"At least two oil and gas firms that boosted investors' portfolios by buying back stock in 2019 received $15.5 million this year from a program designed to rescue small businesses gutted by the coronavirus pandemic."

"Rising temperatures due to climate change dramatically reduced the snowpack that feeds the Upper Missouri River Basin". "For the first decade of the century, the Upper Missouri River Basin was the driest it’s been in 1,200 years, even more parched than during the disastrous Dust Bowl of the 1930s, a new study says."

"In some ways, the dire lockdowns undertaken to stop Covid-19 have fast-forwarded us into an unlikely future—one with almost impossibly bold climate action taken all at once, no matter the cost."

"The coronavirus pandemic is endangering a $900 million program that underpins Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine’s long-term strategy for shrinking the annual massive toxic algae blooms in Lake Erie’s western basin."

"When a wildfire explodes out of control and threatens property and lives, thousands of firefighters and support crews rush to the scene from around the country and even the world. Almost overnight a small city sprouts up, with firefighters camped in dense rows of tents in fields and eating in crowded mess halls."

"All day it had been sunny. Then it grew dark as the winds began to whip. Daniel Felder stepped out into the road to watch the acrid smoke billow toward him. Ash started raining from the sky like light snow drifting in twilight."

"With the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season fast approaching, U.S. officials on Thursday said they were readying more buses, hotel rooms and shelter space for social distancing to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus during potential evacuations."

"Officials are scrambling to find ways to protect residents against dueling threats of extreme heat and the coronavirus."