Stuff YOU Should Know
Teaching Toddlers to Code? New York City mayor Bill de Blasio recently announced an overhaul of his city’s public school system. One of these initiatives includes learning the fundamentals of computer science. This move reflects a larger trend of considering coding (using a computer language to create software and applications) a “fundamental literacy.” This means […]
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Heads-up Displays: Safety Measure or Distraction? As technology continues to evolve at increasingly higher rates, especially in automobiles, safety advocates struggle to keep up. Many luxury automakers, including Audi, Jaguar and Chevrolet have begun offering a “head’s up display” as part of luxury car option packages. This feature projects basic information usually found on a […]
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Texas Abortion Clinic Controversy Some forty years after the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court ruling, legalized abortion continues to be a heated topic, In 2013, Texas’ then-governor (and current Republican presidential candidate, Rick Perry) signed a state law that imposed strict requirements on abortion providers in Texas. Under the law, clinics must meet standards […]
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Dead Sea Shrinking The Dead Sea is a unique and historic body of water that borders Palestine, Israel and Jordan in the Middle East. What makes it unique is its mineral-rich mud and the fact that it is 10 times saltier that any ocean. What makes the Dead Sea historic is that it was the […]
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Jimmy Carter’s Cancer News The years 1977 to 1981 were turbulent ones for Jimmy Carter, our 39th president of the United States. The country suffered high inflation and interest rates, as well as an energy crisis. Despite playing a successful role in the Camp David Peace Accord between Israel and Egypt, Carter’s presidency was plagued […]
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U.S. Embassy Reopens in Cuba Last year, President Obama announced the end to a decades-old foreign policy with Cuba. Since then, there has been much speculation over what actions might follow. On August 14, the American embassy in Havana formally reopened. The occasion was marked with a ceremony in which Secretary of State John Kerry […]
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Ferguson: One Year Later August 9 marked the one-year anniversary of the shooting death of an unarmed black teenager by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri (a suburb of St. Louis). The incident sparked a riot in that city that lasted several days and flared race relations across the United States. To mark the […]
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Too Many Landmines? Rats! A landmine is an explosive device that is buried just under the surface of the ground and activated when someone steps on or drives over it. They are often used in war. More than 40 years after the Vietnam War, the Cambodian government estimates that there are approximately 4-to-6-million landmines still […]
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Minimum Wage Gaining Maximum Attention Last month, the City of Los Angeles, California passed a landmark ordinance to increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. Similarly, the City of New York announced that it received a recommendation from its “wage panel” (appointed by NY Governor, Andrew Cuomo) to raise rates for those […]
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Close Up on Pluto Back in 2006, NASA launched New Horizons, a mission to explore the Kuiper belt. This is the region of our solar system that lies beyond our planets and includes Pluto. On July 14, the unmanned spacecraft made its closest approach, getting within 7,800 miles of the former planet (downgraded to dwarf […]