With Georgia's Senate runoff election underway, a pair of local environmental activists are spreading their message about the need to fight climate change.
"Our biggest message is that people need to be thinking about the climate when they're voting because people don't realize the South is really going to be — we're already being hit and we will be hit by climate change," Natasha Dörr-Kapczynski, co-founder and communications coordinator of Georgia For The Planet, a nonprofit advocacy group, told Cheddar.
She said her group is working to inform voters about the candidates' positions on climate change, which in her opinion favor Democratic challengers Rev. Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff, both having advocated for rejoining the Paris Climate Accords, rebuilding the Environmental Protection Agency, and protecting Georgia's coastline.
Jordan Madden, a coordinator at Sunrise Movement Clayton County and an intern for Democratic State Rep. Becky Evans, is looking ahead to the incoming Biden administration for a more ambitious national plan to address climate change.
"First off, I'm looking for a Green New Deal," he said. "That is number one and our top priority over the next 10 years with this climate mandate."
He highlighted the need to help "Black and brown communities" who will be disproportionately impacted by climate change both in the U.S. and around the world. He also called on these same groups, particularly those employed in the fossil fuel industry, to become active themselves by unionizing and calling on their elected officials to address these concerns.
Dörr-Kapczynski noted that outside of the closely watched Senate runoff election, there is another local race Tuesday that is also crucial to the planet: the Public Service Commission, which regulates Georgia Power, the state's main utility.
She explained that the regulator is in charge of shaping energy policy in the state, including whether or not there is a transition away from coal and other fossil fuels.
"That's why it's very important to elect some new faces in there," she said.
The Federal Reserve cut its key interest rate by a quarter-point Wednesday and projected it would do so twice more this year as concern grows at the central bank about the health of the nation’s labor market. The move is the Fed’s first cut since December and lowered its short-term rate to about 4.1%, down from 4.3%. Fed officials, led by Chair Jerome Powell, had kept their rate unchanged this year as they evaluated the impact of tariffs, tighter immigration enforcement, and other Trump administration policies on inflation and the economy. The only dissenter was Stephen Miran, the recent Trump-appointee.
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The Trump administration has issued its first warnings to online services that offer unofficial versions of popular drugs like the blockbuster obesity treatment Wegovy.
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The Trump administration has asked an appeals court to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Reserve’s board of governors by Monday, before the central bank’s next vote on interest rates. Trump sought to fire Cook Aug. 25, but a federal judge ruled late Tuesday that the removal was illegal and reinstated her to the Fed’s board.
President Donald Trump's administration is appealing a ruling blocking him from immediately firing Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook as he seeks more control over the traditionally independent board. The notice of appeal was filed Wednesday, hours after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb handed down the ruling. The White House insists the Republican president had the right to fire Cook over mortgage fraud allegations involving properties in Michigan and Georgia from before she joined the Fed. Cook's lawsuit denies the allegations and says the firing was unlawful. The case could soon reach the Supreme Court, which has allowed Trump to fire members of other independent agencies but suggested that power has limitations at the Fed.
Chief Justice John Roberts has let President Donald Trump remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, the latest in a string of high-profile firings allowed for now by the Supreme Court.
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
