Disasters

"Baltimore City has refused to comply with a directive from state and federal environmental regulators that it expand the scope of a program that helps residents clean up after sewage backs up into their homes."

"The United Nations has started pumping oil off a decaying vessel moored off Yemen’s Red Sea coast, averting a potential spill and environmental disaster, UN officials have said."

"The fingerprints of climate change are all over the intense heat waves gripping the globe this month, a new study finds. Researchers say the deadly hot spells in the American Southwest and Southern Europe could not have happened without the continuing buildup of warming gases in the air."

"A deadly heat wave continues across the Southwest, and an often forgotten group of people affected are prisoners. Many inmates struggle to stay cool in aging facilities, including in Texas — where some 100,000 prisoners live in large facilities that lack air conditioning."

"A fast-growing wildfire forced residents to evacuate a rural stretch of southern Washington state's Klickitat County on Saturday after it burned more than 30,000 acres in less than 24 hours."

"A heat wave that has brought triple-digit temperatures to the Southwest for weeks is expected to expand this week to cover most of the country."

"It was half past midnight on March 11 when a cacophony of sirens and shouting jolted Emilio Vasquez and his family from a sound sleep. “Get out of your houses immediately!” a voice barked in Spanish through a bullhorn. “The water is coming!”"

"With a summer of extreme weather records dominating the news, meteorologists and scientists say records like these give a glimpse of the big picture: a warming planet caused by climate change."

"July is shaping up to be the planet’s hottest month on record as global warming, El Niño and regional heat waves conspire to push civilization into uncharted thermal territory, experts say."