A lot of things went on outside the bubble of Tech in the past week. Here are a few important events taking place throughout the nation and the world.
As of Wednesday, two large snowstorms have hit the northeast in less than a week causing numerous school and flight cancellations and other issues across the region. Nearly 2 feet of snow fell during the first storm which occurred on Saturday, Feb. 6. The storm caused the mayor of Washington D.C. and governors of Maryland and Virginia to declare states of emergency. The storm caused numerous power lines to go down and car accidents from Virginia to Pennsylvania. As of Wednesday, the second storm, which hit Tuesday, is forecasted by the U.S. National Weather Service to drop up to 14 inches of snow and cause more cancellations for the rest of the week.
In addition to the Toyota car recalls, another Japanese automaker has announced recalls as well. As of Wednesday, Honda has added 437,000 cars to their global air bag recall. Honda representatives state that the faulty air bag could deploy with two most pressure, causing the inflator to burst and could potentially injure or kill the driver. This is the latest installment of their recall due to this issue, which has been occurring since Nov. 2008. Nearly 1 million cars have been recalled thus far.
According to officials from the U.S. Commerce Department, the trade deficit rose to its highest level in a year in Dec. 2009. The department’s report showed that the U.S. international gap in goods and services trade increased to a seasonally adjusted $40.2 billion. This is the biggest deficit since Dec. 2008. This effect could be due to a mixed impact of the bettering global economy on the US.