Author: potus

Fluoride in public water supplies has just been one of those things that’s a fact of life. Aside from a few fringe conspiracy theorists floating the idea that it was actually a communist mind control plot, most Americans, including myself, just accepted the benefits of this nearly universal practice essentially as settled science.Where I grew up and still live today, in rural northeast Louisiana, we drink water from a well, so questions surrounding fluoridation did not rise to the level of a second thought.That all changed when a fascinating news article came across my feed one day, saying that it…

(The Center Square) – The board that governs the health insurance plan for about 775,000 North Carolina state employee and retirees on Tuesday approved higher deductibles and copays as a way to reduce its $507 million deficit and lower projected premium increases.“Benefit changes or more substantial premium increases – those are fundamentally the two options right now,” Tom Friedman, executive administrator of the health insurance plan, told board members. “But we have to do something different here to be successful.” Brad Briner, state treasurer of North Carolina NC Department of State Treasurer | Facebook For example, on the state’s “Standard”…

Elon Musk is interviewed on CNBC from the Tesla headquarters in Texas.CNBCTesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed that the company will have robotaxis on the streets of Austin, Texas, by the end of June.In an interview with CNBC’s David Faber on Tuesday at the company’s headquarters in Austin, Musk said Tesla aims to bring its robotaxis to Los Angeles and San Francisco following the planned Austin debut.Musk said a Tesla robotaxi service will start with about 10 vehicles in Austin, and rapidly expand to thousands of vehicles should the launch go well with no incidents.Since 2016, Musk has been promising Tesla…

Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, speaks at the Google I/O developer conference. Andrej Sokolow | Picture Alliance | Getty ImagesGoogle on Tuesday announced Veo 3, an AI video generator that can also create and incorporate audio. The artificial intelligence tool competes with OpenAI’s Sora video generator, but its ability to also incorporate audio into the video that it creates is a key distinction. The company said Veo 3 can incorporate audio that includes dialogue between characters as well as animal sounds.”Veo 3 excels from text and image prompting to real-world physics and accurate lip syncing,” Eli Collins, Google DeepMind product vice…

Xreal said its Project Aura glasses will run Google Android XR.XrealXreal on Tuesday announced a set of so-called “extended reality” glasses that run Google’s Android XR software, as the companies look to take on Meta and Apple in a new arena.The launch marks an early step from Alphabet’s Google to become a major operating system for future virtual and augmented reality smart glasses and headsets, much like Android has turned into a default option for most smartphones.Xreal, a Chinese company backed by Alibaba, calls its glasses Project Aura and describes them as a lightweight extended reality — or XR —…

Wendy Ortiz was surprised to find out she was being fined by U.S. immigration authorities for being in the country illegally — but it was the amount that truly shocked her: $1.8 million.Ortiz, 32, who earns $13 an hour in her job at a meatpacking plant in Pennsylvania, has lived in the United States for a decade, after fleeing El Salvador to escape a violent ex-partner and gang threats, she said in an interview and in immigration paperwork. Her salary barely covers rent and expenses for her autistic 6-year-old U.S.-citizen son.“It’s not fair,” she said. “Where is someone going to…

Justin Sun, founder of blockchain platform Tron, poses for a photograph in Hong Kong, May 8, 2020.Calvin Sit | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesChinese-born crypto mogul Justin Sun says he’s the top holder of the $TRUMP meme token and will be having dinner with President Donald Trump.The dinner competition — a sweepstakes offering gala access to the sitting U.S. president — was open to anyone in the world willing to spend millions of dollars on a digital coin tied to Trump.On Thursday, the top 220 $TRUMP holders are invited to a dinner with the president at his Virginia golf club outside…

(The Center Square) – ComEd customers in Illinois can expect much higher electric bills this summer.Citizens Utility Board Communications Director Jim Chilsen said that ComEd’s supply price is expected to rise on June 1 by more than 10 cents per kilowatt hour, or about 45% higher than it was last June.“Customers could easily end up paying well over a hundred dollars extra on their power bills over the next twelve months, and the infuriating fact is that this was a completely preventable situation,” Chilsen said.Chilsen blamed the price spikes on PJM, the regional grid operator in ComEd’s territory.“Because of poor…

(The Center Square) – U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., sent a letter to the U.S. Department of Energy on Monday, demanding answers about new “arbitrary” caps on federal research grants.Last month, the agency announced a 15% cap on indirect costs for research grants at colleges and universities, which it expanded to nonprofits and other companies on May 5. With another 10% cap on state and local governments, DOE could save more than $935 million annually.  A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction on the university caps just hours after U.S. Rep. Marcy Kaptur, D-Ohio, and Murray sent the letter. However, if the…

(The Center Square) – U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., maintained America’s position on withdrawing from the World Health Organization in video remarks on Tuesday, claiming the organization has strayed from its purpose of promoting and protecting global health.“Like many legacy institutions, the WHO has become mired in bureaucratic bloat, entrenched paradigms, conflicts of interest, and international power politics,” Kennedy said. On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the United States to withdraw from the World Health Organization and to “pause the future transfer of any United…