"They bring traffic to a standstill, spread diseases and can be life-threatening. DW looks at how sandstorms form and why are they becoming more frequent."

"Rising water temperatures in the Columbia River Basin are raising questions about whether fishery managers must take new steps to save the imperiled fish."

"Why were two prisons built in a lakebed in the first place?"

"Each day, millions of gallons of sewage cascade through a canyon and into the Pacific Ocean just south of the U.S.-Mexican border. As any surfer in San Diego knows, summer swells that come from the south will push the toxic brew north."

"Coastal residents are conflicted over the planned location of a facility that advocates say will help launch Maine's offshore wind industry."

"Hundreds of people in a southern Illinois town were ordered to evacuate Tuesday as water rolled over the top of a dam, just one perilous result of severe weather that raged through the Midwest overnight with relentless rain and tornadoes and hit the Chicago area especially hard."

"The Environment Programme report focuses on potential dangers to the planet, from disease to unlivable places."

"Standing water lies beneath the home Sonny Curley shares with his parents and three children on the Quinault reservation a few steps from the Pacific Ocean in Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The back deck is rotting, and black mold speckles the walls inside, leaving the 46-year-old fisherman feeling drained if he spends too much time in the house."

"A small West Virginia school will remain open for now after a court temporarily blocked an effort to relocate classes due to the town’s contaminated groundwater being added to a national cleanup priority list."

"The United States and Canada have reached an agreement in principle on modernizing a 60-year-old pact on Columbia River flood control and power generation, and work on draft amendments will begin in the coming weeks, they said on Thursday."