In Case you Missed it…

In this new segment from The Big Red, our reporters comb through the news of the week to present you with five news stories you may have missed or want to learn more about. Our criteria for selecting these pieces weekly are finding stories that cover the environment, the economy, sports/pop culture and a piece of good news.

Environmental

The Willow Project has been approved and it has caused controversy throughout the US. For those who don’t know, the Willow Project aims to drill for oil in Alaska. The marked drilling area is expected to produce 600 million barrels of oil. The project has brought much controversy and objection from United States citizens with it amassing over three million signatures for a petition. One thing that has been on the rise for a long time is gas prices and an increase in oil would help that along with many other things but is it worth the environmental risk? Find out for yourself by reading this article: https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/14/politics/willow-project-oil-alaska-explained-climate/index.html

Economic/Business

Recently, Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) lost a big chunk of money causing its customers to panic and take their money out of the bank, and in the end, causing SVB to fail completely. News of SVB’s failure caused panic among the customers of other banks and Signature Bank in New York failed as well due to the same problem of depositors withdrawing. President Biden promises that depositors to both banks will make the whole not with taxpayer money, but with money from a fund that banks pay into. Read this article to learn more: https://apnews.com/article/silicon-valley-bank-failure-deposits-fdic-8011ea377d8f9941032790ce1d704c5a

Sports/Entertainment/Pop Culture

After sports betting officially became legal in Massachusetts, over 400,000 different people in the state signed up for mobile betting accounts. The change took place on March 10 and it has already had a lot of new gamblers. The only states to have more betting activity than Massachusetts 8.1 million transactions were New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. With the new law, there have been some concerns about fraudulent gambling, especially in college sports which are outlawed in Massachusetts. If you would like to learn more, check out this article: https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/massachusetts-mobile-sports-betting-online-accounts-sign-ups/

Education

Lunchables will be available in U.S. school lunches next fall. Heinz, the parent company of Lunchables, had to tweak their recipe to meet National School Lunch Program (NSLP) guidelines. Heinz claims that the new Lunchables boast ‘improved nutrition.’ Read this article to learn more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/mar/14/lunchables-school-lunch-programs

Good News

The U.S. Postal Service has bought 9,000 new Ford electric vehicles. In addition, the USPS is installing 14,000 additional charging stations in 75 different counties and municipalities to support their new EVs. All of this is an attempt to reduce carbon emissions. To learn more read this article: https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/us-mail-to-be-delivered-in-9000-new-electric-vehicles-with-usps-installing-14000-charging-stations/