Newsbytes: Traffic Control, District of Columbia, Renewable Energy, Starbucks Holiday Cups

By Staff Writers Joelle Chuang & Michael Ren

Local — Traffic Control Tightens in Fremont’s Residential Areas
Fremont’s officials have been working with Waze, a traffic navigation application, to prevent motorists from leaving freeways and clogging city streets in order to take shortcuts. According to East Bay Times, there have recently been countless problems with commuters cutting through residential streets to get to work faster, or taking back streets to enter freeways. The Fremont Public Works Department plans to enforce restrictions on certain streets to make it more difficult for the motorists to re-enter the freeway. Officials hope this will control congestion on these streets, and make drivers think twice about leaving the freeway to take a different route.

National — District of Columbia votes to become a state
The District of Columbia overwhelmingly voted for becoming the 51st state on Election Day. The ballot measure calls for the District to become the State of Columbia, giving it more representation in legislature with senators and house representatives. Currently, the District of Columbia has no senators and one delegate in the House of Representatives. The measure also specified that the new state will still have a federal district containing government buildings and monuments. With a 78 percent vote for the measure on November 8, Congress will soon make the final decision on whether the District is to become a state.

International — Britain Looks to a Future with Renewable Energy
Britain announced plans for the country to completely ditch coal power by 2025. The government cited several reasons for the change, such as the recent Paris Agreement and the fact that many of its coal power generators are operating beyond their designated lifespans. The transition to renewable energy will be slow and steady so that the country’s energy requirements will always be met during the process. With the government planning to shut down all of its remaining coal plants by 2022, Britain is now more in need of a switch to renewable energy than ever before.

Quirky — Customers Design Starbucks Holiday Cups
Starbucks just released 13 new red holiday cups on November 10 to celebrate and welcome the spirit of the season. The new cups are a unique twist on last year’s holiday cup, which was plain red with the Starbucks logo. Last year, customers often drew on their cups themselves, and this inspired Starbucks to invite customers to submit designs. More than 1,200 art pieces from 13 countries were submitted for Starbucks’ 2016 cup collection, which was released around the world. Starbucks hopes that the cups will brighten people’s days.

Photos by cloudfront.net, econews.com, staticflickr.com, usmagazine.com