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Newly discovered virus, the Coronavirus starts spreading throughout the world.

The Coronavirus, first identified in the city of Wuhan, China in late 2019, is a disease that has started to spread across the world. The Coronavirus, as the name suggests, is a viral infection that can spread to other people via gases in the air produced by sneezing or coughing. It can cause pneumonia, fevers, and a lot of coughing and sneezing. The virus has started spreading to the United States in small numbers, and is believed to most prominent in China. Currently, over 2,000 confirmed people have died from the Coronavirus, and many people haven't paid too much attention to it, as the flu has killed more people this year, however, the Coronavirus is new, and we don't know too much about it at this moment.     I believe that it is very important that people pay attention to the Coronavirus and the effects that it has on others. I also believe that people should always check for symptoms of the virus, and get treatments as soon as possible, as this virus is starting to spre

US State of Florida buys 20,000 acres of lands in the everglades to prevent oil drilling.

The US state of Florida has agreed to buy 20,000 acres of everglade lands or roughly 31.25 sq miles, in order to prevent oil drilling. Florida has had an agreement with Kanter Real Estate, to purchase 20,000 acres of their everglade lands, which has been the biggest purchase of land in the state for 10 years, costing about $18 million. Florida's governor has stated that the purchase of these everglade lands was to help prevent drilling for oil in the area. This deal was reached when after a Florida Appeals Court had sided against Florida's Environmental Protection Department, which had denied the Kanter family's request to search for oil on the land. AN expert from the real estate company had stated during the lawsuit that they had about a 23% chance of finding oil on the land, and that they could get up to 10 million barrels of oil from it.     I believe this is a great cause for the state to go for because one of the biggest issues currently is environmental damage, whic

Team Trees, a Fundraiser, Plans to Raise $20 Million to Fight Deforestation

        Team Trees, a fundraising campaign started in October 2019, planned to raise $20,000,000 to fight deforestation by the year 2020. They had planned this goal by claiming to plant one tree for each US dollar donated after the fundraiser ends. Team Trees was started by famous YouTuber, Jimmy Donaldson, mainly known by his online alias as Mr. Beast, who was challenged to plant 20 million trees, as suggested by his fans, as a celebration for reaching 20 Million YouTube subscribers. Donaldson teamed up with Mark Rober and the Arbor Day Foundation, a non-profit organization which is dedicated to tree planting. Together, they'd created the fundraiser known as Team Trees on October 25, 2019. As of January 2020, they've exceeded their goal of $20 Million, and have raised nearly $22 Million. Team Trees has been highly successful, as big companies such as Verizon, Discovery Channel, Electronic Arts, Salesforce, Shopify, Tesla, and YouTube have raised hundreds of thousands of dollar

Maine State Law Now Requires Insurers to Cover Hearing Aid Costs

       A new law put into effect on January 1st, 2020 in Maine requires health insurers to cover the costs of hearing aids, making Maine the fifth state to require coverage for hearing aid costs. This new law was the result of a bill from Rep. James Handy, who, in 2019, required private health insurers and MaineCare to cover hearing aids up to $3,000 per ear every 3 years. According to a report from Maine's Bureau of Insurance in 2014, around 173,000 citizens in Maine had some sort of hearing disability or impairment. Handy has stated that people with hearing impairments tend to isolate themselves, which can lead to diseases such as Alzheimer's and/or Dementia. He also states that many people have to pay for hearing aids for up to $4,000 or more each, and many people go without because it is too expensive. He had also stated how many workers had left the workforce due to hearing loss, in which he stated:  " Nobody should be forced out of the workforce because of hearing im

Norway's Citizens Cut their Sugar Consumption Drastically

       Norwegian citizens have cut their sugar consumption drastically over the last 18 years. According to the Directorate of Health in Oslo, between the years 2000 and 2018, the average sugar intake per person has decreased by 27%. In the year 2000, the average amount of sugar consumed per person was about 43 kgs, and in 2018, that amount has plummeted to about 24 kgs. About 1/6 of Norway's population of 5.3 million are considered obese. As a comparison, about 1/3 of the UK's population of 66.4 million are considered obese, and about 1/4 of the US's population of 327 million are considered obese. The main reason this is going on is because of Norway's added sugar tax. Norway has had an added sugar tax for most products that contain sugar. Despite this being a great way of reducing sugar intake, the tax was actually put into place around 1922 to earn a bit of revenue off of the huge sale of sugary products such as soft drinks and candies and sweets. The Norwegian gove