Here are the headlines from Cheddar News that are Good 2 Know.
FREE TICKETS TO HONG KONG
Hong Kong is giving away 500,000 free tickets in a bid to revive the tourism industry after the COVID-19 pandemic put a serious dent in the city's economy. The "Hello Hong Kong" initiative, which launched last week, will dole out the tickets to the city's three major airlines, Cathay Pacific, HK Express, and Hong Kong Airlines, and in three separate releases. The first release will be available to people living in Southeast Asia on March 1, then mainland China on April 1, and the rest of the world on May 1. The effort will cost Hong Kong $254.8 million in total.
TIKTOK'S SLEEPY NOISES
You've probably heard of white noise, but what about pink noise? Or green noise? TikTok creators have started sharing their favorite noises to help them fall asleep, and there is some science to back up the social media trend. Sleep experts say the low frequencies of what are called brown sounds can help ease tinnitus symptoms. So-called green noise, meanwhile, is a more natural background, and pink noise is the closest to white noise (a more neutral sound). Ultimately though, what sounds are best is pretty subjective, so check them out yourself.
The world population grew by 75 million people over the past year and on New Year's Day, it was estimated to stand at more than 8 billion people, according to figures released by the U.S. Census Bureau on Thursday.
UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. Wisconsin-La Crosse fired Gow on Wednesday, Dec. 27, 2023, after learning Gow and his wife have been producing and appearing in pornographic videos. Gow maintains the firing violated his free speech rights.
The U.S. military is now putting independent lawyers in charge of its investigations of sexual assault and other major crimes, what Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has called the "most important reform" to the military justice system in recent history.
A decades-old law bans Medicare from paying for weight loss drugs. Now, drugmakers and a wide-ranging bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up to push for that to change next year.
Barring a court order, in March Texas police will start being able to arrest people they suspect have entered the U.S. illegally, but increases in border crossings since a 2021 law authorizing some arrests shows the limits of that approach in the face of desperation that causes people to risk everything and travel thousands of miles to the U.S.
Mexico began clearing tents, both occupied and unoccupied, from the encampment in the border city of Matamoros, across from Brownsville, Texas, starting Tuesday.
