CNN 10 11/29/2021 ~ 12/3/2021

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Monday, November 29, 2021

A new variant of coronavirus has popped up - omicron. It was first identified in South Africa and initially appeared to have milder symptoms than other strains of the virus, based on observations of a small group of patients. Scientists don't know yet if it can infect people who have already recovered from a previous infection or people who have been vaccinated, though the UK claims it has caused breakthrough infections in vaccinated people. What is unique about this latest variant is the number of mutations it has - it has the most mutations out of those seen so far. Black Friday shoppers were up almost 50% from last year, when the pandemic caused many to stay at home. But that's still down around 20% from the year before that, which means many people are still buying online. A drawback from this is the high rate of returns, significantly higher on online purchases than in brick-and-mortar stores. The seemingly "free" returns are far from free, costing retailers a large portion of the original cost of the product, only to have many of them end up in landfill. Companies are working to reduce this through online tools, but in the meantime, liquidators are picking up some of the slack, buying returns from shipping companies, and sending them off to discount stores.

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Inflation is still on the rise, and the Federal Reserve now believes that it is not going away anytime soon. New variants of COVID-19 are popping up, threatening to exacerbate the already strained supply chain and hiking up prices. Many people have seen the price of fresh produce go up - but the farmers say that their profits aren't going up. In fact, they're going down. The middle men who transfer all of the food are seeing higher costs because of a shortage of truck drivers and ships, so they are transferring the cost to farmers and consumers. White rhinos were on the brink of extinction. While the northern species is still down to just two female members, southern white rhinos have been restored to thousands, largely thanks to the work of a nature reserve in their native habitat of South Africa. But they are still constantly under the threat of illegal poachers there, who shoot them for their horns. A few dozen of them were recently transferred to a safer park in Rwanda, where the national park hosting them also hopes to draw more tourists with the new animals.

Friday, December 3, 2021

Tensions are ramping up in the European country of Ukraine. It borders both Russia and several NATO countries, and the country is heavily divided over the two opposing sides. Some Ukrainians want to join Russia; others want to join the EU. The latest argument is over Russian troop movements on Ukraine's western border. NATO officials say that the magnitude of the force is sufficient to invade Ukraine and that Russian propaganda is displaying similar tactics as those seen just before the annexation of the Crimean peninsula in Ukraine in 2014. Russia for its part claims that it is simply trying to protect itself against NATO advances, and the US says that it is prepared to levy new sanctions against the Communist nation if it does not back down. The 2022 Winter Olympics are scheduled to kick off in Beijing in just a few months, and there is already controversy over it. The first is COVID-19; while China claims its strict safety measures are effective at preventing the disease, the Omicron variant is causing new concern around the world. The second is the increasing allegations of human rights abuses against the Communist regime. Events like the disappearance of tennis player Peng Shuai have raised new concerns and several countries are considering diplomatic boycotts of the winter games. In Major League Baseball, a lockout has occurred for the first time since 1994. That means players can't use team facilities until a new collective bargaining agreement is reached. The old one just expired, and the Players' Union and owners have failed to reach a new agreement, both sides accusing the other of failing to compromise. If a new deal is not reached, the lockout could have an impact on the 2022 season, which begins spring training in February of next year.

Time: World on Alert as U.K. Reports Cases of Omicron COVID-19 Variant

By Jerome Delay

    The UK has become the latest country to report cases of the new omicron variant of COVID-19, which is believed to be more resistant against the protections provided by existing vaccines. The two reported cases were both linked to travel from southern Africa. The UK Health Secretary added more countries in the southern African region to the British travel restriction list, meaning that travelers from those countries will now have to quarantine

    Pharmaceutical companies were optimistic that they could update their vaccines for the new variant in due time. Despite all the travel restrictions already in place across the European continent, cases and variants are continuing to spread. Many variants are emerging from Africa as a result of the poor vaccination rate in the continent.

CNN 10 11/22/2021 ~ 11/26/2021

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Monday, November 22, 2021

California's giant sequoias have stood for thousands of years in the Sierra Nevada mountains, the only place on Earth where they grow naturally. But California's recent fires have put many mature sequoias in danger, with fires from the past two years destroying almost 20% of existing mature sequoias. The National Park Service is taking steps to ensure that fewer fires occur and that the trees, already weakened by drought, are not killed by the fires. NASA will be launching a mission called DART soon. It's objective is to fly to a moonlet called Dimorphos, which orbits the asteroid Didymos, and crash into it. NASA will then measure how much the moonlet moves as a result of the collision, and use that data to potentially protect Earth if a large enough asteroid was every found to be on collision course with the planet.

Tuesday, November 23, 2021

The city of Lahore, Pakistan ranks among the most polluted cities in the world, frequently battling with the notoriously polluted city of New Delhi for the worst air quality in the world.  There are a number of causes for this, including a multitude of factories, cars using cheap gasoline and engines, and farmers burning their fields to prepare for a new growing season. The residents of Lahore experience many side effects from the smog that hangs constantly in the air, including sore throats resembling those caused by COVID-19. Officials have taken several step to try to remedy the issue, from closing down polluting factories to planting new trees. But the prospect of a blue sky still seems to be far away. There is a lot of buzz around self-driving technologies like those in Tesla cars. But is the technology really ready yet? The answer seems to be no. Driving around regular city streets, cars like the Model 3 have difficulties in situations that are hard to prepare algorithms for. For example, a car and a pedestrian overlapping, hard to see boundaries, etc, and constant intervention is still necessary.

Happy Thanksgiving!

The Midnight Library

By Matt Haig

    Nora Seed had so much potential. She could have been a rock star, an Olympic gold medalist swimmer, a glaciologist, a philosopher, or married her long-time boyfriend. But she did not walk those paths. But in this life, she still lives in her hometown of Bedford, working at a music store, mostly friendless. And her life seems to only get worse. First, she gets laid off because her boss believes she isn't fulfilling her potential. Then, she gets fired from her job teaching piano because she forgot to show up to a lesson. Then, she runs into an old bandmate, still bitter over the break-up that ensued when Nora began having mental issues. When she finally gets home, she finds that her cat has died. Feeling like a failure, she fires off some final social media posts, a sad call to her estranged brother, who also left her after their band broke up, and decides that her time is done.

    But when she wakes up again, it isn't in some post-humous world. Rather, she is in a vast expanse with a building in it - a library. In it, she meets Mrs. Elm, the former school librarian who nurtured her old dream of being a glaciologist. She tells her that Nora is in the Midnight Library, a library that contains the infinite possibilities Nora's life contained, each one caused by a different choice she could have made. She can choose any life to begin at exactly 12 AM on the day that Nora "died" in her root life. While she is in the library, time does not change, and it will stand until Nora finally dies in her root life. Once Nora chooses a life, she will stay here until she feels regrets and doubt about whether she wants to stay there. If that never happens, then she is permanently transplanted into that life, as if she had always been there.

    During her time in the library, Nora goes through many different lives, some of them reversing big decisions, some of them little ones. She even meets other people who are "sliding" through lives. But she can never seem to settle into one before regret sets in - even ones where her life seems like a dream.

    Eventually, she is on the verge of giving up. She is tired of doing this, feeling like an outsider stealing another person's life. And that, ironically, is the solution. Her root life is the one best suited for her, because it is her life - she "writes" it, so to speak. As the library collapses, Mrs. Elm gives her a blank book so that Nora can begin her own story.

    She returns to the life she had before, exactly the life that she was in the moment she tried to die for the first time, and realizes all the little things she had in her life to be grateful for, that her life has meaning.

CNN 10 10/18/2021 ~ 10/22/2021

Go to cnn.com/cnn10 for the latest video 

Monday, October 18, 2021

The US is changing its travel rules. Starting November 8th, fully vaccinated individuals will be able to travel to the US from most countries provided that they have a negative COVID test from the previous three days. This change removes countries like India, which had a high rate of coronavirus cases, from a list of restricted countries. US residents can also travel abroad, but need a negative COVID test from within one day of their flight home. The Indonesian island of Bali relies heavily on its tourism industry, which was disrupted due to COVID shutdowns last year. That put many people out of work, and people started to go hungry. One resident noticed this problem in his community and began a barter system called Plastic Xchange. People can pick up trash from local beaches, rivers, and even their own homes and exchange it for rice, which is a staple food in Bali. It is helping to control the plastic problem in Bali as well as ensuring people stay fed during the pandemic.

Tuesday, October 19, 2021

Civil rights activist and former Secretary of State Colin Powell passed away on Monday after a storied career of service. He began in the Reserve Officer Training Corps, where he achieved its highest rank, went on to become a 4-star general after the Vietnam War. He went on to become the first Black National Security Advisor, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Secretary of State. He was so well liked that two different presidents awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the country. A 21st century space race is heating up as China sends a new group of astronauts to work on its space station. The US military believes that China's space agency is controlled by its military and has barred NASA from working with them, which means they are also banned from the ISS. Potentially because of this, the country has begun construction of their own space station, for which it has 6 more missions planned to get it into full operation in the coming years.

Wednesday, October 20, 2021

The global supply chain problems are only getting worse as the holiday season approaches. Consumers are looking to star buying gifts and release pent up buying urges, but labor shortages and coronavirus restrictions are making it difficult for suppliers to stock their shelves. They're employing all manner of methods possible to try to get goods to warehouses and stores in time, but the problem stretches from ports to trucks. In Paris, there's a bit of a different problem - one between pedestrians and cyclists and cars. The government in Paris has been trying to move to greener forms of transportation and also encourage tourism along its major streets - that makes less space for cars, which along with lower speed limits, are causing big traffic jams and more than a few upset drivers.

Thursday, October 21, 2021

17 American missionaries are being held hostage by a gang in Port au Prince, Haiti. The poorest country in the western hemisphere was already struggling before this. The president was assassinated three months ago, leading to increased gang violence, and supply shortages along with corruption and lack of security enforcement have plagued the country for years. A "megapod" of over 100 humpback whales was recently spotted off the coast of Australia. The leader of the tour group that saw them said that sightings of these massive whale feeding have become more common over the past few years. In China, a new railroad was recently completed between it and one of its neighboring countries, Laos. China says that it plans to expand a railroad throughout Asia and parts of Africa in the coming years.

Friday, October 22, 2021

The US has seen three major spikes in COVID cases so far. One at the beginning of the pandemic, one in the spring, then a steep decline before another spike largely attributed to the emergence of the delta variant in September. Since then, cases have gone down, which is a hopeful sign. These spikes have not been uniform across the world. Russia, for example, is seeing a spike right now and has a lockdown scheduled for Moscow in the coming weeks. Halloween is fast approaching, and surveys indicate that around 65% of Americans plan to participate. While that's not a record, the amount of money people plan to spend - over $10 billion - is, and that's good news for retailers who saw a massive dip in sales last year during the height of the pandemic. Debbie Blount is a golfer and sophomore at Reinhardt University. But she isn't your average student - she's the first in her family to go to college, and she's 63 years old. Back when she graduated from high school, her family didn't have the money to send her to college, so she worked a variety of jobs, and eventually married a husband who got her into golfing. After her husband and father both passed away, she decided to take the opportunity to become a full-time student. She tried out for the university golf team and now attends the school with a full sports scholarship. Along with her golfing skills, she also brings the invaluable mentality of an experienced player to the team.

CNN 10 11/15/2021 ~ 11/19/2021

Go to cnn.com/cnn10 for the latest video

Monday, November 15, 2021

Bitcoin has hit a new high of around $64,000 USD. There is a lot of controversy around cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Dogecoin. There isn't a lot of regulation around it yet, and the money isn't held by any central bank or large corporations, so its value fluctuates frequently. Still, there are many people who believe in the new form of currency, purporting that it is owned by the people and that the deregulation is a benefit. These cryptocurrencies can't actually be used to make everyday transactions like groceries yet - but what they are currently very useful for are selling NFTs, which have been on the rise lately. Another limitation is transaction time - because all transactions are recorded by supercomputers that break codes, it can take a long time for money to go through - as long as 20 minutes for Bitcoin. And because all those supercomputers are needed for transactions, it also sucks up an enormous amount of power and leaves a big carbon footprint. There are analysts on both sides, but it remains to be seen whether cryptocurrencies can stabilize and become useful for everyday consumers. Many things have been hit hard by COVID-19 shortages. Two unlikely subjects are turkeys and Christmas trees. As it gets closer to the holidays, more people are going out to buy those two commodities, and many suppliers say they might be running out.

Tuesday, November 16, 2021

Gasoline prices are rising across the country, and nowhere more so than in California, where residents who were used to paying higher prices for gas are seeing costs upwards of 5 dollars in certain areas. Other areas are also seeing major jumps - everything from food to toys are getting more expensive, nowhere more so than in Atlanta, Georgia, where the cost of living has skyrocketed over the past year with an inflation rate of more than 7%. Many people struggle to maintain a consistent workout plan. A new virtual reality gym called Black Box VR is trying to change that through virtual reality. It is using private rooms outfitted with resistance equipment to allow users to work out and play in an immersive, VR game at the same time. Users can earn points and levels, just like in any other game, and it helps time go by much more quickly while also getting lots of exercise in.

Wednesday, November 17, 2021

Floods are sweeping across the western United States, and while they might not all be record breaking like the California gas prices reported on yesterday, they are having significant impacts, such as the closure of I-5, a highway running all the way from Canada to Mexico. On the western border of the country of Belarus, the standoff between refugees and Polish border authorities continues. The migrants are mostly from war-torn countries, and they want to get into the European Union by way of Poland. Polish authorities blame Belarusian authorities for sending migrants across the border and vice versa. Researchers at the American University of Cairo believe that they have found a new way to recycle the mask waste produced as a result of COVID-19 - concrete. Based on preliminary tests, they believe that it can replace some natural resources used in concrete mixes and also reduce shrinkage and cracks. Our last story for today are the three newest inductees into the NASA Hall of Fame: Michael Lopez-Alegria, Pam Melroy, and Scott Kelly. Alegria is currently the title hodler for the second most spacewalks in the world, and the most of any NASA astronaut. Melroy was the second woman to command a NASA mission and is a veteran of three missions to help build the ISS. Kelly may be the most recognizable name from the list - he has spent 521 days in space, including a single stretch of a year during a study involving him and his twin brother, Senator Mark Kelly, who is also an astronaut.

Thursday, November 18, 2021

India and the surrounding region in Southeast Asia has some of the worst air quality in the world. India alone had 21 out of the 30 most polluted cities in the most recent rankings. As the country gets more and more industrialized, the air is only expected to get worse, and has been getting worse, despite a plan instituted in 2019 to reduced air pollution levels by 30% by 2024. The government has been implementing stopgap measures like shutting down all unnecessary power plants and trucks for a day, but experts say that larger, regional solutions will be necessary in the long run. Over the past few years, the population of sunflower sea stars off the US West Coast has been declining. They are currently at around 5% of their historic numbers and are listed as critically endangered. Scientists still aren't fully certain what causes the "melting" of stars that they have seen, but researchers in Washington are attempting to breed these animals and reintroduce them into the waters. Loss of top predators like these starfish, which eat a variety of animals on the ocean floor, can have devastating ripple effects. For example, sea urchins, whose main predator is sea stars, have grown rapidly and wiped out many kelp forests, which in turn are home to a diverse range of species.

Friday, November 19, 2021

The opioid epidemic has been a problem since around 2016, when higher death rates from overdoses first came into the picture. Now, a mere half decade later, new projections estimate that someone dies from another overdose every 5 minutes. Chief among the culprits is fentanyl, a particularly potent drug that is also found is many other prescription drugs, meaning many people don't even know they are taking it. Every presidential administration has poured billions of dollars into it, but the problem still remains unresolved. The Special Olympics serves many purposes; it encourages people with intellectual disabilities to participate in sport, but it also aims to reduce discrimination against this group. One of the people supporting this mission is Usain Bolt, once the fastest man alive. He has partnered with the Special Olympics program to further outreach and inspire more young runners. He sees something in them as well - their determination to succeed despite everyone being against them.