"as Joe Biden takes the presidential oath of office, he will inherit a pandemic that has sickened and killed more people — and caused anguish and hardship across the nation — at a scale not seen since the influenza pandemic of 1918.""

"Air quality regulators have lifted the limits on the number of cremations that can be performed in Los Angeles county, citing a death rate that is more than double the pre-pandemic norm and an unmanageable backlog of dead bodies."

"The day Paradise burned, Aaron Singer was a skeptic." "In the aftermath, some people are deciding to just begin new lives elsewhere. The pandemic and longstanding housing problems haven’t made the choices any easier."

"President-elect Joe Biden has unveiled a $1.9 trillion coronavirus plan to end “a crisis of deep human suffering” by speeding up vaccines and pumping out financial help to those struggling with the pandemic’s prolonged economic fallout."

"The Navajo Nation’s Department of Justice announced Wednesday it has settled with mining companies to resolve claims stemming from a 2015 spill that resulted in rivers in three western states being fouled with a bright-yellow plume of arsenic, lead and other heavy metals."

"Wildfire smoke now accounts for up to half of all fine-particle pollution in the Western U.S., according to a new study that blames climate change for worsening air quality and health risks in both urban and rural communities in recent years."

"A broad coalition of organizations is urging Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to mandate a national moratorium on water and other utility shutoffs on day one in the White House, in order to curtail the spread of Covid-19 and ease the financial burden on struggling Americans."

"A string of explosions involving little-regulated petroleum and chemical storage tanks have lawmakers and regulators talking about new rules as the Legislature prepares to convene this month."

"The warming climate is intensifying drought, contributing to fires and drying out the river's headwaters, sending consequences cascading downstream."

"The US was battered by a record number of weather and climate-driven disasters in 2020 as extensive wildfires scorched the west, hurricanes in quick succession pummeled the east and extreme heat swept across the heart of the country, a new federal government report has shown."