Author name: Mary Curtis

Looking at climate futures with imagination and resolve

With a recently concluded global climate summit with challenging takeaways, an incoming president who vows to again remove the U.S. from international climate agreements, and increasing weather disasters that defy what went before, a look at what is being called an existential crisis could be grim. But that’s not the kind of book Dr. Ayana […]

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Democrats’ competing postmortems leave out history — and the obvious

When the primary for the 2020 presidential contest was just beginning, an acquaintance — an intelligent, wealthy, white Democrat — shared her sure-fire prediction as we shared dinner. “It’s going to be Michael Bloomberg,” she said. “He’s the logical choice” to be the party’s nominee for president. She seemed shocked when I told her, “It

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The consequences of climate and environmental policy unleashed

Remember the movie “Elysium”? Though the dystopian, science-fiction vision of a future Earth didn’t cause much of a stir when it was released in 2013, its premise deserves another look in 2024, when climate and environmental crises are disrupting countries across the globe. Even the average person can’t help but notice unseasonable fall weather, with

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Local News Roundup: Trump takes NC; Democrats win elsewhere; Charlotte City Council members head to Munich; Charlotte FC faces Orlando City in winner-take-all matchup

North Carolina, like other battleground states, went for Donald Trump in this week’s presidential election. What went right for his campaign and what went wrong for Vice President Kamala Harris? On the statewide level, Democrats picked up wins in races for governor, attorney general, and superintendent for public instruction, among others. The party also appears

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Closing with ‘values,’ Trump and Harris stand in contrast

The candidates for president of the United States and their surrogates are talking a lot about values, and demonstrating their very different interpretations of what exactly that word means. It was a setting that recalled a horror many Americans have tried to forget, the place where former president Donald Trump incited a crowd that morphed

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Local News Roundup: Campaigns ramp up; Early voting in NC and SC; Charlotte FC begins postseason play

Former President Donald Trump makes stops across North Carolina, including in the western part of the state where he repeated false claims about the federal response to Helene. Meanwhile, early voting numbers are coming as polls are open in both North and South Carolina. What is the early data telling us? And how does it

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Local News Roundup: Helene cleanup, politics and misinformation; Charlotte transit questions; NC musicians plan benefit concert

On the Charlotte Talks local news roundup, the fallout from Helene continues. Where does the cleanup effort stand? What is the status of the infrastructure in the region? Meanwhile, Election Day is just a few weeks away and early voting begins next week. How do state and local officials plan to make voting accessible to

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