Water & Oceans

"Of more than 500 hurricanes that have hit the United States, the average storm led to up to 11,000 excess deaths, hundreds of times higher than official estimates."

"Waking up to long-overdue system upgrades, dozens of towns that were awarded federal ARPA dollars may see them ‘clawed back’ for lack of resources to complete paperwork."

"U.S. President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris will travel on Wednesday to North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia to assess the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in the southeastern U.S. which has killed at least 140 people."

"As Hurricane Helene made climate change an early focus of the vice-presidential debate, the running mates quickly demonstrated the stark differences between the parties on the issue."

"Bethany Beach firefly, found in Delaware, Maryland and Virginia, faces dangers to habitat because of climate change"

"The head of the US disaster relief agency has called Hurricane Helene, which has killed nearly 100 people, a “true multi-state event” that caused “significant infrastructure damage” and had been made worse because of global heating."

"The president, who plans to travel to North Carolina this week, said he might need to call Congress in for a special session after it did not include additional disaster relief in its spending bill."

"Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bipartisan bill Friday making it a crime to farm octopuses for human consumption in California."

"On Thursday night Helene crashed into Florida’s coast as a Category 4 hurricane. ... The disaster underscores Americans’ dangerously low levels of flood insurance coverage, especially away from coastal areas."

"Authorities struggled to get water and other supplies to isolated, flood-stricken areas across the U.S. Southeast in the wake of Hurricane Helene as the death toll from the storm rose. A North Carolina county that includes the mountain city of Asheville reported 30 people killed due to the storm, and several other fatalities reported in North Carolina Sunday pushed the overall death toll to at least 91 people across several states."