As reported in the Athens Banner-Herald, Athens is expected to get more rain this week than what the Classic City has had in the last three months combined.

As the Southeast’s ultra-dry weather shifts to a seasonal pattern, it is bringing much-needed relief to farmers and is dampening the wildfires that burned hundreds of thousands of acres in north Georgia and neighboring Southeastern states.

The National Weather Service’s Peachtree City weather station forecasts say the chance of severe weather is slight as the storm systems move through this week.

The rain will make for dangerous driving conditions, said University of Georgia climatologist Pam Knox.
The last time Athens got more than an inch of rain in a day was Aug. 17, and through Sunday, the rain gauge at Athens-Ben Epps Airport recorded just over a third of an inch of rain for the months of October and November.

This means a lot of time for oily residues to collect on roads and highways, so when rain does fall, those residues will make the roads dangerously slick until enough rain falls to wash it away, Knox explained.

Forecasters said a system moving through the Southeast could bring small amounts of rain Monday, then two inches or more Tuesday into Thursday morning with more possible this weekend.

Other forecasts predict as much as five to six inches of rain for Athens, but Knox expects to see about two or four inches over the next couple days. There’s some possibility of flooding because of the drought as well as the rain.

“It’s a good shift. The next two weeks look good,” she said. “The best benefit is that it will help fill up lakes and reservoirs a little bit,” she said.

The rain will also be a big help for the firefighters who’ve been trying to control Southeastern wildfires for the past few weeks.

This week’s rain by itself may put only a temporary hold on the drought that’s spread across the Southeast the past several months, creating ideal conditions for those mountain wildfires.

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It’s no secret that President-elect Donald Trump’s win has resulted in heavy resistance nationwide. This country has bared witness to prevalent anti-hate and anti-Trump marches, including downtown Athens, for days following Election Day.

But now instead of picket signs these marches have shifted too activism with safety pins. 

Americans have begun wearing safety pins on their clothes to show solidarity with racial minorities, immigrants, women, members of the LGBTQ community and other minority groups who feel targeted by Trump’s campaign and his supporters.

Those wearing the pins are someone others can go to for support if needed.

“I think it’s really important that people who could potentially face discrimination because of Trump’s presidency know that they have allies,” Jessica Pasquarello, a sophomore at the University of Georgia and student leader of the Undocumented Students Alliance, told the Red & Black. “It’s important for people who don’t support Trump’s rhetoric to stand together in solidarity as means of showing resistance to prejudices that he promotes.”

Jennifer Fishburn, an Athens for Everyone activist, told the Red & Black that the fashion trend is spreading to multiple generations and that a friendship club started in Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary School as a result of the election.

Still, not all activists accept the political statement as a form of activism and have labeled the action as a form of “slactivism,” a term combining “slack” and “activism” which has been trending among Twitter users who expressed the passive form of activism is counterproductive.

“The pins are definitely not enough,” Pasquarello said. “It’s an important first step, but wearing the pin without opening dialogue with the other side or going to rallies is just not enough. We have to do more.”

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The Food Bank of Northeast Georgia is expected to expand its Athens, GA location soon.

As reported in the Athens-Banner Herald, on Sunday, Nov, 13 board members and supporters came together to celebrate the new project’s groundbreaking, which will double the size of the food bank’s storage.

John Becker, president and CEO of the food bank, told the newspaper that the new facility will have a grocery store quality cooler and freezer, a larger shopping floor area and an awning outside the building to protect cars and people from possible rain as they unload food.

Construction will begin by the end of the year and it is planned to be complete by April, Becker said. The new facility will be built around the existing building, so the food bank can remain operational.

After nearly four years of campaigning, $7 million was raised from donations and new market tax credits, Becker said.

Most of that money was used to build out the Clayton County facility, and almost $2 million of it will be used on the Athens location, Becker said.
J
ack Tarver, a financial manager and Watkinsville resident, donated $500,000 to the project, and thus the new Athens building will be named after him. His family has always donated to food banks so he is continuing that tradition.

“My sister and I grew up in a good financial situation, and we learned that because of that we always need to help those in need,” Tarver said.

The Food Bank of Northeast Georgia was created to help end hunger, and Becker said he will continue to fight for that each day.

“I made it my mission that anyone is truly in need and asks for help that they’re not turned away,” Becker said.
 
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Georgia has been a Republican state for several decades with some exceptions. However, with this election, the red state has made a move away from that – as Georgia faces the possibility of becoming a battleground state.

The Republican Party is struggling to gain the votes of new eligible voters in the state. About 34 percent of millennials affiliate with or lean toward the Republican Party, according to the Pew Research Center, in comparison to the Democratic Party which holds 50 percent.

As reported in the Red & Black, Charles Bullock, the Richard B. Russell Chair in Political Science at the University of Georgia, said the issue of support could become a slippery-slope for the party.

“If a younger cohort of voters stay Democratic, even as they age a bit and the new voters come in behind them are also Democratic, then the state becomes more democratic as the older voters die off,” he said.

Ryan Bakker, an assistant political science professor at UGA, said Georgia’s growing disdain for the Republican Party stems from its controversial presidential nominee, Donald Trump.

​“Lots of traditional Republicans, particularly in the South, are not really thrilled about this ‘loud-mouthed, New York businessman,’” he said. “What does Donald Trump know about poor, rural southern life?” The party is at a divide, according to a Gallup poll from May 2016, with a 64 percent favorable opinion among Republicans and Republican leaners for the GOP nominee.

While Trump may be splitting the party, he is uniting Americans in voter participation. An increase in overall voter turnout may not hurt Georgia’s conservative party, but the change in voter demographics might.

In the 2000 presidential election, non-Hispanic whites made up 75 percent of Georgia voters, but that number is on a steady decline, making up only 61 percent of voters in the 2012 presidential election. An increase in minority voters could pose issues for a party that consists of 89 percent non-Hispanic whites in 2012, according to Gallup.

“If demographic shifts continue the way they are, Georgia could easily become a battleground state,” Bakker said. University of Georgia’s College Republicans are working hard to secure their state’s party.
“We have a pretty razor sharp focus on our local races,” said Amber Webb, senior political science student and chairman of the organization. “We’re really focusing on our state, how we can keep all of our politicians that are currently in office, keep them there, and how we can elect more staff.”

​Trump is currently leading Clinton in Georgia, predicted to have 49.9 percent of votes versus 45 percent for the Democratic nominee, according to FiveThirtyEight.

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Last week the University of Georgia announced that it would close the gap between the end of a work period and payday from nine to eight days.

This is just one more step in the process of smoothly transitioning from monthly to semiweekly pay for about 3,000 university workers as a rules change takes effect under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA.

As of Dec. 1, nearly 5 million low- and moderately-paid workers across the country will be eligible for overtime pay, including nearly a third of UGA’s workforce.

As reported in the Athens Banner-Herald, UGA workers eligible for overtime are paid every two weeks, and the paycheck comes nine days after the end of a two-week pay period. Strictly salaried workers get paid at the very end of the pay period.

The changeover, right at the beginning of the Christmas season, meant those workers newly eligible for overtime would also would take less money home in December than they would have before the new overtime rule took effect.

UGA earlier announced a series of other steps designed to help its lowest-paid workers make the transition.

Workers can cash out up to 56 unused vacation hours, can defer parking fees and can get low-paid loans from a federal credit union. They’ll also get paid one day earlier, UGA also announced this week.

“Initially, the first paychecks received after the transition would have been on November 30th (for a partial month) and December 9th (for the first biweekly pay period),” the announcement reads in part.

“However, we have closely examined our procedures for paying biweekly staff and will be able to reduce the 9-day timeframe to 8 days, so that the first biweekly paycheck will be received on December 8th. Going forward, all biweekly staff members will be paid on Thursday instead of Friday.”


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