Disasters

"Chronic exposure to pollution from wildfires has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually in the United States, according to a new study."

"A House hearing exposed sharp divisions over whether loosening environmental laws and expanding logging will protect communities from catastrophic fires. Scientists urged a shift toward investing in fire-resilient homes and landscapes."

"A new study published Monday in the Lancet puts a number on the potential human toll as the global humanitarian system cracks apart, projecting an extra 9.4 million deaths by 2030 if the current trends persist." "The Lancet study examines how the dismantling of international aid by the U.S. and other countries could undo decades of health gains."

"The Trump Administration has created an exclusion for new experimental reactors being built at sites around the U.S. from a major environmental law. The law would have required them to disclose how their construction and operation might harm the environment, and it also typically required a written, public assessment of the possible consequences of a nuclear accident."

"South Carolina is battling the country’s largest measles outbreak since the disease was eliminated from the United States more than a quarter-century ago, with more than 840 cases overwhelmingly in unvaccinated children and adults."

"A bomb cyclone produced freezing temperatures across a large portion of the US from the Gulf coast to New England, bringing heavy snow to North Carolina where two were killed in storm-related conditions, and setting records in Florida, where officials warned of ice and falling iguanas."

"The FEMA Review Council recommends replacing the decades-old system for distributing money to states with a plan triggered by weather conditions, not monetary damage."

"Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has created a "logjam" for roughly $1 billion in Federal Emergency Management Agency disaster prevention projects around the country, NOTUS reported on Wednesday morning."

"Earth is closer than it’s ever been to destruction as Russia, China, the U.S. and other countries become “increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic,” a science-oriented advocacy group said Tuesday as it advanced its “Doomsday Clock” to 85 seconds till midnight."

"The Trump administration has overhauled a set of nuclear safety directives and shared them with the companies it is charged with regulating, without making the new rules available to the public, according to documents obtained exclusively by NPR."