The full moon lit up just a little brighter this weekend. The moon was positioned a little lower in the northern hemisphere, giving off a warmer light, and looking more yellow and orange, like a sunset. It was supposedly given the name "strawberry moon" because it was used by native americans to mark the ripening of strawberries, which are ready to be picked in June.
FRENCH SPELLING BEE
We've been covering the spelling bee here in the U.S., but just across the ocean, France organized the largest spelling and grammar contest in the world yesterday. More than 5,000 people participated in the event that took place in the middle of Paris' iconic Champs-Élysées. The competition had three rounds with about 1,700 people in each. In the first round, participants tried to transcribe an excerpt from a short story by a 19th century author, and in the second and third rounds , they had to transcribe a modern short story about rugby.
The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year's Day, it was estimated to stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. Wisconsin-La Crosse fired Gow on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023, after learning Gow and his wife have been producing and appearing in pornographic videos. Gow maintains the firing violated his free speech rights.
The U.S. military is now putting independent lawyers in charge of its investigations of sexual assault and other major crimes, what Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has called the "most important reform" to the military justice system in recent history.
A decades-old law bans Medicare from paying for weight loss drugs. Now, drugmakers and a wide-ranging bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up to push for that to change next year.
Barring a court order, in March Texas police will start being able to arrest people they suspect have entered the U.S. illegally, but increases in border crossings since a 2021 law authorizing some arrests shows the limits of that approach in the face of desperation that causes people to risk everything and travel thousands of miles to the U.S.
Mexico began clearing tents, both occupied and unoccupied, from the encampment in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, starting Tuesday.
