Google parent Alphabet to shut down Loon, its internet-beaming balloon project

Tray Ling 1 month ago

Alphabet is shutting down its Loon project.


Alphabet

Google parent company Alphabet said Thursday that it’s shutting down Loon, a project aimed at beaming down internet connectivity from balloons floating in the stratosphere.

The project was born out of X, Alphabet’s self-described moonshot factory for experimental projects, which has also developed the company’s driverless car and delivery drone services. Alphabet, however, deemed Loon’s business model unsustainable and said it couldn’t get costs low enough to continue operation. 

“The road to commercial viability

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Separating parents and children was Trump’s most immoral policy choice

Tray Ling 1 month ago

Former President Donald Trump’s endgame was catastrophic, from strong-arming local election officials to overturn an election on false premises, to inciting a riot on sacred government ground that left several people dead, to becoming the only president to be impeached twice. But we cannot let any of this erase the memory of the ugliest and most immoral policy choice made by the Trump administration — the willful separation of children from their families at the southwest border.  

We have known about the family separation policy for years now. However, details revealed in a new report by the Justice Department’s inspector

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Fauci discusses Biden White House COVID-19 response plan

Tray Ling 1 month ago

Dr. Anthony Fauci said President Joe Biden’s plan for 100 million vaccinations in 100 days is ‘quite a reasonable goal.’

WASHINGTON — Dr. Anthony Fauci is back in the White House press briefing room.

Fauci, the nation’s leading infectious disease expert, was tasked by President Joe Biden to give an update on the coronavirus pandemic after largely being sidelined in recent months by former President Donald Trump.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said at Thursday afternoon’s White House press briefing that the new administration would “be completely open and honest” in dealing with the

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She Resisted Getting Her Kids The Usual Vaccines. Then The Pandemic Hit. : NPR

Tray Ling 1 month ago
An illustration representing a woman diving into a maze of vaccine hesitancy information and how she gets out to her current self.

“I just remember being very scared.”

That’s how Lydia, a 39-year-old mother of three in Canada, describes feeling when she was pregnant back in 2008 with her daughter and had questions about vaccinating. She worried it might cause more harm than good.

“I remember feeling some trepidation and saying to my husband, ‘We can’t undo this once we do it,’ ” she says. NPR is not using Lydia’s full name because she’s worried about backlash from a community she once believed in — people opposed to vaccines.

The record-speed development of the COVID-19 vaccine has some asking questions about it

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Thermalito neighborhood rezoned ahead of annexation plans

Tray Ling 1 month ago

THERMALITO, Calif. – The Oroville City Council has voted to re-zone property in Thermalito slated for annexation into the city.

The 25-acre site is on 18th street and Feather avenue.

In a 4-1 vote Tuesday the council passed an amendment to allow the construction of nearly 100 homes here.

An earlier proposal called for apartment buildings.

Vice-Mayor Scott Thomson and council member Art Hatley recused themselves from this vote because they own homes near the area in discussion.

It’s a controversial decision that many neighbors are unhappy about:

“The big reason the people that are here, its because we do

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