies, the underlying framework is important. Blockchain is a public list of transactions. When two parties make a transaction, other mining computers work to decrypt something to certify that. Once that is completed, the transaction ends up on a public list that cannot be changed, preventing fraud. It could also remove banks, lowering transaction rates. Another potential use is for public records. Boston Dynamics recently released a video of all of its robots dancing to a tune to celebrate the new year, inciting reactions all across social media.
Tuesday, January 5, 2021
Georgia will be conducting its runoff elections this week, and everyone is watching. Why? The outcome of the two elections will decide who has a simple majority of 50 seats in the Senate, as Republicans have currently secured 50 seats and the Democrats 48. Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock are running against incumbent Republican senators David Purdue and Kelly Loeffler. The runoff is occurring because Georgia law requires candidates to win at least 50% of the vote, which didn't happen on Election Day. Also on Capitol Hill, several Republican senators and representatives plan to oppose the vote counts certified by some states. This would force a ten-day emergency review in those states. This has been done before, most recently by Democrats in 2005, when they claimed that there had been widespread voting problems. That's what President Trump and congressional Republicans say is the problem this time. Most notably, President Trump was recorded pressuring the Georgia Secretary of State to "find" extra votes so he could win the state. The Secretary of State denied any voter fraud and said that the President had his facts wrong. The 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo were already delayed once last year, but new strains of COVID-19 are threatening to cancel them altogether. The new strains may be more contagious, though not deadly, and even though the IOC and Japan are doing everything to keep them going, the most expensive summer games on record could be canceled. In Pompeii, archaeologists have unearthed an ancient "snack bar".
Wednesday, January 6, 2021
Tensions between the US and Iran are increasing again. In December 2019, Iranian-supported militias attacked US targets in the Middle East, and the US responded by attacking those militias. The US blamed those militias for an attack on the US embassy in Iraq and launched an airstrike that killed General Qasem Soleimani on January 3rd. The US said that Soleimani was planning attacks on America and its allies, while Iran called it an act of terror. There is also the Iran Nuclear Deal, in which Iran agreed to end its nuclear program in return for the US and 6 other countries lifting sanctions. But under the Trump Administration, the US pulled out of the deal, leading to Iran enriching uranium again. The two countries have a long history of hostility. In the 1950s, Mohammad Mosaddeq, Prime Minister of Iran, nationalized the country's British held oil reserves, leading to Britain getting to US's help in a coup restoring the Iranian shah to power. But the shah was unpopular, and during the Islamic Revolution in 1979, he was ousted and replaced by the religious leader Ali Khamenei became the Supreme Leader. Later that year, Iranian students stormed the US embassy and took hostages, who were released later in a siege lasting more than a year. Three years later, the US designated Iran a state sponsor of terrorism. Tensions only increased during the war between Iran and Iraq, and President Bush put Iran in the "Axis of Evil" a few years later. The first movie theater was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and it was called a nickelodeon. Years later, the industry is facing the double threat of the pandemic and the rise of streaming. As many of them closed due to lockdowns, moviemakers started sending their films straight to streaming services.
Thursday, January 7, 2021
Yesterday, the House and Senate held a joint session at the US Capitol building to count and certify states' electoral votes. During that process, protestors who had gathered in support of President Trump gathered in the streets. Later in the day, they overwhelmed the police stationed at the Capitol and stormed in, leading Vice President Pence and Congressional leaders to be evacuated and the other lawmakers to shelter in place. Several other rooms in the building were damaged, but Congress reconvened to finish counting after law enforcement secured the building late last night. In Georgia, most major news organizations have confirmed the victory of Democratic challengers Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff over Republican incumbents David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler in the Senate runoff. Both races were won by just around a 1% margin with 98% of the votes in. With Vice President-elect Kamala Harris to break ties, that effectively gives the Democrats control of the upper chamber with a 50-50 split. The Democrats also control the House of Representatives, so it will be easier for President-elect Biden to pass laws. The US throws out more than 290 million tons of garbage every year, with a little less than a quarter of that going to recycling. But after China stopped buying much of that in 2018, there has been a major problem. One of the biggest challenges is contamination because if trash accidentally gets mixed in with recycling, the whole batch has to be thrown out. Compology's cameras can detect contamination in real-time, sending alerts to clients if non-recyclable materials are detected. It can also identify how full a dumpster is so that trucks only come by when it is full, reducing carbon emissions and saving money.
Friday, January 8, 2021
After rioters stormed the Capitol building yesterday, law enforcement secured the area and Congress reconvened to certify President-elect Biden's electoral win in the early hours of the morning. The final count was 306-232. He will be inaugurated as the 46th president on January 6th, and partially due to pressure, President Trump announced that there would be an orderly transition of power. The incoming president's top priority will be the coronavirus pandemic. There is a new strain of the disease that could be more contagious, and scientists don't know if the existing vaccines will work on it. The EU recently approved Moderna's vaccine for use in the EU, and countries around the world are racing to vaccinate citizens as new waves of COVID-19 hit. 70 years after the Korean War, families are still separated on the two halves of the peninsula. As relations have fluctuated, limited numbers of people have reunited with their families at least for a short while. But millions more have only memories. A company called Tekton Spaces is using people's memories of the past to show them their childhood homes again, at least in virtual reality.
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