"State investigators have determined that a Pacific Gas & Electric Co. power line was responsible for sparking last year’s massive Dixie fire, which torched more than 960,000 acres in five Northern California counties as it burned clear across the Sierra Nevada."
A trove of confidential documents about a well-known groundwater pollution problem helped journalists Paul LaRocco and David M. Schwartz uncover how much had actually been hidden about the contamination’s severity and how it could have been kept from worsening. In the latest Inside Story Q&A, LaRocco and Schwartz share the story behind their award-winning investigation.
"Days after what might be the most damaging wildfire in state history, residents are just beginning to make sense of the long road back and the extent of the damage."
"Engineers know how to protect people from tornadoes like the ones that recently devastated parts of Kentucky, but builders have headed off efforts to toughen standards."
"The death toll from the strongest typhoon to batter the Philippines this year climbed to 375, with more than 50 others still missing and several central provinces struggling with downed communications and power outages and pleading for food and water, officials said Monday."
"When the highway and pipeline were planned in the 1970s, the debris “lobes” were frozen solid. Now, they’re monsters devouring everything in their paths."
"Scores of studies presented this week at the world’s largest climate science conference offered an unequivocal and unsettling message: Climate change is fundamentally altering what kind of weather is possible, and its fingerprint can be found in the rising number of disasters that have claimed lives and upended livelihoods around the world."
"Federal regulators warned for the first time in an annual report to Congress on Friday that climate change was an “emerging threat” to the U.S. financial system, laying out how the costs associated with more hurricanes, wildfires and floods caused by global warming could lead to a cascade of damage throughout the economy."
"Vicki McDowell woke up on a Saturday morning in May, thinking about what she would make her son for breakfast. ... She walked to the kitchen sink to wash her hands. Turned on the faucet. Nothing happened."
"The already perilous desert crossing from Mexico to the US will become more dangerous as the climate warms, new research says."
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