News from around the nation.

Gen Z mobilizes as Kamala Harris energizes Hoosier Democrats; Texas delegates at DNC excited about the future; Maine mass shooting report exposes failure in Army, law enforcement and hospital responses; New York activists take action on companies causing climate change.

Transcript

(upbeat music)

The Public News Service Daily Newscast for August the 21st, 2024.

I'm Mike Clifford.

The Democratic National Convention in Chicago is buzzing with energy and several Hoosiers are there on the ground, ushering in Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumed nominee.

We get more from Joe Ulori.

Allen County Democratic Party Chairman, Derek Camp, is at the convention as a delegate.

He says Hoosier voters are concerned about ensuring women's reproductive rights.

One of the things I hear the most back home in Indiana is reproductive rights.

A woman's right to choose, as well as birth control, those are very important and high on minds of a lot of voters back home in Indiana.

It's certainly something that Donald Trump has made clear that he's going to remove.

Camp sees voter enthusiasm growing in Indiana, especially among young people who are stepping forward to get involved, knocking on doors, and becoming party precinct chairs.

Camp says he hasn't seen this kind of energy in Indiana since 2008, when President Barack Obama was elected to his first term.

It was also the first time since 1964 that Indiana chose a Democrat for president.

And Texas is well-represented at the DNC and Chicago this week, just as it was last month in Milwaukee.

The Lone Star State has 273 delegates at the Democratic Convention, and El Paso Congresswoman Veronica Escobar is one of four co-chairs.

Sylvia Lagos, a precinct chair in Dallas County, says she'll be excited to see Vice President Kamala Harris officially accept the nomination to be the Democratic candidate for president.

This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing that can happen, and it can change the whole trajectory of our governing from here moving forward.

Mexico just got their first woman.

Why can't we get our first woman?

Lagos says, like Harris, she worked at McDonald's when she was younger.

She adds she's happy that her daughters and granddaughters can witness such a historic event.

Harris is slated to accept the nomination Thursday night.

Texas has long been a red state, and there are no signs that things will change anytime soon, but Lagos says her goal is to register more Democratic voters for the November general election.

She says Texans are concerned about issues like school vouchers, border security, and reproductive rights.

And Freda Ross reporting.

And it was almost 10 months after an Army Reservist deadly rampage in Lewiston, Maine, an independent commission said Tuesday that local law enforcement and the US military had missed several opportunities that, if taken, might have changed the course of the tragic events.

That from NBC News.

Their report, while the independent commission's final report found that the gunman there, Robert Card, was solely responsible for his own conduct, other lapses played a role.

This is Public News Service.

Next to New York, where the summer is winding down, climate change impacts remain.

This summer saw record high temperatures.

Reports show by 2050, the state is projected to experience more days with temperatures above 90 degrees.

Climate activists have been protesting companies contributing to fossil fuel use, which leads to worsening climate impacts.

Reverend Chelsea MacMillan with Green Faith says New York's climate impacts resemble the national trend.

Last year, the sky turned orange due to wildfire smoke coming down from Canada, and we are going to see more and more of these climate disasters happening in our state and in New York City.

While extreme heat is one of the deadliest elements of climate change, storm damage is one of the costliest.

Hurricane Beryl was one of several storms to flood New York communities this year.

All told, New York has seen around $23 billion in damage from billion-dollar disasters this year.

Taxpayers were forced to pick up the $2 billion price tag for climate change costs in 2023.

I'm Edwin J. Vieira.

And unions representing fast food workers are asking the state's new Fast Food Council to support a 70-cent-per-hour boost in the minimum wage.

The minimum wage for fast food workers was recently raised to $20 an hour, but that works out to just over $41,000 a year, which in California is significantly less than the average cost of living.

Linda Becker with the nonprofit Merit America supports a higher minimum wage, but says that's just a start.

While raising the minimum wage offers an immediate paycheck boost for low-wage workers, it's just one piece of the puzzle.

We still really firmly believe that a low-wage job should be a stepping stone and not a dead end.

Merit America offers intensive career counseling and online courses in IT support, data analytics, cybersecurity, project management, and UX design.

I'm Suzanne Potter.

Meantime, the Association for the Study of African American Life and History is bringing its Freedom Schools initiative to Florida.

It's part of a national effort to counter legislative efforts restricting the teaching of major historical thought.

The association's national president, Dr. W. Marvin Dulaney, emphasizes the significance of these classes.

We're teaching freedom.

We're preparing people to challenge the legislation by these 22 states that are trying to restrict the teaching of slavery, the teaching of the civil rights movement.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis defends the state's crackdown on how race is taught in schools when education officials rejected an African American studies course from being implemented earlier this year.

Classes start in September in Jacksonville with Tampa, Minnesota, and St.

Petersburg expected to follow.

I'm Tramell Gomes.

This is Mike Clifford for Public News Service, member and list of supported.

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