Disasters

"President Obama's plan to safeguard the nation from increasing flood risk due to climate change was quietly green-lighted by Congress last month in the 2016 omnibus budget bill."

"Paraguay could face problems this year with dengue and other fevers transmitted by mosquitoes, which have proliferated due to rainy weather during the Southern Hemisphere summer, a health ministry official said on Tuesday."

"Gov. Rick Snyder of Michigan issued a sweeping apology on Tuesday to the residents of Flint for a contaminated water supply. He pledged to promptly release his emails about the issue, and laid out more specifics than had previously been known about the state’s handling of the matter."

"In Oklahoma, now the country's earthquake capital, people are talking nervously about the big one as man-made quakes get stronger, more frequent and closer to major population centers. Next door in Kansas, they're feeling on firmer ground though no one is ready yet to declare victory."

"The controversial Mount Polley mine received both millions of dollars in contracts and a written warning from Canada’s environment department prior to a massive breach of a dam with mining waste in 2014, according to a newly released federal memorandum."

"About 14 million people face hunger in Southern Africa because of a drought that has been exacerbated by an El Nino weather pattern, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Monday."

"The El Nino phenomenon currently affecting weather is expected to weaken during the Northern Hemisphere spring and transition to normal conditions by late spring or early summer, a U.S. government weather forecaster said on Thursday."

"Hurricane Alex blasted into the record books on Thursday as the first Atlantic hurricane to form during the month of January in more than three-quarters of a century, U.S. weather forecasters said."

"Indonesian energy company Lapindo Brantas plans to resume drilling for gas near the site of a mud volcano, its CEO said, referring to a disaster that some scientists say it helped to create around 10 years ago."

"Humanitarian groups are growing increasingly concerned about two hunger emergencies unfolding in East Africa -- one caused by drought, the other by war."