Disasters

"Almost half of the electricity customers in Puerto Rico lack power, according to officials on the island, 100 days after Hurricane Maria hit the island."

"Exceptionally high ocean temperatures fueled devastating Atlantic hurricanes, while a wet spring and hot summer set the stage for a deadly fire season in the West."

"Two months after proposing to open a massive area of the Gulf of Mexico to oil and gas companies for offshore drilling, the Trump administration has halted a study that aimed to make drilling platforms safer."

"The Trump administration is poised to roll back offshore drilling safety regulations that were put in place after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico that killed 11 people and caused the worst oil spill in American history."

"Anthony Stansbury propped his rusty bike against a live oak tree and cast his fishing line into the rushing waters of Florida’s Anclote River. When he bought a house down the street last year, Stansbury says he wasn’t told that his slice of paradise had a hidden problem."

"More than 65 million people are displaced from their homes, the largest number since the Second World War, and nearly 25 million of them are refugees and asylum seekers living outside their own country. But that number doesn’t include people displaced by climate change."

"Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives unveiled on Monday an $81 billion aid package to deal with hurricanes and wildfires, far above President Donald Trump’s $44 billion request."

"Extreme weather left its mark across the planet in 2016, the hottest year in recorded history. Record heat baked Asia and the Arctic. Droughts gripped Brazil and southern Africa. The Great Barrier Reef suffered its worst bleaching event in memory, killing large swaths of coral. Now climate scientists are starting to tease out which of last year’s calamities can, and can’t, be linked to global warming."

"Puerto Rico is still drowning from Hurricane Maria but it’s already facing its next crisis — a U.S. tax reform bill that island officials fear will devastate the economy."