Catching you up on what you need to know on April 7, 2022, with updates on Ukraine urging NATO for military aid for their war with Russia, the SEC investigating Amazon, microplastics being found deep inside human lungs for the first time, and more.

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Need2Know: Ukraine Seeks Military Aid, SEC Amazon Probe & Microplastics in Lungs

But first let's dive into the need to know headlines you need to know first and we began in Ukraine. That's where the mayor says at least 5000 civilians, including more than 200 Children have been killed in Russia's invasion. He called the siege of the city, quote the new OSHA wits this all while President Zelensky is accusing Russia of trying to hide potential war crimes. Meanwhile, US secretary of state antony Blinken met with both NATO and G seven foreign ministers in brussels on Wednesday. That was military aid to help Ukraine fight off the Russian invasion. High on the agenda there now Blinken has already announced another $100 million us total to some 1.7 billion just since Russia invaded back in February, the european union will likely take a different route this by adding new embargoes and sanctions related to coal. Now Washington also hit Russia's top banks also with some new sanctions as well elsewhere. Six oil and gas executives were grilled by the House Energy and commerce subcommittee this morning over skyrocketing gas prices. Among them are executives from BP America Chevron and Exxon mobil. Gas prices rose following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, which prompted the US to put a ban on imports from Russia. Oil executives pushed back on accusations of price gouging saying the surges because of pandemic related labor shortages. The Ceo said that they can increase production to offset the prices. Americans are paying an average of $4.16 for a gallon of gas right now. Alright, let's talk about the weather, heavy rain and tornadoes running amok in the southeast Just days after that area was slammed by storms over the weekend, at least two people are dead after those storms as homes were destroyed in areas of south Carolina and Georgia, parts of northern Georgia are currently on flood watch due to the heavy rain and may affect about two million people. Now. Major cities like Savannah, charleston and Columbia were under tornado watches and maybe in for some more as well. That's because wind gusts may reach up to 70 miles an hour and up to two inches of hail can strike that according to the storm prediction center. That storm images, the Federal Reserve looking to raise interest rates at a quicker pace than expected as the Central Bank attempts to get inflation under control. Now, several members of the Fed board saying that they are in favor of more aggressive rate hikes to the tune about of about 50 basis points. The Fed chair saying that the Central Bank needs to quote move expeditiously as inflation climbs to a 40 year high philadelphia. Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker saying he expects a series of deliberate hikes this year. He discussed generous fiscal policies and supply chain disruptions which have pushed inflation higher than he and his colleagues are quote comfortable with Harker also says food and energy price surges are not likely to be resolved anytime soon. Alright, so big news with amazon, they're currently under investigation by the sec. This is how over how they disclosed their third party seller data, the sec enforcement division reportedly requesting emails and even communications from several amazon executives all to learn more about how they use data from third party sellers on the platform. This comes after that Big Wall Street Journal investigation back in 2020 That discovered Amazon employees frequently used that 3rd party seller data all to develop their own branded products. Since then, Amazon has now launched their own internal investigation, but so far they've refused to provide a copy of that report to the congressional committee that had previously investigated the e commerce giant and just last month, Amazon had been referred to by the Department of Justice for potentially obstructing Congress. However, amazon denies any wrongdoing in this and this is a super interesting story here. Micro plastic particles were found lodged in the lungs of people living for the first time. Samples of micro plastic pollution were found in 11 out of 13 patients about to undergo surgery with the most common materials being from plastic packaging pipes and bottles. It's still unclear how exactly they person can this can impact a person's health, but lab studies have shown microplastics caused damage to human cells and workers exposed to high levels of these have developed diseases. Scientists say that micro plastic pollution is unavoidable considering the significant presence it has throughout the world. This comes just one month after scientists discovered microplastics in human blood for the first time. The story is so hard to crazy to digest, literally, it's it's scary to think about what's actually out there. So like depending on your job or where you live, you could be in danger of just like inhaling microplastics and and you know, the worst part is is it's unavoidable. There's nothing you can do because plastic is so ubiquitous everywhere. This is coming from your plastic bags. As you mentioned, plastic packaging, pipes, bottles just consuming just the bottles, the microplastics that you get. And again, I'm I'm glad you know, you mentioned, you don't know it's sort of the health effects of this, but they're already starting to find this in the bottom parts of lungs already, which is so scary. And we have a plastic problem in this country in this world anyway, because we're really reaching the point of where there's gonna be more plastic in the ocean than there are fishes soon, which is going to be so crazy to think about. But other states are trying to sort of curtail the amount of plastic uses. This is why you're seeing states like California and new york try to get rid of plastic bags when you go to the grocery stores, but really sort of our dependence on plastic has sort of created this issue here. And it's really scary. And it's like it goes down to like the pollution problem everything. And but you know, depending on where you live, it's, it would be interesting to look up like how that differs versus living in, you know, new york city and urban place versus like, you know, I just want to buy a house in the country. That's true. But then the flip side is as a consumer, what do you do, what do you sort of do to get around this, even if you're breathing these air particles, it's hard to sort of get around it and also your deliveries come in plastic, Everything you purchase comes in plastic, so it's like there's no sort of work around from this. So how does this get better? I think that's sort of the big question here is that from a consumer perspective or you out forcing companies to sort of rethink how they're basically putting your stuff in packaged goods. Now as a result, Meanwhile, we have a whopper of a lawsuit at Burger King four Burger King, customers are suing the fast food chain for making their popular whoppers seem a lot bigger in the advertisements than it really is. The customers are saying that the whopper is 35% smaller in person than it is in photographs. The suit claims that the chain is engaging in quote deceptive trade practices and they're asking burger King to either stop selling the inflated menu items or change their advertisements completely. And the suit also claims that the false advertising is financially damaging consumers. That is inflation hits a four decade high burger king has been in trouble in the past for size issues in the past, especially from a U. K. Court that had argued that one of their chicken products also was bigger on the advertisements than it was in the whopper. But you also might be thinking where are all these lawsuits coming from when it comes to food? It's interesting because there's now been over quite a few 100 lawsuits just since 2021. NPR is reporting there have been 280 cases filed against fast food chains when it comes to food issues mostly related to size. Right? I mean I was looking into this as well. Subway had one because you know the tuna, the foot long, foot long sandwiches to yes, but the issue was a whole other thing, strawberry pop tarts just did this because the pop tarts, I didn't actually have strawberries, right? And there was special K also because there wasn't a huge amount of strawberries in them as well. But I just find it so interesting as consumers, it's catfishing it it is in many ways and I don't know too many of them that have been proven to be successful because as I mentioned, most judges except for this UK issue with burger king have thrown out these lawsuits but I just the Mcdonald's coffee situation from you know, hundreds of years ago. It feels like has sort of started this escalating domino effect when people feel like they need to take action against these companies. It's interesting to just kind of like pursue the lawsuit, right? Because you grow up, you see all of these fast food advertisements, our whole lives were exposed to them and I see that they make it look like juicy and fabulous, healthy and all these things. And when you unwrap that thing after like sitting in the drive through, you know, it's not really sure though. He didn't get the Junior Whopper instead of the regular whopper is that I feel like it's like a it's like a known thing that nobody talks about. We just know it's not what it looks like. We're all size queens. Right. Well for more stories you need to know, scan the QR code on your screen and sign up for Cheddars, daily newsletter. Absolutely. You will get those delivered to your inbox straight every morning