"Shrinking Post-Katrina Levees Need $1B In Upgrades"
"Twenty years out from the New Orleans disaster, the city’s levee and flood wall system must be raised or the region could become ineligible for federal flood insurance."
(AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN)
"Twenty years out from the New Orleans disaster, the city’s levee and flood wall system must be raised or the region could become ineligible for federal flood insurance."
"In the 20 years since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, hurricane scientists have made great strides toward understanding how climate change influences tropical cyclones, at the same time as they have vastly improved hurricane forecasting. Better forecasts, in turn, save the country billions every time a storm makes landfall, according to a 2024 analysis published in the National Bureau of Economic Research."
"A powerful dust storm wreaked havoc on Nevada’s annual Burning Man festival over the weekend, tossing around early attendees’ campsites and trapping incoming Burners in up to eight hours of stop-and-go traffic."
"Misleading Mailer: Despite locals’ health concerns, the Chamber of Commerce has gone to unusual lengths to promote a data center, including sending a mailer with inaccurate information. 'Concierge Service': The chamber has a five-member operations team dedicated to xAI, one of Musk’s companies, as it tries to transform Memphis into a global hub of technological innovation."
"U.S. District Court Judge Kathleen Williams late Thursday issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting more detainees from coming to the site, barring new construction and giving the state 60 days to remove many of its major elements."
"Fewer than 100 dusky gopher frogs were known to remain. Thanks to some very dedicated humans, numbers are now on the rise."
"Internal documents obtained by Public Domain show that the federal government did not conduct an Endangered Species Act or a National Environmental Policy Act review for the Florida migrant detention facility known as 'Alligator Alcatraz' — further proof that the facility may be operating in violation of federal environmental laws."
"If a major hurricane approaches Central Florida this season, Maria knows it’s dangerous to stay inside her wooden, trailer-like home. In past storms, she evacuated to her sister’s sturdier house. If she couldn’t get there, a shelter set up at the local high school served as a refuge if needed. But with accelerating detentions and deportations of immigrants across her community of Apopka, 20 miles (32 kilometers) northwest of Orlando, Maria, an agricultural worker from Mexico without permanent U.S. legal status, doesn’t know if those options are safe."
"EPA expressed alarm at contamination in a creek near a predominantly Black neighborhood. Then the agency eliminated its civil-rights office and has taken no further action."

The Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” is anything but, especially in its unraveling of efforts to weave environmental and climate justice into American society, argues the new Voices of Environmental Justice. In her latest column, writer Yessenia Funes calls on journalists to report its ramifications not just for the planet but for the most vulnerable people living on it. Here are key stories to start with.