Tag: iab-science

Warnings are in effect for potentially ‘catastrophic’ flash flooding across southeastern New York | CNN

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CNN
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Meteorologists have issued a flash flood emergency for parts of the Lower Hudson Valley in southeastern New York, warning that powerful thunderstorms have dumped several inches of rain and are causing “life threatening” and catastrophic flash flooding.

Flash flood warnings were in effect Sunday evening for several areas in the region, including southeastern and central Orange County, western Putnam County, northern Westchester County and Rockland County, which has seen the heaviest rainfall, according to the National Weather Service. Parts of northeastern New Jersey were also under a flash flood warning, the service said.

“Move to higher ground now! This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening situation. Do not attempt to travel unless you are fleeing an area subject to flooding or under an evacuation order,” the service warned Sunday evening.

Meanwhile, a system of heavy rain and thunderstorms was also making its way east and expected to reach the New York City metro area Sunday night, the weather service said, stressing the potential of “torrential downpours.”

A flood watch is in effect citywide until 6 a.m. Monday morning, the city said on its website, adding that areas that were low-lying, had poor drainage or are close to creeks, streams or rivers are particularly at risk for flash flooding. An “excessive rainfall event” is expected to begin around 7 p.m. Sunday, the city said.

The heavy rain coming in Sunday “may cause rapid, life-threatening flooding to basements,” the city’s emergency notification officials said on Twitter. “Prepare now to move to higher ground if needed. If you must travel, exercise caution and avoid flooded roadways.”

In nearby Rockland County, New York State Police said “numerous roadways consisting of State Route 9W and Palisades Interstate Parkway are experiencing heavy flooding and washouts. The Palisades NB is closed from exit 14 to Long Mountain Traffic circle. Avoid The Area!!!”

The county’s government urged residents to stay home Sunday evening, warning there was “tons of flooding” in the Stony Point and Lowland Hill areas and Lowland Park.

Later Sunday evening, Rockland County Executive Ed Day said in a statement emergency responders had helped get conditions under control, and rain was anticipated to stop at nighttime.

“Until then, we urge residents to remain indoors in a safe location,” he said.

In a Sunday update, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul urged residents to be particularly vigilant of road conditions.

“My biggest concern is the fact that most people’s lives that are lost during a flood event occur because they’re in their vehicles – not in their homes, but in their vehicles,” she told a Spectrum News reporter. “And I want people to be very cautious about not going into a road that’s closed or if you see any running water, because it doesn’t take much for a vehicle, just two feet … of water can actually sweep a car away and you lose all control, and you could actually lose your life.”

Flooding at the United States Military Academy West Point, which is in Orange County, has forced people to swim out of their cars, a West Point Military Police spokesperson told CNN Sunday.

People who had been trapped in their cars in one part of the academy’s campus swam out of their cars to get to safety, the spokesperson said, adding it is unclear at this time if anyone had been injured.

Also in Orange County, officials for the town of Cornwall issued a “No travel Advisory,” following multiple roads that had been flooded and people that had to be rescued from their stranded cars. The town’s emergency management office also warned the storms had caused mudslides and debris.

“TRAVEL IS IMPOSSIBLE,” the office said on Twitter. “GET TO HIGHER GROUND. IF SAFE, STAY WHERE YOU ARE.”

The flash flood threats will remain in parts of New England Monday morning and could become “extremely dangerous” in parts of Vermont, where mudslides are also possible, and the Champlain Valley bordering New York, the Weather Prediction Center said.

Vermont Gov. Phil Scott on Sunday declared a state of emergency ahead of the storms and the potential flooding and said water rescue teams are already in areas where they may be needed.

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July 9, 2023
IAEA chief ‘completely convinced’ it’s safe to release treated Fukushima nuclear wastewater | CNN

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Tokyo
CNN
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Japan’s plan to release treated radioactive water into the ocean is safe and there is no better option to deal with the massive buildup of wastewater collected since the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, the head of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog told CNN.

Japan will release the wastewater sometime this summer, a controversial move 12 years after the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdown. Japanese authorities and the IAEA have insisted the plan follows international safety standards – the water will first be treated to remove the most harmful pollutants, and be released gradually over many years in highly diluted quantities.

But public anxiety remains high, including in nearby countries like South Korea, China and the Pacific Islands, which have voiced concern about potential harm to the environment or people’s health. On Friday, Chinese customs officials announced they would ban food imports from ten Japanese prefectures including Fukushima, and strengthen inspections to monitor for “radioactive substances, to ensure the safety of Japanese food imports to China.”

Speaking in an interview during a visit to Tokyo Friday, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi said that while fears over the plan reflect a “very logical sense of uncertainty” that must be taken seriously, he is “completely convinced of the sound basis of our conclusions.”

“We have been looking at this basic policy for more than two years. We have been assessing it against … the most stringent standards that exist,” he said. “And we are quite certain of what we are saying, and the scheme we have proposed.”

Grossi told CNN he had met with Japanese fishing groups, local mayors and other communities affected by the 2011 disaster – and whose livelihoods may be hurt by the release – to listen to those concerns.

“My disposition … is one of listening, and explaining in a way that addresses all these concerns they have,” he said.

“When one visits Fukushima, it is quite impressive, I will even say ominous, to look at all these tanks, more than a million tons of water that contains radionuclides – imagining that this is going to be discharged into the ocean. So all sorts of fears kick in, and one has to take them seriously, to address and to explain.

“This is why I’m here, to listen to all those who in good faith have questions and criticism and question marks, and to address them.”

On Tuesday, Grossi formally presented the IAEA’s safety review to Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. The report found the wastewater release plan will have a “negligible” impact on people and the environment, adding that it was an “independent and transparent review,” not a recommendation or endorsement.

IAEA approves plan for Fukushima’s wastewater

Japanese authorities have said the release is necessary because they are running out of room to contain the contaminated water – and the move will allow the full decommissioning of the Fukushima plant.

The 2011 disaster caused the plant’s reactor cores to overheat and contaminate water within the facility with highly radioactive material. Since then, new water has been pumped in to cool fuel debris in the reactors. At the same time, ground and rainwater have leaked in, creating more radioactive wastewater that now needs to be stored and treated.

That wastewater now measures 1.32 million metric tons – enough to fill more than 500 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Japan has previously said there were “no other options” as space runs out – a sentiment Grossi echoed on Friday. When asked whether there were better alternatives to dispose of the wastewater, the IAEA chief answered succinctly: “No.”

It’s not that there are no other methods, he added – Japan had considered five total options, including hydrogen release, underground burial and vapor release, which would have seen wastewater boiled and released into the atmosphere.

But several of these options are “considered industrially immature,” said Grossi. For instance, vapor release can be more difficult to control due to environmental factors like wind and rain, which could bring the waste back to earth, he said. That left a controlled release of water into the sea – which, Japanese officials and some scientists point out, is frequently done at nuclear plants around the world, including those in the United States.

The IAEA will also remain on site for years to come, with a new permanent office set up in Fukushima to help monitor progress.

“We have the benefit of science,” Grossi said. “Either you have a certain radionuclide in a water sample or you don’t have it … it’s a measurable thing. We have the science, we have the laboratories … to ensure the credibility and the transparency of the process.”

CNN goes inside the Fukushima nuclear plant where wastewater is being treated

But some critics have cast doubt on the IAEA’s findings, with China recently arguing that the group’s assessment “is not proof of the legality and legitimacy” of the wastewater release.

Many countries have openly opposed the plan; Chinese officials have warned that it could cause “unpredictable harm,” and accused Japan of treating the ocean as a “sewer.” The Secretary General of the Pacific Islands Forum, an inter-governmental group of Pacific island nations that includes Australia and New Zealand, also published an op-ed in January voicing “grave concerns,” saying more data was needed.

And in South Korea, residents have taken to the streets to protest the plan. Many shoppers have stockpiled salt and seafood for fear these products will be contaminated once the wastewater is released – even though Seoul has already banned imports of seafood and food items from the Fukushima region.

International scientists have also expressed concern to CNN that there is insufficient evidence of long-term safety, arguing that the release could cause tritium – a radioactive hydrogen isotope that cannot be removed from the wastewater – to gradually build up in marine ecosystems and food chains, a process called bioaccumulation.

While Grossi said he takes these objections seriously, he added that he “cannot exclude” the possibility some are driven more by politics than science.

“We understand that there is a political environment … which is tense. Geopolitical divisions are very, very strong these days so we cannot exclude these things,” he said.

Grossi also denied media reports that the IAEA had shared a draft of its final report with the Japanese government ahead of its publication. “It’s absurd,” he said. “This is the DNA of the IAEA – to be the nuclear watchdog for nuclear operations, the nuclear watchdog for nuclear safety and security. When we come to a conclusion, it is our independent conclusion.”

And more broadly, the future of nuclear as an alternative energy source relies on the success of the Fukushima release, he said. Though there has been heightened public alarm toward nuclear plants recently – for instance, regarding the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant in Ukraine – “the problem there is war, the problem is not nuclear energy,” Grossi said.

“If there was one lesson that came clearly after the Fukushima accident, it’s that the nuclear safety standards should be observed to the letter,” he added. “If you do that, the probability of having what happened in Fukushima is extremely low.”

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July 6, 2023
The planet saw its hottest day ever this week. The record will be broken again and again | CNN

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CNN
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This week saw the hottest global temperature ever recorded, according to data from the US National Centers for Environmental Prediction.

On Monday, the average global temperature reached 17.01 degrees Celsius (62.62 Fahrenheit), the highest since records began. On Tuesday, it climbed even further, to reach 17.18 degrees Celsius. The previous record of 16.92 degrees Celsius was set in August 2016.

Experts warn that the record could be broken several more times this year. Robert Rohde, lead scientist at Berkeley Earth, said in a Twitter post on Tuesday that the world “may well see a few even warmer days over the next 6 weeks.”

This global record is a preliminary one, but it’s another indication of how fast the world is heating up, as the arrival of the natural climate phenomenon El Niño, which has a warming effect, is layered on top of climate change-fueled global heating.

“It’s not a record to celebrate and it won’t be a record for long, with northern hemisphere summer still mostly ahead and El Niño developing,” said Friederike Otto, senior lecturer in climate science at the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment in the UK.

This year has already seen heat records broken around the world, with devastating consequences.

In the US, Texas and the South sweltered in a brutal heat wave in late June, with triple-digit-Fahrenheit temperatures and extreme humidity. Soaring temperatures in Mexico have killed at least 112 people since March.

A searing heat wave in India killed at least 44 people across the state of Bihar. China, too, has experienced several blistering heat waves and it registered the highest number of hot days – where the maximum daily temperature exceeded 35 degrees Celsius (95 degrees Fahrenheit) – over a six-month period since records began.

This is what happens to your body when temperatures soar

The UK recorded the hottest June since records began in 1884, according to the country’s national weather service, the Met Office. The average temperature for the month was 15.8 degrees Celsius (60.4 Fahrenheit), breaking the previous record by 0.9 degree Celsius.

“Alongside natural variability, the background warming of the Earth’s atmosphere due to human induced climate change has driven up the possibility of reaching record high temperatures,” Paul Davies, Met Office climate extremes principal fellow and chief meteorologist, said in a statement.

As the climate crisis intensifies, scientists are clear that record-breaking heat waves are set to become more frequent and more severe.

The new global average temperature record is another wake-up call, Otto told CNN. “It just shows we have to stop burning fossil fuels, not in decades, now. This day is just a number, but for many people and ecosystems it’s a loss of life and livelihood.”

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July 5, 2023
First professional female athlete diagnosed with degenerative brain disease CTE | CNN

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Brisbane, Australia
CNN
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Scientists in Australia have diagnosed the world’s first case of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE, in a professional female athlete, with implications for millions of girls and women who play contact sport.

Heather Anderson, an Australian Football League (AFL) player, was found to have low-stage CTE during an autopsy by scientists at the Australian Sports Brain Bank, whose peer-reviewed findings were published last week in the medical journal Acta Neuropathologica.

CTE is a neurodegenerative disease that can occur after repeated traumatic brain injuries or hits to the head, with or without a concussion, and to date it has only been diagnosed in professional male athletes.

But the rise of women’s participation in the same sports over the past two decades means they too are susceptible, the paper said, and especially so given research indicates that women are more vulnerable to concussion than men.

“Colleagues overseas been watching the professionalization of women’s contact sports over the last 10 years, and the surge in popularity and surge in participation by women in contact sports, so we’ve all been sort of thinking sooner or later, this disease is going to pop up,” said neuropathologist Michael Buckland, the paper’s co-author.

“It’s a bit like smoking and lung cancer. Early on lung cancer was enormous in men … and then women took up smoking in equal numbers. Then 20 years later, there was a big surge in women’s lung cancer,” said Buckland, a clinical associate professor at the University of Sydney.

“So I think we’re at the start of seeing the consequences of that surge in participation, both at the amateur and professional level.”

Anderson started playing football when she was five years old and went on to play contact sport for 18 years across two codes – AFL and rugby league – before her death by suicide at 28 last November, according to the paper.

Her professional career included 8 games over the 2017 season with AFL Club the Adelaide Crows, before she suffered a shoulder injury that ended her sporting career. She also worked as a medic for the Australian Defence Force.

Originally from Darwin, Anderson was known for wearing a bright pink helmet on the pitch so her vision-impaired mother could see her play. Scientists say helmets and headbands can prevent skull fractures but don’t keep the brain from moving around inside the skull when someone is hit.

During her career, Anderson had one confirmed concussion, and suffered another suspected four, according to her family, who donated her brain to the Australian Sports Brain Bank for more answers as to why she died.

According to the paper, Anderson had no known history of alcohol or non-prescription drug abuse and had not exhibited any signs of depression or unusual behavior in the months before her death.

“While there are insufficient data to draw conclusions on any association between CTE and manner of death, suicide deaths are not uncommon in the cohorts where CTE is sought at autopsy,” the paper said.

Buckland said Anderson’s diagnosis shows women’s contact sports also need CTE minimization plans to reduce players’ exposure to cumulative head injuries, and those plans need to start at the junior level.

“I don’t think any child should be playing the contact version of a sport before high school,” he said. Other ways to reduce exposure include restricting contact during training, playing just one contact sport, and taking time off after a game when players have suffered hits, he said.

Awareness of the risks of head injury in sport has been growing over the past two decades, and scientists are still working to examine the impact of repeated knocks on the brain.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says “the research to date suggests that CTE is caused in part by repeated traumatic brain injuries, including concussions, and repeated hits to the head, called subconcussive head impacts.”

Repeated knocks can lead to the degeneration of brain tissue and an unusual buildup of a protein called tau, which is associated with symptoms such as memory loss, confusion, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, impaired judgment and suicidal behavior.

In the United States, the most recent research from the Concussion Legacy Foundation and Boston University’s CTE Center found that nearly 92% of 376 former NFL players who were studied were diagnosed with the brain disease. It’s also been found in the brains of former boxers, and ice hockey and soccer players.

In Australia, lawyers representing dozens of former professional AFL players have filed a class action suit against the Australian Football League (AFL), seeking compensation for injuries caused by alleged negligence.

The AFL has acknowledged a link between head trauma and CTE and says it’s committed to mitigating the risks. It was one of dozens of parties to provide submissions to an Australian government inquiry into the issue that is due to report on August 2.

The AFL Player’s Association, which represents the athletes, is pushing for greater support for current and former players, many of whom are living with the impact of successive brain injuries.

But Buckland said with so many other competing priorities, including broadcast rights and ticket sales, the industry can’t be expected to self-regulate, and an outside body needs to set the rules to ensure they’re followed.

CTE has been diagnosed in people as young as 17, but symptoms usually don’t appear until years later.

In 2019, about 15% of all US high school students reported one or more sports- or recreation-related concussions in the previous year, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Boys’ football, girls’ soccer and boys’ ice hockey were the sports with the highest concussion rates, according to the study.

Buckland said what’s most needed is a shift in attitudes, so that it’s no longer encouraged or even acceptable to expose children to activities where repeated head injuries are part of the game.

“It’s more than just a medical problem, it’s a sociological problem, as well. How do we change society? I think in the long run, it’ll be like smoking. (Stopping) smoking has taken generational change, and I think that’s what we’re looking at here.”

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July 4, 2023
Controversial Chinese scientist He Jiankui proposes new gene editing research | CNN

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Hong Kong
CNN
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He Jiankui, the Chinese scientist who sparked global outrage in 2018 when he revealed that he had created the first gene-edited children, has put forward a new proposal for modifying human embryos that he claims could help aid the “aging population.”

He, who in 2019 was sentenced to three years in prison in China for “illegal medical practices,” reemerged last year and surprised the global scientific community when he announced on social media that he was opening a research lab in Beijing.

Since that time, updates on his research posted on his Twitter account have focused on proposed plans to develop gene therapy for rare disease.

But on Thursday, he again courted controversy by posting a new research proposal that experts say is reminiscent of his earlier work, which scientists broadly decried as unethical and dangerous – with the potential to impact human DNA across generations.

In a succinct, one page document, He proposed research that would involve gene-editing mouse embryos and then human fertilized egg cells, or zygotes, in order to test whether a mutation “confers protection against Alzheimer’s disease.”

“The aging population is of grave importance as both a socioeconomic issue and a strain on the medical system … Currently, there is no effective drug for Alzheimer’s disease,” he wrote in an apparent nod to China’s growing demographic burden due to a rising proportion of elderly.

Unlike the science that landed him in jail, this potential experiment involves a kind of abnormal fertilized egg cell generally considered not suitable to be implanted in a woman.

No human embryo would be implanted for pregnancy and “government permit and ethical approval” were required before experimentation, the proposal said.

It’s not clear whether He would get approval for such work in China, even if the proposal he put forward were deemed to have merit – and outside experts say the current proposal is not scientifically sound.

Authorities in China took multiple steps to tighten rules and ethical standards affecting human gene editing in the wake of the revelations about his previous research. They also banned He from engaging in work related to assisted reproductive technology services and placed limits on his work with human genetic resources, according to state media.

But the scientist’s release of a new proposal involving gene editing of embryos has scientists and medical ethics experts concerned – and confused.

“The whole thing is, to put it bluntly, insane,” said Peter Dröge, an associate professor at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, who focuses on molecular and biochemical genetics.

The proposed research could be seen as a step to explore if such a method of genetic editing could be used in a viable embryo in future, according to Dröge.

Apart from ethical considerations, gene-editing an embryo to address a complex disease that affects people toward the end of their life and doesn’t have a clear, single genetic cause is “highly questionable,” he said.

“He basically wants to genetically modify the human species so they don’t get Alzheimer’s,” he said. “I’m really surprised that he’s coming forward with this again.”

Joy Zhang, founding director of the Centre for Global Science and Epistemic Justice at the University of Kent in Britain, said the proposal seemed to be “more of a publicity stunt than a substantiated research agenda.”

“However, we do need to take these public claims with vigilance, as it may nevertheless misguide patients and their families, and tint the reputations not just of science in China, but global research effort in this area,” she said.

In response to questions from CNN, He said he was “collecting feedback from scientists and bioethicists now” and did not have a timeline for the study.

“I will make a revision to the Alzheimer’s disease proposal later. I will not conduct any experiments until I get the government permit, and also get the approval by an international ethics committee with bioethicists from USA and Europe,” he told CNN via email.

“I want to emphasize that this is a preclinical study, no embryo will be used for pregnancy in this study. The research will be open and transparent, and all experiment results and progress will be posted on Twitter,” he said.

He did not address questions on whether he was limited from conducting certain work in China.

CNN also approached China’s Ministry of Science and Technology and National Health Commission for comment.

In 2018, He, formerly a researcher at the Southern University of Science and Technology in Shenzhen, claimed he had used a gene-editing tool called CRISPR to modify human embryos of twin girls in the hopes of protecting them from HIV. A third genetically edited baby was also born from He’s experimentation, a court in Shenzhen later said.

The research sparked a fierce uproar over the ethics of using new and potentially dangerous technology in people and the risk of unintended mutations being passed on not only to the children but potentially any future offspring. It also raised concerns about cracking open the door to a potentially species-changing future of “designer children.”

In recent media interviews, He has indicated he feels he acted “too quickly” in conducting the research and has given sparse details on the children, besides indicating they were living “normal” lives.

Genetic manipulation of human embryos – both viable and nonviable ones – is typically tightly controlled globally and some countries ban all such research, experts say.

But there is robust global debate around allowing genome editing of human embryos to treat serious genetic conditions or expanding research.

Scientists say genome editing, including in adults, shows promise for one day treating diseases that are currently difficult to treat or cure, like cystic fibrosis or sickle cell disease.

Chinese law does not allow gene-edited human embryos used in research to be implanted into humans, or developed for more than 14 days. All gene editing for reproductive purposes has also long been banned.

Since 2019, a broader raft of regulation of China’s biosciences field has added more legal controls and ethical standards to such research, including a major update to national bioethics guidelines earlier this year.

There’s also been sharp backlash against He within China’s scientific community.

In March, over 200 Chinese scholars released a statement in response to his public activities, including what they said was He’s “misleading marketing campaign” over his claimed research plans on rare disease.

They condemned He’s “attitude and refusal to reflect on his criminal actions of violating ethics and regulations of gene editing,” and called for regulatory authorities to launch a new investigation into He’s “alleged re‐violation of scientific integrity, ethical norms, laws and regulations.”

“The ethical boundaries shall not be crossed,” they wrote.

As for the future of He’s research, Canadian bioethicist Françoise Baylis of Dalhousie University said numerous questions should be considered, from whether He has the requisite scientific expertise to test the hypothesis, to whether he can be trusted to follow the rules for research involving humans.

“It is possible for people to learn from their mistakes and to change their behavior … but many are concerned, however, that He Jiankui may not have learned from his past mistakes,” Baylis said.

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July 3, 2023
Woman dies after tree falls on her car during Saturday’s severe weather in St. Louis | CNN

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CNN
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A woman died Saturday in St. Louis when a tree fell on her car during severe weather, according to police.

St. Louis Police Sgt. Charles Wall told CNN in an email the woman had been “parked and seated inside of the vehicle when a tree fell on top of it during severe weather.” The 33-year-old woman was “pronounced deceased,” Wall wrote.

There were at least eight reports of hail in Missouri on Saturday, including some reports house windows were broken by the frozen pellets, according to the National Weather Service. There were also several reports of severe wind, including in St. Louis, where large trees were uprooted, the NWS said.

Severe weather is expected to continue affecting several parts of the United States ahead of the Fourth of July. One hundred million people are under severe weather threats from the eastern Rockies through the Ohio and Tennessee River Valleys and into the mid-Atlantic region.

There is a Level 3 of 5 risk for much of Kentucky and northern Tennessee, impacting five million people in cities like Louisville, Lexington, Nashville, where damaging wind, large hail and a few tornadoes are likely.

On Sunday morning, storms already began appearing in Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois and Iowa. The storms are expected to continue into the afternoon and evening.

A flash flood warning was put into place for nearly five million people in Illinois, including residents of Chicago, due to thunderstorms and heavy rain. The rain caused delays and cancellations for some sporting events scheduled for Sunday in the Windy City: The Chicago Cubs had to push their game against the Cleveland Guardians back by several hours, and NASCAR had to alter its racing slate and truncate one of its scheduled races.

And 63 million people are under a combination of heat advisories and excessive heat warnings, with severe heat spreading from the Southwest to the Southeast. Around 70% of the country’s population, about 225 million people, will experience high temperatures above 90 degrees. And around 8% of the population, or 26 million people, will see highs above 100 degrees.

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July 2, 2023
California man sentenced to over 6 years in prison for $8.7 million cow manure Ponzi scheme, US attorney’s office says | CNN Business

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CNN
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A man from California who ran a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme where he claimed to turn cow manure into green energy has been sentenced to over six years in prison, the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of California announced this week.

Ray Brewer, 66, stole over $8.7 million from investors, court records from between March 2014 and December 2019 showed.

Brewer’s scam involved convincing investors he could build anaerobic digesters – large machines that create methane through microorganisms breaking down biodegradable material – on dairies in several California and Idaho counties, the US attorney’s office said in a news release. This methane can “then be sold on the open market as green energy,” the release stated.

Brewer’s investors were meant to receive tax incentives and 66% of all net profits as part of the scheme, authorities said.

Brewer gave the investors tours of the dairies where he claimed he’d build the digester machines and “sent them forged lease agreements with the dairy owners,” according to the US attorney’s office release.

“He also sent the investors altered agreements with banks that made it appear as though he had obtained millions of dollars in loans to build the digesters,” the release said.

Wanting to appear as though he had secured revenue streams, Brewer also sent investors forged contracts with multinational companies, authorities said, and showed them fake photos of the digesters under construction.

After receiving investors’ funds, authorities said he transferred the money to bank accounts opened in the names of an alias, his relatives and different entities.

In some cases, Brewer offered refunds that came from “newly received money from other investors who had not authorized Brewer to use their money in this way,” the US attorney’s office said.

Brewer assumed a new identity and relocated to Montana after his investors became aware of his fraud, authorities said.

When he was arrested, Brewer attempted to trick authorities by telling him they had the wrong person.

He also told officers stories about being in the Navy and “how he once saved several soldiers during a fire by blocking the flames with his body so that they could escape” – tales he later admitted were lies “meant to curry favor with law enforcement,” the news release stated.

Some of Brewer’s purchases with the stolen money included two plots of land of 10 or more acres, a custom 3,700 square-foot home and new pickup trucks, according to authorities.

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July 1, 2023
The company supplying water to millions of Londoners is in deep trouble | CNN Business

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London
CNN
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Britain’s biggest water supplier said Wednesday it needed to raise more cash from investors, as UK media reported the government was preparing contingency plans to rescue the company.

Thames Water provides drinking water and waste water services to 15 million customers in London and the southeast of England. The utility, which counts one of Canada’s largest public pension funds among its top investors, has around £14 billion ($17.5 billion) of debt on its balance sheet.

News that it needs more money came just a day after CEO Sarah Bentley resigned with immediate effect after three years in the role. She was in the second year of an eight-year turnaround plan to address aging infrastructure, tackle leakage and reduce pollution in rivers, a legacy of underinvestment.

Thames Water received £500 million ($635 million) from shareholders in March, but said Wednesday it would need more.

The firm “is continuing to work constructively with its shareholders in relation to the equity funding expected to be required to support Thames Water’s turnaround and investment plans,” it added.

The company said it was keeping the water industry regulator Ofwat “fully informed” of its progress and added that it had a “strong liquidity position,” including £4.4 billion ($5.6 billion) of cash.

Ofwat said it was in “ongoing discussions” with Thames Water “on the need for a robust and credible plan to turn the business around.”

“We will continue to focus on protecting customers’ interests,” it added.

Government ministers, including representatives from the UK Treasury and the environment department, Defra, are holding emergency talks with Ofwat over Thames Water’s future, according to UK media reports.

One possibility would be to place the company into a special administration regime that effectively takes the firm into temporary public ownership. Sky News was first to report the discussions.

A government spokesperson told CNN: “This is a matter for the company and its shareholders. We prepare for a range of scenarios across our regulated industries — including water — as any responsible government would.”

The spokesperson added that the UK water sector “as a whole is financially resilient.”

Thames Water says about 24% of the water it supplies to customers is lost through leakage.

The company’s single biggest shareholder is the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System, which holds a stake of around 32%. The Universities Superannuation Scheme, a pension fund for the academic staff of UK universities, owns nearly 20%.

Other large investors include the Chinese and Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth funds, as well as British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, which invests on behalf of public sector workers.

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June 28, 2023
Hundreds of thousands are without power as tornado-spawning storms batter the Southeast and Ohio Valley | CNN

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CNN
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Severe tornado-spawning storms battered the the Southeast and Ohio Valley, knocking out power to more than 615,000 homes and businesses across multiple states.

A possible twister damaged dozens of homes in Bargersville, Indiana, on Sunday as thunderstorms moved through the state, threatening hail and damaging winds. As they sift through the rubble, Bargersville residents were warned to prepare to be without power for the next two days.

Scattered severe thunderstorms are likely across the Mid-Atlantic states Monday, bringing damaging wind gusts and large hail, according to the Weather Prediction Center.

Already, thunderstorms have walloped parts of Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi and parts of the Ohio Valley Sunday, knocking out power and leaving behind destruction.

Much of the power outages Sunday night were in Georgia, where more than 150,000 customers were in the dark, according to poweroutage.us.

“We are seeing large amounts of damage across Metro Atlanta and North Georgia. In areas that are the most heavily affected, our team is working to navigate the damage and get the lights back on for customers,” Georgia Power tweeted.

The storms came as more than 50 million people from Arizona to Louisiana on Sunday sweltered under a heat wave that is expected to spread and continue through the beginning of the July 4 holiday week.

The heat alerts include much of Texas as well as parts of Arizona, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee, according to the National Weather Service.

The extreme heat in Texas contributed to at least two deaths Friday at the remote Big Bend National Park, where temperatures reached 119 degrees.

In Bargersville, a severe storm cut a path of destruction roughly 3 miles long, Bargersville Fire Chief Eric Funkhouser said.

One of the Bargersville Fire houses “witnessed the tornado going just north of the fire house” around 4:15 p.m. then reports began rolling in of homes collapsing and damage throughout the area, Funkhouser said.

At least 75 homes were left with moderate to severe damage “from the tornado being on the ground,” Funkhouser said, adding that the storm “took down the apartment complex that was under construction.”

No serious injuries were reported as of Sunday evening, according to the fire chief.

“This is the second tornado to hit Johnson County in the last three months,” Funkhouser said. “It’s amazing to have two tornadoes to come through, that were on the ground for that amount of time in Johnson County and for us to be able to hopefully – once we get through this – find out there were minor injuries only.”

Videos posted on social media showed a funnel-shaped cloud ripping through buildings as debris flew around it. Several houses could later be seen with their roofs ripped off.

“Given the photos and videos that we’ve seen, it’s virtually certain it was a tornado. We will be sending a survey team to make a final determination tomorrow,” National Weather Service Indianapolis Meteorologist Joseph Nield told CNN on Sunday.

Bargersville is about 17 miles south of Indianapolis and is located in Johnson County.

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June 25, 2023
Thousands of Americans are leaving homes in flood-risk areas. But where are they moving to? | CNN

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For more than four decades, the US government has been paying cities and states to move homeowners away from areas that are at high risk of severe flooding.

When a hurricane or major flooding event devastates an area, a neighborhood can send a request for the local or state government to buy the impacted land and give residents money to start over someplace else.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency’s buyout program is a form of so-called “managed retreat” – a long process that relocates people, businesses, homes and infrastructure to an area that’s safer from the impacts of climate change-fueled weather events. But until recently, little was known about where people ultimately moved and whether their new location actually reduced their flood risk.

A new study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters — which coincides with a managed retreat conference unfolding in New York City this week — provides a clearer picture of these home buyouts.

Data from thousands of home buyouts shows people aren’t moving that far from their original homes — and often they are moving within the same floodplain. But overall, their risk of flooding decreased after the move, a nod to the program’s success. Researchers also found that race has played a role in who is moving and where they’re relocating to.

“As climate change and rising insurance costs increase the pressures to retreat from the coast and flooded areas, we need to pay more attention to where people are going,” James Elliott, a professor of sociology at Rice University and a co-author on the study, told CNN.

The findings “point to how the program plays out differently in different types of communities and neighborhoods across the country,” he said.

Using flood risk estimates, housing values, race and income data from the US Census Bureau, and FEMA relocation data between 1990 and 2017, researchers from Rice University built a nationwide database to map out where nearly 10,000 Americans sold their flood-prone homes and where they moved.

They found people who have taken advantage of the FEMA buyouts typically did not move that far to reduce their risk, and usually stayed within the same floodplain.

On average, buyout participants reduced their future flood risk by up to 65%, Elliott said. The average driving distance between their former homes and their new ones was around seven miles, with almost 74% of homeowners remaining within 20 miles of their old, flood-damaged homes.

The findings were also racially segmented, Elliot said. About 96% of homeowners who relocated from a predominantly White neighborhood ended up moving to another majority White community.

In contrast, residents of predominantly Black and Hispanic communities were far more likely to relocate to a new neighborhood with a different demographic: Only 48 percent of Black homeowners who go through the buyout moved to predominantly Black neighborhoods.

The study also found that buyout areas with predominantly White homeowners had a nearly 90% chance of flooding by 2050, while majority-Black buyout areas had a roughly 50% chance, suggesting that White residents tend to only participate in buyouts when flood risk is much more intense.

Though the data suggests that homeowners in White neighborhoods have a higher tolerance for flood risk, 80% of the people who took advantage of the FEMA program previously lived in majority-White neighborhoods. This could be because White communities “are more successful at winning the opportunity and money to participate” in the FEMA program, Elliott said.

The home buyout program, which is the largest managed-retreat initiative in the country so far, is “disproportionately targeted toward Whiter residential areas,” Elliott said.

“Communities of color and lower income areas just have fewer options to move nearby, so they are less likely to participate in the managed buyout,” Elliott said. In Houston, he found in a previous study that most of the people participating in buyouts in racially diverse communities tend to be White homeowners.

“It’s sort of the last wave of White flight in those neighborhoods,” he added. And when “flood risks come, the final White residents begin to pull up stakes through the buyout program and move further out.”

Alexander de Sherbinin, a senior research scientist at the Columbia Climate School and deputy manager of NASA’s Socioeconomic Data and Applications Center, said it’s not clear from the study that White homeowners are reluctant to move to racially diverse neighborhoods, and noted that there is evidence to the contrary.

De Sherbinin pointed out that there is a process of “climate gentrification” playing out in areas that have experienced climate disasters, “whereby more affluent households are moving into ethnically diverse neighborhoods that are less at risk of flooding, and are even displacing local residents.”

He pointed to Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood as an example of this phenomenon, where higher ground helps protect the neighborhood from sea level rise and higher storm surges.

“The research findings make sense in one regard, which is that whiter, more affluent neighborhoods are more likely to have the insurance coverage and resources to stay in place, despite rising risks,” de Sherbinin told CNN. “In other words, they’re able to rebuild, and possibly accommodate risks by raising their houses above flood lines.”

As the climate crisis advances, more homeowners and businesses will be forced to relocate, adding stress and vulnerability to new regions. Previous research has shown that climate migration will become more likely as the planet warms and people seek places they consider safer and more stable.

“We really need to think about how people relocate locally, what the options are, and how the ongoing racial segregation, especially in urban environments, is affecting those local retreats and people’s decisions and abilities not to retreat, because all we see are the people who actually say yes to the program,” Elliott said.

“That’s the classic thing with climate change — it’s not about ‘if’ people have to move from these places, but ‘when and how’.”

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June 21, 2023
Search efforts grow as mission to rescue 5 aboard missing submersible races clock | CNN

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The multinational search efforts for a submersible with five people onboard that disappeared Sunday while diving to view the Titanic’s resting place grew Tuesday as more ships and aircraft joined the mission to find the mariners before their oxygen runs out.

A spokesperson for the US Navy said the military branch is sending subject matter experts and a “Flyaway Deep Ocean Salvage System” to help in the rescue mission for the commercial submersible, which disappeared Sunday morning and as of Tuesday night, had just over 30 hours of oxygen left.

The system has the capacity to lift and recover large, bulky and heavy undersea objects, like the small submersible.

The equipment and personnel were expected to arrive at St. John’s, Newfoundland, by Tuesday night, the spokesperson said.

The US Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force are also deploying more aircraft and vessels to aid in the search for the 21-foot submersible. The fleet of assets joining the operation include a Canadian pipe-laying vessel with underwater capabilities, along with other vessels and aircraft.

Follow live updates

OceanGate Expeditions says the submersible, known as “Titan,” begins each trip with 96 hours of life support on the vessel. That is “a short amount of time,” said retired Capt. Bobbie Scholley, a former US Navy diver.

“The hard part is finding the submersible. And once they find the submersible, there are all sorts of situations of how to get that submersible to the surface, and rescue the crew,” Scholley said.

The international search and rescue operation is “doing everything possible” as part of a “complex search effort” but has so far “not yielded any results,” US Coast Guard Capt. Jamie Frederick told reporters Tuesday at a 1 p.m. ET news conference. The “unique” and “challenging” search effort has brought together “our nations’ best experts,” he said.

At the time, Frederick estimated the vessel was down to 40 hours of oxygen – and officials do not know whether that’s enough time to rescue those onboard.

“What I will tell you is, we will do everything in our power to effect a rescue,” he said in response to a question about the oxygen time limit from CNN.

If searchers locate the submersible deep in the ocean, the mission to recover the craft and any onboard survivors will be complex.

“There’s very few assets in the world that can go down that deep,” said retired Capt. Chip McCord, whose 30 years of US Navy experience includes overseeing several salvage operations.

Because of the depth of the ocean floor, a search craft would have to “go up and down like an elevator” rather than cruise the bottom of the sea, he added.

Searchers have taken the mission below sea level after scouring an area of the ocean’s surface about the size of Connecticut, US Coast Guard District 1 Rear Admiral John Mauger said Tuesday morning. “We now have underwater search capability on scene, and so we’re going to be using that to see if we can locate the submersible in the water,” he told CNN.

The search zone covers an area about 900 miles east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and 13,000 feet deep, Mauger said Monday afternoon. “We are deploying all available assets to make sure that we can locate the craft and rescue the people onboard,” he told reporters.

The submersible known as “Titan” – roughly the size of a minivan – was carrying one pilot and four “mission specialists” when it lost contact with its mother ship about 1 hour and 45 minutes into its descent, authorities said.

The submersible is operated by OceanGate Expeditions, a company that organizes a journey to the ocean floor for a price of $250,000, according to an archived version of its website.

The 23,000-pound Titan is made of highly engineered carbon fiber and titanium and is equipped with repurposed everyday items, including a video game controller used to steer.

The expedition reflects the ongoing fascination with the Titanic’s wreckage more than a century after it hit an iceberg and sank on its maiden voyage, killing more than 1,500 people. The journey is also part of the growing business of wealthy adventure tourism, along with the space flights of Blue Origin or the rise of guided tours to Mount Everest.

OceanGate CEO and founder Stockton Rush is among the five onboard, according to a source with knowledge of the mission plan.

The others are British businessman Hamish Harding; Pakistani billionaire Shahzada Dawood and his son, Sulaiman Dawood; and French diver Paul-Henri Nargeolet, according to CNN reporting.

OceanGate did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment about Rush being aboard.

OceanGate in a statement on Monday said “every step possible is being taken to bring the five crew members back safely. We are deeply grateful for the urgent and extensive assistance we are receiving from multiple government agencies and deep-sea companies as we seek to reestablish contact with the submersible.”

In 2018, the Manned Underwater Vehicles committee of the Marine Technology Society penned a letter to Rush, expressing concern over what they referred to as OceanGate’s “experimental approach” of the Titan and its planned expedition to the site of the Titanic wreckage, the New York Times reports.

“Our apprehension is that the current experimental approach adopted by Oceangate could result in negative outcomes, (from minor to catastrophic) that would have serious consequences for everyone in the industry,” the letter – which was obtained by the Times – reads, in part.

Specifically, the letter expressed concern over the company’s compliance with a maritime risk assessment certification known as DNV-GL.

“Your marketing material advertises that the TITAN design will meet or exceed the DNV-GL safety standards, yet it does not appear that Oceangate has the intention of following DNV-GL classrules,” the letter says. “Your representation is, at minimum, misleading to the public and breaches an industry-wide professional code of conduct we all endeavor to uphold.”

OceanGate has not responded to a request for comment on the letter.

The effort to locate those on board, meanwhile, has grown by the day. The Coast Guard is searching with aerial and water surface craft, and the Canadian Armed Forces is also deploying aircraft to assist in the search, a spokesperson told CNN.

The Canadian research vessel Polar Prince, which took the submersible to the wreckage site, is assisting search and rescue efforts, a spokesperson for its co-owner Horizon Maritime told CNN.

Officials involved in the search have not publicly named those aboard the submersible, but social media posts and friends and family have identified them.

Action Aviation, an aircraft brokerage based in the United Arab Emirates, in a statement on Tuesday confirmed Harding, its chairman, is on board.

“Both the Harding Family and the team at Action Aviation are very grateful for all the kind messages of concern and support from our friends and colleagues,” the statement said. “We are thankful for the continued efforts of the authorities and companies that have stepped in to aid in the rescue efforts. We put great faith and trust in their expertise.”

Harding has an extensive record of adventures: In 2019 he took part in a flight crew that broke the world record for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe via both poles, and in 2020 he became one of the first people to dive to Challenger Deep in the Pacific Ocean, widely believed to be the deepest point in the world’s oceans.

And last year, he paid an undisclosed sum of money for one of the seats on Blue Origin’s space flight.

The day before the vessel went missing, Harding wrote of the Titanic mission: “I am proud to finally announce that I joined OceanGate Expeditions for their RMS TITANIC Mission as a mission specialist on the sub going down to the Titanic.”

A friend told CNN on Tuesday that Harding is “larger than life.”

“He lives exploration. He is an explorer to the core of his soul,” fellow explorer Jannicke Mikkelsen said. “He has been to the bottom of planet earth in the Mariana Trench … he’s even been in space. We circumnavigated the planet together … the north and south pole, and set the world speed record.”

Nargeolet was scheduled to be on Sunday’s dive with him, Harding said Saturday in a Facebook post:

“The team on the sub has a couple of legendary explorers, some of which have done over 30 dives to the RMS Titanic since the 1980s including PH Nargeolet,” Harding wrote, according to CNN news partner CTV News.

A friend of Nargeolet, Mathieu Johann, told CNN Tuesday the missing submariner is a “hero” and said, “I hope that, right to the end, like in the movies, he’ll reappear very quickly to reassure us all.”

“What we’re going through right now is this interminable wait,” Johann said.

Nargeolet is a Titanic expert who has taken the trip every year, completing more than 37 dives to the wreck, according to an archived version of OceanGate Expeditions’ website accessible via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

“Something we always think about as explorers and scientists … we’ve always known something like this could happen and now it’s happened,” said David Gallo, a colleague of Nargeolet and the senior adviser for Strategic Initiatives at RMS Titanic Inc. “But we’re still pretty much in shock, the community is. I hope it has a good ending.”

Further, Shahzada Dawood and his son Sulaiman Dawood, of Pakistan, “embarked on a journey to visit the remnants of the Titanic in the Atlantic Ocean,” their family said Tuesday in a statement. “As of now, contact has been lost with their submersible craft and there is limited information available,” the family said, adding they’re praying for their loved ones’ safe return.

The incident has left the community of undersea explorers in shock, said David Gallo, who called Nargeolet his “closest colleague. “We’ve always known something like this could happen and now it’s happened … I hope it is a good ending,” Gallo, senior adviser for strategic initiatives at RMS Titanic Inc., told CNN.

The OceanGate Expeditions trip began with a 400-nautical-mile journey from St. John’s, Newfoundland, to the Titanic wreck site. There, the submersible started its descent Sunday morning before losing contact with the Polar Prince, a converted ice breaker that was its mother ship.

The last communication between the vessel and OceanGate staff at the surface came in at 11:47 a.m. The vessel was expected to resurface at 6:10 p.m. but did not do so, and authorities were notified at 6:35 p.m., according to Polar Prince co-owner Miawpukek Maritime Horizon Services.

Chief Mi’sel Joe of Miawpukek First Nation, which co-owns the Polar Prince, got a call Sunday alerting him that the submersible was two hours overdue and still hadn’t surfaced and communication with it was lost, he said. At that point, requests for search and rescue had gone out, he said.

“There’s a tremendous amount of concern,” Joe said. “I have anguish that people are going through this. I wish there was more I can do.”

Unlike a submarine, a submersible needs a mother ship to launch it, has fewer power reserves and can’t stay underwater as long.

A mother ship can communicate with a submersible “via text messages which are exchanged via a USBL (ultra-short baseline) acoustic system,” according to OceanGate Expeditions’ archived website. The submersible is required to communicate with the ship every 15 minutes or more frequently, if needed, the site says. That USBL system is the only communications link between the submersible and the surface, it adds.

What we know about the timeline:

Friday, June 16:
The Polar Prince departs St. John’s, NewfoundlandSaturday, June 17:
The Polar Prince arrives at the dive siteSunday, June 18:
9 a.m.: The dive operations started
11:47 a.m.: Last communication between vessel and OceanGate surface staff
6:10 p.m.: Originally scheduled resurface time
6:35 pm.: Authorities notified and response operation initiated
All times in Atlantic Daylight Time, which is 1.5 hours ahead of Eastern Time
Source: Miawpukek Maritime Horizon Services, which co-owns the Polar Prince

While Titan is made of carbon fiber and titanium, some parts are decidedly low-tech.

“It is operated … by a gaming controller, what essentially looks like a PlayStation controller,” said CNN correspondent Gabe Cohen, who sat in Titan in 2018 while reporting on OceanGate Expeditions for CNN affiliate KOMO.

Cohen was surprised by how simple some of the craft’s technology seemed, he said Tuesday on “CNN This Morning.”

It’s a “tiny vessel, quite cramped and small,” Cohen said. “You have to sit inside of it, shoes off. It can only fit five people.”

A Titanic dive takes about 10 hours from start to finish, including the two and a half hours it takes to reach the bottom, the website says. The company calls its clients “mission specialists,” who are trained as crew members in a variety of different roles, including communicating with the topside tracking team, taking sonar scans and opening and closing the vessel’s dome, the archived site says.

Clients do not need previous maritime experience to join as mission specialists, it adds.

In case of an emergency, the submersible is equipped with basic emergency medical supplies and pilots have basic first aid training, according to OceanGate Expeditions’ website.

Everybody is “focused onboard here for our friends,” an expedition participant on the Polar Prince said Monday.

“We have a situation that is now the part of a major Search and Rescue effort, being undertaken by major agencies,” Rory Golden said on Facebook after CNN contacted him. “That is where our focus is right now.”

Hamish Harding posted an image of the submersible to his social media accounts on Saturday.

Deep sea-mapping company Magellan, known for their one-of-a-kind deep sea imagery of the Titanic, is trying to get involved in the search and rescue efforts but a key transport issue is holding them back. Magellan Chairman David Thompson told CNN that his team is familiar with the site of the wreck and received written notice from OceanGate Expeditions to mobilize early Monday and help.

However, they need an aircraft with the ability to transport their deep-sea diving equipment from the UK to Canada to launch their operation. Specifically, he said, they would require the use of a C-17 Globemaster III military jet.

“We know the wreck site, we know the location, and the equipment we are trying to get picked up is the equipment we used to do that scanning of the Titanic,” Thompson said.

Thompson said the US Air Force or UK Royal Airforce have not gotten back to Magellan letting them know if or when a plane can be procured for them to use to transport the equipment they need to Canada to embark on rescue efforts.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described Mathieu Johann’s relationship to Nargeolet. He is a friend.

Record heat and power outages create ‘the perfect storm,’ meteorologist says | CNN

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Editor’s Note: A version of this article originally appeared in the weekly weather newsletter, the CNN Weather Brief, which is released every Monday. You can sign up here to receive them every week and during significant storms.

CNN
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People in the South are storm weary. I’ve heard it from friends and family in my home state of Louisiana, where storms have hit exceptionally hard, and the damage extends much further.

Six tornadoes were reported in Mississippi alone in the last 24 hours, and strong storms are still in progress right now.

Tornadoes have been reported in the South every day during the last week, and more could occur in the next few days. They have caused serious damage, several deaths, and as of this morning half a million people are in the dark, according to PowerOutage.us. Making matters worse, some are expected to be without power for much of the week, leaving them without air conditioning as temperatures reach the triple digits.

The combination of power outages and dangerous heat “made this event the perfect storm,” meteorologist Michael Berry from the National Weather Service office in Shreveport said.

His region is recovering from an EF-1 tornado that hit Cass County, Texas on Friday night, along with extensive wind damage that uprooted trees and damaged power lines, littering them all over the region. He said the damage is in some ways worse than a tornado because it is so widespread.

Power crews have not been able to keep up. SWEPCO, which services Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas issued a statement late Sunday saying, “Nearly 3,000 utility professionals have now joined forces to tackle the work and rebuild communities across northwest Louisiana, east Texas and the western communities in Arkansas following the continued onslaught of extreme weather.” They added, “When you have devastation at this scale, with widespread damage that includes significant impacts to both our transmission and distribution stations the prolonged effort requires time to mobilize additional resources.”

Utility crews from as far away as Michigan and Indiana have come to the region to help rebuild the power grid.

According to Berry, straight-line winds Friday night approached 100 mph, which is what resulted in the damage to be so widespread, as well as causing damage to the power grid. He said it is the type of storm they typically only see once or twice a decade.

Another round of storms came through many of the same areas Saturday night, causing even more damage. Saturday’s round of storms produced nearly a dozen tornadoes across the South, hail greater than three inches in diameter and widespread wind reports stretching from Kansas to the Florida Panhandle. It caused even more power outages and set back power crews from getting power restored from Friday’s storms.

SWEPCO’s outages account for about 30% of the power outages across the South and some could be in the dark another week or more. It creates another concern for not only this region but for all the residents without power across the South: the heat!

Heat alerts are up for roughly 35 million people across the South, with temperatures remaining in the upper 90s to triple digits but feeling much hotter when you factor in the humidity.

“Widespread high and low temperature records are forecast to be tied or broken over the coming days,” the Weather Prediction Center said.

The heat index will be running anywhere from 115 across northern Louisiana and East Texas to close to 125 degrees across South Texas. The heat index is the “feels like” temperature when you factor in the humidity. It could be deadly for the hundreds of thousands without power.

“Our message quickly became how deadly the heat can become with the widespread power outages, encouraging people without power to try to stay cool by any means possible, drinking plenty of water, staying in the shade, relocating to friends or a family member’s home with power and AC,” Berry warned.

Many areas have opened cooling centers for those without power and in need of a place to cool off.

How to find cooling centers by state

With nighttime temperatures staying in the upper 70s to low 80s, they could be just as dangerous. Overnight is when the body needs to cool and reset, and if temperatures are staying warm overnight, we could see serious heat-related consequences as a result.

Why high overnight temperatures are so deadly

More than 50 million people are in the path of more severe weather today across the South.

A Level 2 of 5 slight risk of severe weather covers parts of the Gulf Coast from southeastern Louisiana to the East Coast of northern Florida. Areas possibly affected include New Orleans, Mobile and Jacksonville.

A broader area at a Level 1 of 5 marginal risk covers 40 million people and extends from central Texas to the Carolinas and down to South Florida. Cities like Austin and Fort Worth in Texas, Atlanta and Miami could face severe weather today.

“Any storm that develops will have the potential to become severe with large hail and damaging winds being the primary threats,” the weather service office in Fort Worth warned.

While tornadoes are not the primary threat today, they will also be a possibility.

The areas facing a severe threat also run the risk of excessive rainfall, which could lead to flash flooding. The storms could produce heavy downpours capable of dropping up to four inches of rain in some locations.

The severe threat continues tomorrow, before winding down for the rest of the week, giving the South a much-needed break.

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50 million under severe storm threat today as one Texas town digs out after a deadly tornado | CNN

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More than 50 million people across a large swath of the US are under a severe weather threat Friday, one day after storms cut a deadly path across Texas and Florida.

Three people were killed in Perryton, Texas, when a ruinous tornado slammed the town Thursday, the fire chief told CNN. The storm also sent up to 100 people in the Texas Panhandle town to the hospital with injuries ranging from head wounds to abrasions, the Ochiltree General Hospital interim CEO told CNN.

And a person in Florida died after being trapped under a tree that fell on their home, Escambia County officials said.

The county, which includes Pensacola, was hit with flash flooding emergencies overnight, leading to high water rescues, the National Weather Service in Mobile, Alabama, reported early Friday, citing local rescuers.

“Widespread and significant” flash flooding was continuing in West Pensacola, Warrington and Gulf Breeze, Escambia County Emergency Management said. “Numerous roadways remain flooded with water entering several structures,” emergency officials said.

Nearly 150 residents of an apartment complex in Pensacola were moved amid the rising water Friday morning and taken to a community center for shelter, county officials said.

Warrington, just south of Pensacola, got nearly a foot of rain in just three hours. Radar estimates indicate as much as 16 inches of rain fell overnight, and more is expected Friday. A flash flood watch is in effect for the area until 7 p.m.

Many of the areas that saw severe conditions Thursday could see storms return as a level 2 of 5 slight risk of severe storms is in place for parts of the South, Mid-Atlantic and Southern Plains.

Large hail, damaging winds and tornadoes are possible in the slight risk areas, which include Montgomery and Mobile in Alabama, Little Rock, Arkansas; Jackson, Mississippi; and Tallahassee, Florida.

A marginal, level 1 of 5 risk is in place from South Dakota to Florida and for parts of the Mid-Atlantic – a huge zone that includes hard-hit Perryton. Other cities in the marginal risk area, which could see large hail and damaging winds, include Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, DC, Denver, and Jacksonville, Florida.

The storm that swept through Perryton damaged homes and businesses in the town of some 8,000 residents, including the local fire department and EMS, as well as multiple mobile homes, Fire Chief Paul Dutcher said, noting many of the department’s trucks were damaged.

“A tornado formed, and it just dropped on us. It came out of nowhere. There were no sirens, no time to get to a shelter,” Perryton resident Jamie James said, telling CNN she had to ride out the storm in her truck.

“There was a time I thought I was going to die,” she said. “Everything went crazy. Dumpsters were flying, hailstones hitting the car.”

James’ home is still standing but the structure next to it is destroyed. She said the tornado is a devastating blow to the city she’s lived in for 15 years. “So many good people in this town. … We look out for one another.”

The city’s power facilities were shutoff for safety purposes, according to Xcel Energy.

“Transmission lines supplying the city with electricity have sustained damage and many lower voltage distribution lines are down in the city,” said Wes Reeves, a spokesperson for Xcel Energy.

“Xcel Energy personnel are working to ensure the safety of Perryton residents and first responders. An estimated time of restoration is not yet available,” he added.

As of 3 a.m. CT, more than 220,000 homes and businesses across Texas were in the dark, according to the tracking website Poweroutage.us. In neighboring Louisiana, more than 130,000 were without power, and outages were also reported in Oklahoma, Florida and Alabama.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has deployed state emergency resources to “meet urgent life-safety needs in Perryton, Texas,” according to a news release from his office.

“We remain ready to quickly provide any additional resources needed over the course of this severe weather event,” the governor noted in the statement.

Resources from surrounding areas have poured into the city to provide much-needed assistance.

A tank truck gets partially submerged in water in Perryton.

Officials in Beaver County, Oklahoma, sent fire, law enforcement and EMS units to help, according to the county’s emergency manager Keith Shadden.

Neighboring city officials in Stinnett, Texas, also began sending officers and EMS crews. The sheriff’s office in Hutchinson County — which includes Stinnett — also sent rescue and emergency operations following the “devastating tornado,” according to a Facebook post from the office.

Medical help also came from staff at nearby hospitals who swiftly aided up to 100 people after the tornado struck, Ochiltree General Hospital Interim CEO Kelly Judice said.

“A few of them took patients to their hospitals, most of the staff just stayed here and worked,” she added.

On Thursday, there were two tornado reports in Texas, four in Oklahoma and one in Michigan, according to the National Weather Service, with the tornado in Perryton being the most significant.

A view of a damaged site in Perryton as the town gets struck by a tornado in Texas on Thursday in this screengrab obtained from a social media video.

The tornado, which was confirmed by the NWS, cut through some of Perryton’s main sections.

“It literally hit the residential, the downtown and then the industrial as well,” storm chaser Brian Emfinger told CNN.

The worst damages he saw were in the northwest part of town, where the tornado barreled toward a mobile home park directly in its path, Emfinger explained.

“The storm produced a wall cloud very quickly, and that wall cloud tightened up very rapidly, and then it just went to the ground very quickly,” Emfinger added.

On the northeast side of town, about 300 people were sheltered inside Perryton High School after the area saw extensive damages, the school’s athletic director and football coach, Cole Underwood, told CNN.

“We have the gym space, and we have the capabilities to help the people that have lost everything and we’re more than willing to do that,” he said. “Sadly, there’s just not a list of things. … You think about that you need on hand, but people lost everything today.”

US Rep. Ronny Jackson, who represents Perryton, said the community needs help.

“If you are in the area, I ask that you do whatever you can to help your neighbors. Food, fuel, water, generators – anything you can.”

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The ‘climate kids’ want a court to force Montana’s state government to go green | CNN

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Helena, Montana
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It’s a Big Sky story fit for a big screen.

On one side: 16 kids from ranches, reservations and tourist boomtowns across Montana – a group of wannabe climate avengers ranging in age from 5 to 22 and assembled to fight for a livable planet.

On the other side: Montana’s governor, attorney general and the Republican supermajorities of both houses, who may have lost a three-year fight to kill the nation’s first constitutional climate case before it hit court, but are still determined to let oil, gas and coal keep flowing for generations.

The setting is a small courtroom in Helena and the whole plot pivots around the Montana constitution, widely considered the greenest in the nation.

“The state and each person shall maintain and improve a clean and healthful environment in Montana for present and future generations,” reads Article 9, and those pivotal words “clean and healthful environment” are also guaranteed separately in the state’s bill of rights.

“This case is about the equal rights of children,” attorney Roger Sullivan began in his opening argument in Held vs. Montana this week, “and their need now for extraordinary protection from the extraordinary dangers of fossil fuel pollution and climate crisis that their state government is exposing them to.”

In the half-century since the environmental promises were added to the constitution, the Treasure State has never rejected a fossil fuel project for potential harm to air or water. And this spring, after a county judge cited the constitution in pulling the permit of a new gas-fired power plant, state leaders quickly crafted House Bill 971 to make it illegal for any state agency to analyze climate impacts when assessing large projects, like power plants, that need environmental review.

In a region full of ranchers and farmers who depend on stable weather and the kind of National Park beauty that draws millions of outdoor enthusiasts a year, the bill created the most buzz by far in the May legislative session, drawing more than 1,000 comments.

But while 95% of the comments were opposed, according to a legislature count, the bill passed.

“Skinny cows and dead cattle,” Rikki Held said, when asked how drought changed her family’s Broadus ranch.

Since she was the only plaintiff of legal age when the suit was filed, the historic case bears her name. Now finally on the stand, she described with emotion what it was like to work through smoke and ash on 110°F days. “We have the technology and knowledge,” said Held, now an environmental science major at Colorado College. “We just need empathy and willingness to do the right thing.”

One after another, her fellow plaintiffs have testified how the effects of a warming planet are already causing them physical, emotional and financial pain. “You know, it’s really scary seeing what you care for disappear right in front of your eyes,” said Sariel, a member of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, after describing how the loss of consistent snow affects everything from native plants to tribal traditions.

“Do you believe the state of Montana has a responsibility to protect this land for you?” a lawyer asked Sariel, who, like the other children who were under 18 when the case was filed, is being referred to only by her first name. “Yes, I do,” she replied in a soft voice. “It’s not only written in our constitution, an inherent right to a healthy land and environment, but it’s also just about being a decent person.”

“During the course of this trial, the court will hear lots of emotions,” Montana Assistant Attorney General Michael Russell said in his opening argument. “Lots of assumptions, accusations, speculation, prognostication … including sweeping, dramatic assertions of doom that awaits us all.” But this case is “far more boring,” Russell argued, and is little more than a show trial over statutes “devoid of any regulatory authority.”

Montana’s population of 1.1 million is “simply too minuscule to make any difference in climate change,” Russell told the court, “which is a global issue that effectively relegates Montana’s role to that of a spectator.”

Attorneys for the plaintiffs have tried to poke holes in this argument, pointing out Montana’s outsized energy footprint.

On Thursday, Peter Erickson, a greenhouse gas emissions expert and witness for the plaintiffs, pointed out Montana has the sixth largest per-capita energy-related CO2 emissions in the nation – behind other big energy-producing states like Wyoming, West Virginia and Louisiana.

“It’s significant. It’s disproportionately large, given Montana’s population,” Erickson said.

While attorneys for the state objected when Rikki Held tried to connect her mental health to the climate crisis, they have largely saved cross-examination for the experts as the plaintiffs lay out their case.

“If the judge ordered that we stop using fossil fuels in Montana would it get us to the point where these plaintiffs are no longer being harmed in your opinion?” Mark Stermitz, an attorney for the state, asked Steven Running, professor emeritus of ecosystem and conservation sciences at the University of Montana.

“We can’t tell in advance,” said Running, who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 as one of the scientists on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “Because what has been shown in history over and over and over again is when a significant social movement is needed, it often is started by one or two or three people.”

Montana's state capitol building rises above Helena, even as it is dwarfed by mountains.

The trial is set to conclude on June 23 and is being heard before Judge Kathy Seeley, with no jury. While Seeley has no power to shut down fossil fuel use or order the end of new extraction permits, a ruling against Montana could help kill the new law outlawing climate impact analysis and set a powerful precedent for similar cases winding their ways through the courts.

“I think we’re really at a tipping point right now,” Our Children’s Trust attorney Nate Bellinger told CNN. The Oregon-based legal nonprofit has filed similar actions in all 50 states and will go to trial in September with a group of young Hawaiians suing their state’s transportation department, claiming it is allowing rampant tailpipe pollution. The group also supports the 21 young plaintiffs in Juliana vs. United States, who will get their day in federal court after amending their complaint that actions by the federal government have caused climate change and violated their constitutional rights.

When the Ninth Circuit put the Juliana case back on track, 18 Republican-led states – including Montana – tried to intervene as defendants and take on the so-called Climate Kids but were rejected.

It is likely the case will reach the US Supreme Court.

Back in the Wild West days of 1889, Montana’s original constitution was written under the guidance of a copper baron named William Clark, who claimed that arsenic pollution from mining gave the women of Butte “a beautiful complexion.”

But less than a century later, mining and logging had done obvious harm to the rivers, skies and mountainsides of “the last best place,” just as the movements for social change and environmental protection were sweeping the nation.

This was the backdrop when in 1972, 100 Montanans from all walks of life gathered in the town of Last Chance Gulch to hammer out a new constitution with not a single active politician among them. Mae Nan Ellingson was the youngest delegate back then, and as the plaintiffs set out to establish the intent behind “a clean and healthful environment for present and future generations,” she became the first witness in Held vs. Montana.

“It was important, I think, for this constitution to make it clear that citizens could enforce their right to a clean environment and not wait until the pollution or the damage had been done,” she testified.

The Montana Supreme Court agreed with her in a 1999 ruling and the majority wrote, “Our constitution does not require that dead fish float on the surface of our state’s rivers and streams before its farsighted environmental protections can be invoked.”

Claire Vlases, one of the young plaintiffs, is hopeful the court will check the power of the legislature.

Regardless of the verdict, it is likely that Held vs. Montana will end up in Montana’s Supreme Court, but for plaintiffs like Claire Vlases who are too young to vote, that will be just fine.

“I just recently graduated high school, but I think that’s something everyone knows is that we have three branches of government for a reason,” she said, sitting by the river that runs through her Bozeman yard. “The judicial branch is there to keep a check on the other two branches. And that’s what we’re doing here.”

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Help rushes in to Perryton, Texas, after tornado rips through community | CNN

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CNN
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The state of Texas as well as cities and counties surrounding the Panhandle town of Perryton are sending aid after a tornado ripped through the area Thursday afternoon.

The National Weather Service in Amarillo confirmed that a tornado struck the town. Images of extensive damage have been circulating on social media.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s office and the state’s Division of Emergency Management are mobilizing resources, State Rep. Four Price of District 87 said in a Facebook post.

“TDEM is moving everything that way. Search and Rescue, medical, etc.,” Price said. Multiple structures are damaged and “the state is engaging additional medical help to triage,” according to Price.

“This is a serious situation. Again, please lift that community up in prayer,” he added.

Beaver County, Oklahoma, Emergency Manager Keith Shadden told CNN the county has sent fire, law enforcement and EMS units across the state border to help. He said that they intend to send a second wave to assist but are waiting for the weather to clear in the county.

The city of Stinnett, Texas, about 56 miles from Perryton, is sending officers and EMS crews, and the Hutchinson County Sheriff’s Office posted on Facebook that they are also assisting with rescue and emergency operations following the “devastating tornado.”

The Borger Police Department, Booker Fire Department and officials with the City of Fritch are all responding to Perryton to assist with tornado damage.

CNN has reached out to local officials for more information.

Meteorologists had warned that severe weather capable of producing wind gusts up to 90 mph, hail up to 5 inches in diameter and tornadoes was expected Thursday – the sixth day in a row for portions of the South and Plains.

The tornado hit Perryton Thursday afternoon.

The latest round of storms comes on the heels of more than 300 storm reports Wednesday, continuing a long streak of active weather.

The area under threat Thursday covers a large swath from Colorado to South Carolina, with the greatest potential across portions of Oklahoma, Kansas and Texas.

The Storm Prediction Center has placed a Level 4 of 5 moderate risk of severe weather for the area, which includes Oklahoma City and Norman, Oklahoma.

Two tornado watches have been issued by the Storm Prediction Center for western and central Oklahoma and portions of northwestern, northern and central Texas. The watches include the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and Oklahoma City and both are in effect until 10 p.m. CT.

“Intense supercell development is expected this afternoon from the eastern Texas Panhandle into western Oklahoma and northwest Texas, and storms will spread eastward through late evening,” the SPC said. “The initial, more discrete supercells will be capable of producing giant hail (4-5 inches in diameter) and a few tornadoes. Upscale growth into a cluster or two is possible this evening, with an increasing threat for intense outflow winds of 80-90 mph.”

Extremely large hail is another threat.

“Be prepared for hail up to the size of baseballs and winds up to 80 mph with the stronger storms, as well as a medium risk for tornadoes,” warned the National Weather Service office in Norman. “The severe window will start in western Oklahoma between 3pm and 5pm and continue until storms exit the southeastern parts of the forecast area by 3am.”

Know the difference between a tornado watch vs tornado warning

Areas around the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex are under a Level 3 of 5 enhanced risk of severe weather.

“The areas most susceptible to another round of large hail and possibly some damaging winds will be eastern North TX down into far eastern Central TX east of I-45 could get into the mix as well,” the weather service office in Dallas said.

A much broader area of severe weather extends from western Kansas, south to central Texas and east to the Florida Panhandle. The Level 2 of 5 slight risk of severe weather covers more than 10 million people and includes places like Tulsa, Oklahoma; Shreveport, Louisiana; and Tallahassee, Florida.

Lastly, a widespread area of a Level 1 of 5 marginal risk of severe weather covers from eastern Colorado to South Carolina.

While it is not in the main threat area, people should not let their guard down because of the potential for damaging winds and very large hail. An isolated tornado could spin up as well.

A tornado is seen on the ground June 14, 2023, in Blakely, Georgia.

In addition to the severe weather threat, the same areas should also monitor the potential for flooding. With days of rain over the same areas, the ground is becoming quite saturated.

“A continued threat of heavy rain through the day with potential for several inches to fall within bands of training convection,” is being warned by the weather service office in Mobile, Alabama.

The multiday severe threat will continue Friday and through the weekend, as storms continue to develop each day along a stalled frontal boundary draped across the South.

Wind and storm damage in Cass County, Texas.

Wednesday’s severe threat brought more than 300 storm reports across the South and Plains.

There were at least 100 hail reports and more than 200 wind reports, which knocked out power to more than 100,000 homes.

Baseball to tennis ball-sized hail was reported in Alabama and hail greater than 5 inches was reported in Mississippi.

Of the 10 tornado reports, five were reported in Georgia, two in Texas and three in Alabama.

Not only will millions face severe weather, but more than 30 million people are also under heat alerts, including large portions of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and South Florida.

Most will see temperatures running at least 10-15 degrees above normal, with the potential for nearly 100 high temperature records to break during the next week.

Texas is expected to get hit exceptionally hard, with heat indices reaching as high as 120 degrees.

Heat indices are the “feels like” temperature, when you factor in the humidity.

The Texas power grid could reach a record high for usage next week, as temperatures stay in the triple digits for at least the next week.

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Four major environmental groups endorse Biden’s reelection | CNN Politics

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Four major environmental groups endorsed President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection for president on Wednesday night, ahead of his speech at a League of Conservation Voters dinner in the nation’s capital.

LCV Action Fund, NextGen PAC, the Sierra Club, and the NRDC Action Fund endorsed Biden together at the dinner, which is honoring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. It is the first time all four groups have issued a joint endorsement, Tiernan Sittenfeld, senior vice president of government affairs for the League of Conservation Voters Action Fund, told CNN.

During his remarks at the event, Biden touched on the hazardous air quality stemming from wildfires in Canada that hung over much of the American Midwest and Northeast last week, noting that while there are many threats to future generations, climate change “is the only truly existential threat.”

“If we don’t meet the requirements that we’re looking at, we’re in real trouble,” Biden said, adding that work of the environmental groups “has never been more important than it is today. Together we’ve made a lot of progress so far, but we’ve got to finish the job.”

The president listed his environmental wins to applause from the crowd, including new acreage that his administration has designated for conservation.

Sittenfeld said the endorsement is a recognition of Biden’s achievements on climate, clean energy, and environmental justice, including the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and strong federal regulations issued by Biden administration agencies.

“They have done more than any administration in history by far to address the climate crisis and advance clean energy solutions and environmental justice,” Sittenfeld told CNN.

Sittenfeld said environmental groups want to see Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris elected for four more years so they can “finish the job” on their climate agenda, especially given that Republican candidates running for president could undo part of that agenda.

“The stakes have never been higher and we’ve seen day after day MAGA Republicans in Congress trying to gut commonsense climate progress,” Sittenfeld told CNN, adding the contrast between Biden and Republican candidates for president “could not be more stark.”

“Clearly as much progress as we’ve made, there’s so much more needed,” Sittenfeld said.

“We are endorsing because of the transformational progress we already made and the progress they’re going to continue to make,” former EPA administrator Carol Browner, the chair of LCV’s board of directors, echoed.

The four groups have considerable sway in the environmental movement and the Biden administration. Their political arms have spent millions of dollars on past elections and mobilized voters across the country on climate issues.

The Sierra Club is one of the oldest environmental groups in the country, while NextGen calls itself the nation’s biggest group mobilizing youth voters. Meanwhile, Biden’s first White House Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy came most recently from NRDC before serving in her post (McCarthy was also EPA administrator in the Obama administration).

“President Biden’s climate leadership has been nothing short of historic,” Manish Bapna, president and CEO of the NRDC Action Fund, said in a statement.

However significant the groups early endorsement of Biden is, it doesn’t necessarily represent the views of the entire climate movement. Some groups and activists have recently expressed frustration with the president and his administration for approving fossil fuel projects, most recently pushing for the Mountain Valley pipeline to be included in the debt limit law.

As wildfire smoke choked DC’s air quality last Thursday, activists staged a large sit-in outside of the White House to protest the pipeline.

“President Biden, we are all out here because we want you to declare a climate emergency and do the right thing,” Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a progressive Democrat from Michigan, told the crowd.

As CNN has reported, a White House official had said the White House pushed for the pipeline to be included in the debt limit provision to deliver on a compromise that the White House and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck with Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia last year to secure his vote for the Inflation Reduction Act.

But some climate activists balked at that reasoning, saying they want to see Biden reject fossil fuel projects in addition to passing bold climate bills.

“Why does Manchin get priority over millions of young people who put their disillusionment aside to vote in 2020 and 2022?” said Elise Joshi, acting executive director of youth group Gen-Z for Change. “Every single time young people are showing up for the Democratic Party, and the uphold of promises doesn’t seem to apply to us.”

Joshi said she will ultimately vote for Biden in the 2024 election, but added the president needs to give her and young people more reasons to turn out enthusiastically for him.

“Most importantly I don’t want a Republican presidency, we know that would be horrific,” she said. “But if (Biden) is our best option of two, why not make that option better?”

This headline and story have been updated with additional developments.

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Tens of thousands evacuated as India and Pakistan brace for Cyclone Biparjoy | CNN

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Islamabad and New Delhi
CNN
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Tens of thousands of people are being evacuated as India and Pakistan brace for the impact of Cyclone Biparjoy, which is expected to make landfall in densely populated areas across the subcontinent Thursday, putting millions of lives at risk.

Biparjoy has been churning across the northeastern Arabian Sea, heading toward southern Pakistan and western India since late last week, with winds of 160 kph (100 mph) and gusts up to 195 kph (121 mph). It has weakened slightly since Tuesday, sustaining winds of 150 kph (90 mph), equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane.

Landfall is expected Thursday afternoon local time, bringing the triple threat of heavy rain, damaging winds and coastal storm surges across the region, according to the India Meteorological Department.

Mass evacuations have started in Pakistan’s Sindh province, with about 60,000 people sent to temporary shelters, according to local authorities.

The provincial capital Karachi – Pakistan’s largest city, with a population of 22 million – has shut malls and businesses along the coast.

Pakistan’s national carrier, PIA, has implemented a string of precautionary measures, including operating round-the-clock security to minimize any potential hazard to lives or equipment.

In India’s Gujarat state, more than 8,000 people have been evacuated from coastal areas, according to the state’s health minister. Livestock have also been moved to higher ground, he said, adding some schools have been ordered to shut and fishing suspended.

Heavy rainfall warnings are in place over the northern Gujarat region, where total rainfall may reach 10 inches, leading to flash flooding and landslides.

In neighboring Maharashtra state, home to about 27 million people and a sizable fishing community, strong winds are expected to hit parts of the financial capital Mumbai. High waves slammed into coastal roads this week, turning roads into rivers.

Four boys drowned off the coast of Mumbai on Monday, Rashmi Lokhande, a senior disaster official for the regional administrative body, told CNN.

Since the drownings, local authorities have deployed police officers and lifeguards along the beaches to prevent people from going into the sea.

Authorities in both countries have been warning residents to seek shelter and stay safe.

Pakistan’s Climate Change Minister Sherry Rehman has warned against reading too much into the storm’s slight weakening, saying on Twitter “it is highly unpredictable so please do not take it casually.”

Cyclone Biparjoy comes less than one year after record monsoon rain and melting glaciers devastated swathes of Pakistan, claiming the lives of nearly 1,600 people.

On that occasion, the force of the floodwater washed away homes, leaving tens of thousands stranded on the road without food or clean water and vulnerable to waterborne diseases.

An analysis of last year’s floods by the World Weather Attribution initiative found that the climate crisis had played a role. It said that the crisis may have increased the intensity of rainfall by up to 50%, in relation to a five-day downpour that hit the provinces of Sindh and Balochistan.

People gather near the shore before the arrival of Cyclone Biparjoy at Clifton Beach in Karachi, Pakistan, on June 13.

The analysis also found that the floods were likely a 1-in-100-year event, meaning that there is a 1% chance of similarly heavy rainfall each year.

A study published in 2021 by researchers at the Shenzhen Institute of Meteorological Innovation and the Chinese University of Hong Kong and published in Frontiers in Earth Science, found that tropical cyclones in Asia could have double the destructive power by the end of the century, with scientists saying the human-made climate crisis is already making them stronger.

That year, Tropical Cyclone Tauktae, one of the strongest storms on record, slammed into India’s west coast, killing at least 26 people across five states.

Tropical cyclones are among the most dangerous natural disasters. Over the past 50 years, these cyclones have led to nearly 780,000 deaths and around $1.4 billion worth of economic losses globally, according to the World Meteorological Organization.

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Cities across the Northeast experience better air quality indexes as hazardous wildfire smoke subsides | CNN

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CNN
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Sorely missed blue skies are returning and cities across the northeastern US are experiencing better air quality indexes after the monstrous cloud of smoke spewed by the wildfires in Canada dissipates.

Major metropolitan cities across Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have air quality indexes below 100 as of Saturday morning, according to government website airnow.gov. When the index rises over 100, the air quality is classified as “unhealthy for sensitive groups.”

For days, more than 75 million people have been trapped under a thick, orange blanket of smog as the Canadian wildfires spewed noxious fumes across the border.

The fires in Canada have already scorched about 15 times the normal burned area for this time of the year: nearly 11 million acres — more than double the size of New Jersey — with more than 2 million acres concentrated in Quebec alone.

As of Saturday, Philadelphia, had a “moderate.” air quality index of 59; New York City was in the “good” category with an index of 30; Jersey City, New Jersey, was “good” at 33; and Madison, Connecticut, had a “good” index of 14.

In pictures: Canadian wildfires impact US air quality

Last week, all four cities had air quality indexes above 150 on Wednesday, which was classified as “unhealthy.” Philadelphia had an index of 205 Wednesday morning, classified as “very unhealthy.” New York reached a level of 484 Wednesday afternoon, which is classified as “hazardous” and the highest level on record in the city since the 1960s.

The oppressive smoke postponed professional sports games, grounded flights due to poor visibility, shuttered zoos and beaches and kept children inside at school.

Those who did go outside were advised to wear N95 masks to protect themselves from the wildfire smoke, which is particularly dangerous because it contains tiny particulate matter, known as PM2.5, the tiniest of pollutants.

The enormous cloud of pollution could cause long-term health effects, depending on the person and amount of exposure, said Dr. Purvi Parikh, an allergist and immunologist with NYU Langone Health and Allergy and Asthma Network.

When inhaled, the pollutants can travel deep into lung tissue and enter the bloodstream. Healthy people may withstand “a day or two” but vulnerable groups, like children, the elderly and immunocompromised people were at much higher risk, Parikh said.

“If people develop and keep having symptoms after the air quality returns to normal, “then they may have developed asthma or COPD as a result, and that can become chronic,” Parikh said.

Scientists warn such routine-altering weather events are more likely to continue disrupting daily life as the planet warms, creating the ideal environment for more severe and frequent wildfires.

Since it’s still early in the Canadian fire season, more wildfires could flare up this summer, and several US states are still suffering poor air quality, which could cause health problems.

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How charging drivers to go downtown would transform American cities | CNN Business

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New York
CNN
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President Joe Biden’s administration is set to allow New York City to move forward with a landmark program that will toll vehicles entering Lower Manhattan, after a public review period ends Monday.

The toll is formally known as the Central Business District Tolling Program — but it’s commonly called “congestion pricing.”

In practice it works like any other toll, but because it specifically charges people to drive in the traffic-choked area below 60th street in Manhattan, it would be the first program of its kind in the United States.

Proposals range from charging vehicles $9 to $23 during peak hours, and it’s set to go into effect next spring.

The plan had been delayed for years, but it cleared a milestone last month when the Federal Highway Administration signed off on the release of an environmental assessment. The public has until Monday to review the report, and the federal government is widely expected to approve it shortly after.

From there, the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) can finalize toll rates, as well as discounts and exemptions for certain drivers.

New York City is still clawing out of from the devastating impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Congestion pricing advocates say it’s a crucial piece of the city’s recovery and a way to re-imagine the city for the future.

“This program is critical to New York City’s long-term success,” New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said last month.

The plan would also mark the culmination of more than a half-century of efforts to implement congestion pricing in New York City. Despite support from several New York City mayors and state governors, car and truck owners in outer boroughs and the suburbs helped defeat proposals.

In 2007 Mayor Michael Bloomberg called congestion “the elephant in the room” when proposing a toll program, which state lawmakers killed. A decade later, Gov. Andrew Cuomo — who had long resisted congestion pricing — said it was “an idea whose time has come” and declared a subway state of emergency after increased delays and a derailment that injured dozens. Two years later, the state gave the MTA approval to design a congestion pricing program.

Ultimately, it was the need to improve New York City’s public transit that became the rallying cry for congestion pricing.

Each day 700,000 cars, taxis and trucks pour into Lower Manhattan, one of the busiest areas in the world with some of the worst gridlock in the United States.

Car travel at just 7.1 mph on average in the congestion price zone, and it’s a downward trend. Public bus speeds have also declined 28% since 2010. New Yorkers lose 117 hours on average each year sitting in traffic, costing them nearly $2,000 in lost productivity and other costs, according to one estimate.

The toll is designed to reduce the number of vehicles entering the congestion zone by at least 10% every day and slash the number of miles cars travel within the zone by 5%.

Congestion comes with physical and societal costs, too: more accidents, carbon emissions and pollution happen as belching, honking cars take up space that could be optimized for pedestrians and outdoor dining.

Proponents also note it will improve public transit, an essential part of New York life. About 75% of trips downtown are via public transit.

But public-transit ridership is 35% to 45% lower compared to pre-pandemic levels. The MTA says congestion fees will generate a critical source of revenue to fund $15 billion in future investments to modernize the city’s 100-year-old public transit system.

The improvements, like new subway cars and electric signals, are crucial to draw new riders and improve speed and accessibility — especially for low-income and minority residents, who are least likely to own cars, say plan advocates.

New York City is “dependent on public transit,” said Kate Slevin, the executive vice president of the Regional Plan Association, an urban planning and policy group. “We’re relying on that revenue to pay for needed upgrades and investments that ensure reliable, good transit service.”

Improving public transportation is also key to New York City’s post-pandemic economic recovery: If commutes to work are too unreliable, people are less likely to visit the office and shop at stores around their workplaces. Congestion charge advocates hope the program will create more space for amenities like wider sidewalks, bike lanes, plazas, benches, trees and public bathrooms.

“100 years ago we decided the automobile was the way to go, so we narrowed sidewalks and built highways,” said Sam Schwartz, former New York City traffic commissioner and founder of an eponymous consulting firm. “But the future of New York City is that the pedestrian should be king and queen. Everything should be subservient to the pedestrian.”

While no other US city has yet implemented congestion pricing, Stockholm, London and Singapore have had it for years.

These cities have reported benefits like decreased carbon dioxide pollution, higher average speeds, and congestion reduction.

Just one year after London added its charge in 2003, traffic congestion dropped by 30% and average speeds increased by the same percentage. In Stockholm, one study found the rate of children’s acute asthma visits to the doctor fell by about 50% compared to rates before the program launched in 2007.

Some groups are fiercely opposed to congestion charges in New York City, however. Taxi and ride-share drivers, largely a low-income and immigrant workforce, fear it will hurt drivers already struggling to make ends meet. The MTA said congestion pricing could reduce demand for taxis by up to 17% in the zone.

Commuters and legislators from New York City’s outer boroughs and New Jersey say the program hurts drivers who have no viable way to reach downtown Manhattan other than by car, and that this would disproportionately impact low-income drivers. (But out of a region of 28 million people, just an estimated 16,100 low-income people commute to work via car in Lower Manhattan, according to the MTA.)

Other critics say it could divert more traffic and pollution from diesel trucks in Manhattan into lower-income areas like the Bronx, which has the highest rates of asthma hospitalization in the city.

The MTA and other agencies have plans to mitigate many of these adverse effects, however.

Taxis and for-hire vehicles will be tolled only once a day. Drivers who make less than $50,000 a year or are enrolled in certain government aid programs will get 25% discounts after their first 10 trips every month. Trucks and other vehicles will get 50% discounts during overnight hours.

Additionally, the MTA pledged $10 million to install air filtration units in schools near highways, $20 million for a program to fight asthma, and other investments to improve air quality and the enviornment in areas where more traffic could be diverted.

The stakes of New York City’s program are high, and leaders in other cities are watching the results closely.

If successful, congestion pricing could be a model for other US cities, which are trying to recover from the pandemic and face similar challenges of climate change and aging public infrastructure.

“It’s good to see New York City’s program is moving forward,” said the Los Angeles Times Editorial Board last month. “Los Angeles should watch, learn and go next.”

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Wildfire smoke continues to wreak havoc on US sports | CNN

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CNN
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A string of sports games and practices have been postponed as smoke from Canadian wildfires continues to choke the Midwest, Northeast and Southeast parts of the United States.

Around 75 million people are under air quality alerts as wildfire smoke shrouds major US cities, with Major League Baseball (MLB), the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) forced to postpone games due to concerns over dangerous air quality.

The MLB postponed two games – one between the Detroit Tigers and the host Philadelphia Phillies at Citizens Bank Park and the other between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium – on Wednesday due to medical and weather expert warnings about “clearing hazardous air quality conditions in both cities,” the league said in a statement.

Meanwhile, the WNBA was forced to postpone Wednesday’s game between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx due to smoke impacting the Liberty’s home arena, with the league noting that information regarding the rescheduling of the game would be provided at a later date.

The New York Racing Association (NYRA) canceled Thursday’s training at Belmont Park due to “poor air quality conditions” affecting New York state, while in New Jersey, the NWSL postponed Wednesday night’s Challenge Cup game in Harrison and rescheduled it for August 9.

“The safety of our players, officials and fans is our top priority. Following consultation with the NWSL Medical and Operations staff, it was determined that the match could not be safely conducted based on the projected air quality index,” the NWSL said in a statement.

Smoke from Canada’s fires has periodically affected the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic for more than a week, raising concerns over the harms of persistent poor air quality.

More than nine million acres have been charred by wildfires in Canada so far this year – about 15 times the normal burned area for this point in the year – and more than 10,500 people have been evacuated from communities across Alberta.

According to the MLB, the Phillies-Tigers game will take place at 6:05 p.m. (ET) on Thursday, while the Yankees and the White Sox will now play a doubleheader beginning at 4:05 p.m. (ET) on Thursday.

The Belmont Stakes is scheduled for Saturday at Belmont Park in Elmont, New York, and the NYRA said a decision on Thursday’s live racing program will be made in the morning following a “review of the air quality conditions and forecast.”

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What we know about the timeline:

In pictures: Canadian wildfires impact US air quality