Disasters

"The devastating floods in Pakistan are a "wake-up call" to the world on the threats of climate change, experts have said."

"Jane Coolidge and her husband, Bruce, were driving past the town of Weed, Calif., on Friday when they saw a huge plume of black smoke."

"Recent flooding in Jackson, Mississippi, exacerbated the city's already failing water system. Experts say it's a familiar threat in disinvested communities of color."

"Six days after a state Senate panel killed legislation that would have required real-time air monitoring along the edges of major Louisiana industrial facilities, an Olin Chemical subsidiary had a significant chlorine gas leak that sickened 39 people."

"As the war in Ukraine drags on, scientists are increasingly concerned about the environmental consequences of the destruction. From forests ignited by shelling to wrecked factories spewing pollution to precarious nuclear plants, the long-term impacts could be profound."

"Excessive heat warnings are in place for a large swath of the Southwest, and the dangerous heat could lead to an uptick in wildfire activity across areas hit hard by drought."

"The familiar ingredients of a warming world were in place: searing temperatures, hotter air holding more moisture, extreme weather getting wilder, melting glaciers, people living in harm’s way, and poverty. They combined in vulnerable Pakistan to create unrelenting rain and deadly flooding."

"The governor of Mississippi urged residents of Jackson, the state’s capital and largest city, not to drink the water there — if they still had access to it — warning that running water would soon be unavailable as the city’s long-struggling treatment plant failed."

"ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES - When she was a girl, Theresa “Betty” Billiot would open the back door to a view of cattle grazing in pastures, cotton fields and wild prairie dotted with duck ponds. Now she opens the same door and sees nothing but the rising sea."