Stuff YOU Should Know
White House Promotes New COVID-19 Drug The White House has recommended vaccinations, masks, social distancing, and good hygiene to control the spread of COVID-19. But now, there may be a new tool in that toolbox: an antiviral drug from Pfizer called Paxlovid. Paxlovid was first authorized for use in December 2021. The drug has been […]
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The Teal Pumpkin Project One out of every thirteen American children lives with a food allergy. So, Halloween is not a simple night of free candy for them. That’s where the Teal Pumpkin Project comes in. This movement began in 2012 in Tennessee and has now expanded to all fifty states. It encourages households to […]
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More Border Issues for President Biden In the past few weeks, thousands of migrants have arrived at the border between the United States and Mexico. Many of these are Haitians who had been allowed to live in other countries several year ago. Many of these migrants crossed into Del Rio, Texas, and formed an encampment […]
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Tokyo 2021 Olympics Update Have you been following the Tokyo Olympic Games so far? Now that the event is more than halfway through here are some highlights. At the end of the second weekend of the Games, China leads the gold medal count with 24, followed by the United States (20) and Japan (17). The […]
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Ida B. Wells Monument Unveiled in Chicago Ida B. Wells was an enslaved person who later became a newspaper editor and civil rights activist in Memphis, Tennessee. As a journalist, she travelled the South in a crusade against lynching. Wells published the stories she heard in her newspaper, The Memphis Free Speech and Headlight. She […]
Tokyo Olympics: Full Speed Ahead?
After cancelling the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games last year, the event’s organizers are ready to go forward with in-person competition in Japan this year. The Games will take place from Friday, July 23, 2021, until Sunday, August 8, 2021. But is it too soon to hold such a large international event? Here, btw takes a […]
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Biden Calls Killing of Armenians Genocide Over one hundred years ago, about 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were killed by the Ottoman Empire during World War I. Now, for the first time, an American president has officially recognized this tragedy as a genocide. President Biden made a statement on April 24, 2021, on the 106th anniversary […]
Anniversaries of the Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Seventy-five years ago last week, the United States dropped atomic bombs on two Japanese cities: Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). This decision was largely credited with speeding the end of World War II. But it also caused enormous devastation to Japanese civilians. Here, btw takes a closer look at the impact […]
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Reconsidering Facial Recognition Technology Imagine that you are accused by law enforcement of a crime you didn’t commit. Imagine that the reason for your arrest is that you were misidentified by flawed facial recognition technology. Following the protests surrounding George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Democrats in Congress have been considering widespread police reform. One of […]
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Coronavirus Hits Prisons By now you’re probably very familiar with the phrase “social distancing.” Hopefully, you and your friends and neighbors have been practicing this policy. But what happens when people are kept together in close quarters and physically can’t practice social distancing–such as in prisons? The United Nations addressed this concern last week, saying […]