Disasters

"Federal agencies have approved nearly $226 million for 18 projects to restore open ocean and marine habitats that were decimated in the Gulf of Mexico by the 2010 BP oil spill."

"Extreme weather patterns associated with heat waves and droughts are raising the risks of simultaneous harvest failures of vital crops worldwide such as wheat, maize and soybeans, two studies published Monday found. This is pushing the world closer to the edge of potential food price spikes, associated social unrest and food shortages."

"RCMP say no injuries reported, local highway closed after Canadian Pacific Railway derailment"

"Melanie Loessl says she's never seen anything like it.

Early Monday morning, Loessl received a phone call from her daughter, just down the road from her farmstead near Guernsey, Sask., roughly 110 kilometres east of Saskatoon.

Her daughter told her a train had derailed and caught fire.

"When I looked out my window, all I could see was flames and crazy smoke," she said. "I thought our whole place was on fire.""

"PG&E has reached a $13.5 billion deal to settle claims stemming from recent catastrophic fires blamed on its equipment, marking a key milestone in the utility's plan to exit from Chapter 11 bankruptcy."

"The level of alarm is already high in the Republic of the Marshall Islands, as the Pacific island nation struggles with rising sea levels and the after-effects of decades of U.S. nuclear testing on its atolls."

"Authorities on Thursday lifted a second evacuation order in a week for thousands of people in a Texas city as U.S. safety officials began examining what caused the latest in a series of chemical plant fires in the state."

"California’s wildfires have grown so costly and damaging that insurance companies — a homeowner’s last hope when disaster strikes — have increasingly been canceling people’s policies in fire-prone parts of the state."

"Officials in the Florida Keys announced what many coastal governments nationwide have long feared, but few have been willing to admit: As seas rise and flooding gets worse, not everyone can be saved."

"Taxpayers could be forced to spend billions of dollars to bail out the federal government's flood program as private-sector insurers begin covering homes with little risk of flooding while clustering peril-prone properties in the indebted public program."