"Public health officials in Arizona’s most populous county on Wednesday reported they confirmed a staggering 645 heat-associated deaths last year — more than 50% higher than 2022 and another consecutive annual record in arid metro Phoenix."
"The state of Texas on Friday sued the Biden administration over an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule restricting methane emissions finalized earlier Friday morning."
"The state's high plains get a month more fire weather now than they did in the 1970s."
"Leisa Glenn spent decades living in the Fifth Ward, a historically Black neighborhood in Houston, known for having one of the city’s best views of downtown. Every July 4th, Glenn, 65, and her neighbors would stream out of their houses into the summer heat and crowd onto front porches to watch the fireworks display."
"Many Panhandle residents whose dwellings and possessions burned in the region’s ongoing wildfires may never financially recover for one simple reason: Their homes weren’t insured."
"An Apache group that has fought to protect land it considers sacred from a copper mining project in central Arizona suffered a significant blow Friday when a divided federal court panel voted 6-5 to uphold a lower court’s denial of a preliminary injunction to halt the transfer of land for the project."
"Climate change is increasing the risk of wildfires in Texas, a danger made real this week as the Smokehouse Creek fire, the largest in state history, burns out of control across the Panhandle region. And that growing fire risk is beginning to affect the insurance market in Texas, raising premiums for homeowners and causing some insurers to withdraw from parts of the state."
"When the Hawthorne Park Landfill opened in 1977, it transformed everyday life for residents of Carverdale, a historically Black neighborhood in northwest Houston. Myra Jefferson has seen pests and roaches from the dump multiply over the decades and remembers yellow dust from the rot sticking to everything."
"A cluster of wildfires scorched the Texas Panhandle on Wednesday, including a blaze that grew into one of the largest in state history, as flames moved with alarming speed and blackened the landscape across a vast stretch of small towns and cattle ranches."
"Texas regulators recently authorized a company to operate ponds to store and recycle millions of gallons of oilfield wastewater laced with toxic chemicals next to a Baptist summer camp in the Permian Basin."
