Beto O’Rourke joins the presidential race
Former congressman and Senate candidate from Texas, Beto O’Rourke, has joined the crowded field of Democrats running for president in 2020. O’Rourke’s candidacy had been the source of much speculation and rumors until his official announcement on March 14.
O’Rourke raised $6.1 million within the first 24 hours of his announcement, surpassing all of the other candidates Prior to his entry, Bernie Sanders had the highest 24-hour fundraising total with $5.9 million. O’Rourke had been expected to join the race for a long time due to the national attention drawn from his failed Senate campaign against Ted Cruz.
O’Rourke kicked off his campaign in Iowa, meeting with potential caucus-goers. He is one of 14 Democratic candidates for president.
Students strike to demand action on climate change
As students across the country went to school on the morning of March 15, many others went on strike. The Youth Climate Strike was prompted by the actions of Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old Swedish student who protested by herself in August of 2018.
Students of all ages walked out of their schools and attended protests, rallies, and marches to demand that lawmakers around the globe take action to fight climate change. A total of 1.4 million students from 123 countries participated in the strike.
In the United States, many students protested to convince lawmakers to sign on to the Green New Deal. They also joined their peers around the globe to urge lawmakers to tackle climate change.
The Youth Climate Strike received criticism from many because of the cause itself and the fact that many skipped school to protest.
“This movement had to happen, we didn’t have a choice,” Thunberg wrote in the Guardian on Friday. “We knew there was a climate crisis. We knew because everything we read and watched screamed out to us that something was very wrong.”
Record floods hit the Midwest
Devastating floods swept through the Midwest, putting at least 15 states under watches and warnings as floodwaters push downstream toward the Mississippi River Valley. The cost of the damage is in the hundreds of millions of dollars and has hit farmers the hardest.
The National Weather Service says historic and catastrophic flooding will continue across portions of the central plains and upper Midwest for the rest of the week as heavy rains and more snowmelt is expected. At least three people have died and more than 4,500 people have been evacuated from their homes in Nebraska, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
While some of the flooding has started to recede, some states such as North Dakota are still bracing for impact.
