Your weekly news breakdown from the Talon Online News out of Colonial Forge High School. This weekly update is for January 8 through January 14, 2022.

Script:

Welcome to your first weekly news bite. Today is Friday, January 14. I’m your host Will Hagaman and this is Eagle News Now.

Spotsylvania County Schools Superintendent, Scott Baker, is now out of a job. The board’s newest chair, Kirk Twigg, used his first order of business to call a closed door session before voting 4-3 to fire superintendent Baker without cause, less than a month after they accepted his resignation, which would have let him finish out the school year.

This comes after weeks of contentious arguments about CRT, mask mandates, and threats of book burning. 

The School board could run into some legal trouble though since to call a closed session, a public board must first make a motion to have the session closed and announce what is about. No interim superintendent has been announced.

After over 2,600 reported wrecks and an I-95 closure lasting more than 24 hours.Alexandria Senator, Dave Marsden, proposed a state bill to help make the highway in hazardous weather as safe as possible. Truck drivers will be required to stay on the right side of the road, in hopes to decrease speed and reduce the possibility of accidents. As WTOP News reported, a current concern is the elevated difficulty of entering the right lane. 

The Virginia Legislative session will start next Wednesday, January 19.

On Sunday, January 9, the world lost the beloved man pop culture referred to as Danny Tanner, the all-American father from Full House. Bob Saget was found dead in his hotel room in Orlando, after his comedy show the day before. Thousands of tributes to the late star began to pour in after Saget’s death became public knowledge, some from the cast of Full House and many from heartbroken fans. 

Saget rose to fame with his infamous role as Danny Tanner in 1987 until the show ended in 1995. He went on to guest star in several movies and TV shows such as; Law and Order, How I Met Your Mother, Shameless, and many more. Aside from Full House, Saget was a recurring host on America’s funniest home videos which he was host for from 1989 to 1997.  In 2016, he was able to reconnect and reprise his role as Danny Tanner in the Netflix show Fuller House, which followed the life of the original characters, just grown up. 

Saget’s cause of death is still unknown.

For the first time in over 30 years the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has added an item to the list of dangerous air pollutants. 

1-bromopropane is a solvent used in the dry cleaning industry and has apparently been labeled dangerous by those in the industry for decades. Many are criticizing the amount of time it took for the solvent to be recognized as a danger to humans as the chemical has been linked to causing severe nerve damage and cancer with prolonged exposure.

The chemical will officially join the list on February 4, 2022.

On Monday, January 10th a project referred to as an “artificial sun” was activated in china. The “artificial sun” is really a nuclear fusion reactor that is supposed to be the future of renewable energy. 

This reactor lasted for seventeen minutes and got to a heat of 126 million degrees which is five times the heat of the sun. The seventeen minutes crushed the previous record set by France in 2003. 

The reactor has officially been named “experimental advanced superconducting tokamak”, abbreviated as “EAST”. If this starts a trend of growth with nuclear fusion reactors, this could be a huge step for the world in cutting back on fossil fuels and taking a huge step forward with renewable resources.

The Kazakhstan government has mostly stabilized the region after thousands of citizens protested against a 100% fuel cost increase proposed by the government. The protests started on January 2 and have only recently been mostly quelled. The protests started in the southernmost region of Kazakhstan and quickly spread to the whole country, including the largest city of Almaty. 

This protest became the largest protest since the country’s independence 30 years ago. 

Protests in areas turned bloody after president Tokayev stated in a televised announcement, “Those who don’t surrender will be eliminated”. At current reported numbers, 164 protesters are reported dead and nearly 10,000 detained.

UN helmets were spotted during the protests, but it was quickly realized that it was in fact the Kazakh military using them, under disregard of international law.

The Russian military was also heavily involved, as it was mixed into the Collective Security Treaty Organization, CTSO, which encompassed many former soviet countries and had been deployed to protect strategic buildings, pipelines, both Russian and Kazakhstan military bases, and the famous Bikaner Russian spaceport.

At last night’s basketball double header against North Stafford, the boys crushed north 54-34 while the girls lost 32-51.

Forge swim blasted past the competition at Tuesday’s meet, with the girls winning 190 to 86 and the boys 177 to 108. 

The Gymnastics team will be competing in the Winter Jamboree on Saturday. 

The NHS induction has been postponed until January 27 at 6 pm. 

The Forge Learn and Serve Class started a food collection program in the cafeteria and outside the library doors. If you have any unopened drinks and/or food items, please bring them to the collection stations. The food you help collect will be given to a food bank and then to people in need.

That is your update for this week. This is your host Will Hagaman signing off, see you next week.