"California’s largest lake is drying up. The Salton Sea has been shrinking for years, and fish and birds have been dying. The dry lakebed already spews toxic dust into the air, threatening a region with hundreds of thousands of people. And the crisis is about to get much worse."
Extreme weather hypotheticals can be hard to cover. But when news teams Texas Tribune and ProPublica partnered on an award-winning investigation into how a major hurricane in Houston could kill thousands and cripple the national economy, they produced an innovative digital reporting package that brought home the human impacts.
The 2017 hurricane season officially begins this week and experts say it may be worse than usual. So the latest TipSheet has sources and tools to help you prepare for your hurricane coverage. Understand the importance of landfall and storm path, find out about this year's big wild card, and get tips for staying safe.
"Many Texans who live along the U.S.-Mexico border support President Donald Trump, but their affection for the New York real estate mogul-turned-politician comes with a caveat: They do not want a wall."
"Can Texas Comptroller Glenn Hegar oversee objective scientific research into rare species? Or is he rigging the process to keep them off the endangered list, as his critics charge?"
SEJ brought 44 member journalists to Dallas, Texas, April 20-23, 2017 for an expenses-paid workshop to examine the changing landscape of environmental regulation. Attendees heard from top experts in environmental law and the science of communicating to news consumers, as well as receiving training in FOIA, databases and key digital storytelling tools. Here are resources and tools from the workshop to aid you in your reporting. Photo: UC Berkeley prof/linguist George Lakoff; courtesy of Dale Willman.
Fire season is back, if it ever went away. And it's no longer a natural disaster story limited in geographic scope. Now it's a nationwide U.S. story touching on climate, money, politics, zoning, pollution and more. The latest Tipsheet runs down key information sources, plus what make a good peg for your local wildfire reporting.
"A conservation plan puts science ahead of politics."
"A federal judge ruled on Wednesday that ExxonMobil Corp should pay a $19.95 million penalty for pollution from its Baytown, Texas, refining and chemical plant complex between 2005 and 2013."
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