Water & Oceans

"Southern California’s biggest water supplier has chosen a new general manager — but the selection isn’t yet final, and the fiercely contested vote is exposing deep disagreements within the powerful agency as a severe drought grips the region.

The Metropolitan Water District’s board of directors voted this month to select Adel Hagekhalil to lead the agency, The Times has learned, replacing longtime head honcho Jeff Kightlinger, who is retiring. Hagekhalil runs L.A.'s Bureau of Street Services and was previously second-in-command at the city’s sanitation department.

"There’s a 40% chance that the world will get so hot in the next five years that it will temporarily push past the temperature limit the Paris climate agreement is trying to prevent, meteorologists said."

"The White House is providing fresh details of a major satellite program that administration officials call poised to reveal vital information about climate change and extreme weather events."

"The Biden administration and Gov. Gavin Newsom on Tuesday announced a joint effort to bring offshore wind energy to the Pacific Ocean along the California coast."

"When Biden issued an expansive day one executive order on climate change and public health, it included a little-noticed provision that intended to reinstate a flood-mitigation policy that President Obama had established in 2015 and President Trump revoked in 2017."

"A floating mat of muck on the surface of Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp, home to rare carnivorous pitcher plants, blooming lilies and countless alligators and insects, looks like any other patch of mud from a distance."

"President Biden is holding firm on energy and climate provisions in the White House infrastructure proposal but has expressed a willingness to cut some research and development funds, according to a memo to Senate Environment Committee ranking member Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) obtained by The Hill."

"In a bid to boost the whale watching economy, a new law bars Greenlanders from taking humpback whales near the capital."

"A federal judge ordered an immediate halt on Thursday to plans to dredge a shipping channel on the Georgia coast, citing a threat to sea turtles nesting on nearby beaches."