Senate bill would decrease license suspension offenses
Senate lawmakers are mulling a bill that would remove the penalty of a driver’s license suspension from offenses unrelated to an individual’s ability to drive. Examples include drug offenses, child support payment defaults, truancy and penalties that arise from a failure to provide proof of financial responsibilities, according to the bill’s sole sponsor, Sen. Louis [...]
Housing crunch squeezes college students
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) — UC Berkeley sophomore Terrell Thompson slept in his car for nearly two weeks at the start of the school year last fall, living out of a suitcase stashed in the trunk and texting dozens of landlords a day in a desperate search for a place to live. The high-achieving student from [...]
New Twitter owner Musk has lots of plans for the platform
Tesla CEO Elon Musk stands to be the next owner of Twitter, having pledged roughly $44 billion to buy the social platform and take it private. Assuming that happens, next up on his agenda will be planning how to fulfill his promises to develop new Twitter features, open its algorithm to public inspection and defeat [...]
Proposed surf parks in drought area creates controversy
Hours from the California coast, surfers are hoping one of the next spots where they can catch a wave is in the desert. At least four large surf lagoons are proposed for the region around Palm Springs, which is more commonly known for art festivals, mountain hikes and golf, and has no natural waves in [...]
Officials proceeding with voter-rejected spaceport
SAVANNAH, Ga. — Officials in a Georgia county are moving ahead with plans to build a launch pad for commercial rockets barely a month after residents voted to halt the project by a margin of nearly 3-to-1. Commissioners in coastal Camden County confirmed in a statement earlier this month that they voted to "approve the [...]
BITO CEO reflects on bitcoin funds 6 months after debut
NEW YORK — Bitcoin's public profile grew six months ago when the first exchange-traded product tied to it hit the market. It took just two days for the fund, the ProShares Bitcoin Strategy ETF, to amass more than $1 billion. That's even though the fund, which often goes by its ticker symbol BITO, doesn't hold [...]
GOP lawmakers vote remotely more often after initial scorn
WASHINGTON — More than 50 Republicans who once joined a lawsuit claiming the House's pandemic-era proxy voting was unconstitutional have themselves voted by proxy this year, remotely without showing up. Across the aisle, Rep. Kai Kahele, a working Hawaiian Airlines pilot as well as a Hawaii congressman, has used proxy votes on all but five [...]
Mask mandates return to colleges as coronavirus infections increase
The final weeks of the college school year have been disrupted yet again by COVID-19 as universities bring back mask mandates, switch to online classes and scale back large gatherings in response to upticks in coronavirus infections. Colleges in Washington, D.C., New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Texas have reimposed a range of virus measures, [...]