Your weekly news breakdown from the Talon Online News out of Colonial Forge High School. This weekly update is for January 20 through January 27.

Script:

Welcome back to your weekly news bite. I’m your host, Will Hagaman, and this is Eagle News Now.

Yesterday on the 26th of January, an asteroid that was estimated to be 11 feet to 28 feet across passed by earth in a close shave.

The asteroid, dubbed 2023 BU, at its closest point was 2,200 miles from the earth’s surface, this put it close to orbits of some satellites, however no satellites were struck.

The object was only discovered by astronomers on the 21st, less than a week before it came close to earth.

2023 BU came closest to earth around the skies of Chile, half past 7 Eastern Time.

Although the asteroid came relatively close, it would have most likely disintegrated when entering the atmosphere.

For an asteroid to have the possibility of a mass casualty event, it would have to be nearly 30x bigger than 2023 BU, and to cause a globally devastating event would have to be around 200x larger.

However, the fact that this asteroid remained unknown until recently is a testament to how much we don’t know about the darkness of space.

Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, announced Wednesday the 25th that former president Donald Trump would be allowed back onto all of their platforms, most notably Facebook and Instagram.

The company had originally removed Trump after the January 6th insurrection, in which he played a major role. Facebook claimed that Trump had used his social media accounts to rile up his supporters to storm the capital.

Critics of Facebook unbanning Trump have stated that this will allow for him to effectively raise money for any future campaigns, or spread misinformation to his audience.

The social media empire played a major role in fundraising for his campaign in the 2016 election, with many ads targeting Republican-leaning users that would ask them to donate various amounts.

Although Trump has created his own social media website to counteract his ban from multiple social media pages, known as Truth Social, he still has a major following on other social media pages. Currently, he has over 30 million followers on Facebook.

This Tuesday, the e-commerce giant Amazon, announced a new service for Amazon Prime members- prescriptions.

Amazon is mostly known for their online shopping and shipping empire, but within recent years has dipped into various fields, such as groceries, media, cloud storage, and now pharmaceuticals.

Known as RxPass, it is an add-on to Prime Membership costing $5 a month, allowing members to get prescriptions filled from their list of 50 medications. With free shipping, of course.

These medications range from those that aid with anxiety, epilepsy, diabetes, and many more to conditions such as dementia and breast cancer.

Those with government funded insurance such as Medicare and Medicaid cannot sign up for RxPass.

According to Amazon, they cannot send medication in 8 states, a list of which can be found on the Amazon website. However, they do state that an Amazon Pharmacy is available in each of those states.

For school news,

Seniors and Juniors have the opportunity to attend an internship and workforce expo on  Feb. 14.

Students will be able to meet with various employers looking for interns and possibly paid workers.

The event will be held Feb. 14, from 10am to 1pm at the Fredericksburg Expo Center. To sign up, students must complete the form emailed to them by the end of the month.

Students are also required to dress professionally, and should have 3 to 5 copies of their resume for the event.

For more information, look for the email from Ms. Miranda Todd.

The annual American Heart Challenge was announced on January 19th. This event gives participating students who complete the educational modules in the app a limited edition beanie cap.

Those who go above and beyond and raise $50 dollars or more for the American Heart Association will receive a T-shirt.

For more information about the program, students can check the email that was sent to all students by Mr. Daniel.

A Stafford County Bus was rear ended today, January 27th, as they were making the travel student journey from Mountain View to Colonial Forge.

This will mark the second time this school year that a bus has been struck by an alleged speeder.

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