Numbered tags are seen underneath the wings of this California Condor photographed north of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. There are 116 birds currently living in the wild north of the canyon along the Arizona Strip and in southwestern Utah. Photo: Jim Shane / Utah Division of Wildlife Resources

Avian flu is killing endangered California condors at alarming rate

By Dinah Voyles Pulver 12 April 2023 (USA TODAY) – The avian influenza stalking wild and domestic bird flocks across the country has killed at least six endangered California condors since March and is suspected of killing another dozen. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Wednesday it’s now attributing all condor deaths in the […]

A strain of Candida auris cultured in a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory. The CDC reports that the fungus is causing infections in healthcare facilities.Photo: Shawn Lockhart / Associated Press

This rapidly spreading deadly fungus is a warning about climate change

By Arjun V.K. Sharma 12 April 2023 (Los Angeles Times) – Last month, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change charted global temperatures to be 1.1 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and on a destructive trajectory to surpass 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming by the early 2030s. This intersects surprisingly with another piece of news: the […]

Average age at death in U.S. counties, 2020. Data: CDC Death Records. The U.S. is experiencing the greatest gap in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years. Americans born in certain areas of Mississippi and Florida may die 20 years younger than their peers born in parts of Colorado and California. Graphic: Jeremy Ney / American Inequality

Americans are dying younger, and where you live makes a big difference – Americans born in Mississippi and Florida may die 20 years younger than their peers born in Colorado and California

By Jeremy Ney 12 April 2023 (TIME) – The average U.S. life expectancy has hit its worst decline in 100 years and America’s standing is dismal among peer nations. But the average obscures a more complex story. The United States is facing the greatest divide in life expectancy across regions in the last 40 years. Research from American […]

People up for Easter sunrise services on Cocoa Beach, Florida encountered heavy seaweed, 9 April 2023. Photo: Malcolm Denemark / Florida Today

Sargassum seaweed soils Space Coast beaches at record levels in 2023 – “This year’s Sargassum bloom will likely be the largest ever recorded, with major impacts throughout the next few months”

By Jim Waymer 12 April 2023 (Florida Today) – We’re already in the weeds. All that stringy stuff that washed up on Brevard County beaches this past week is just the beginning of what scientists predict will grow into the largest-ever bloom of Sargassum seaweed ever recorded. Sargassum, which the Caribbean Sea delivers seasonally to the Gulf Stream […]

World map showing surface air temperature anomaly for March 2023 relative to the March average for the period 1991-2020. Data source: ERA5. Graphic: Copernicus Climate Change Service / ECMWF

Earth has second-warmest March in 2023 even before arrival of planet-heating El Niño – It was the 529th consecutive month to feature temperatures above the 20th-century average – “What I still find shocking is that the last eight years were the eight warmest years on record”

By Matthew Cappucci 7 April 2023 (The Washington Post) – March 2023 will go down in the books as tying for the second warmest March on record. That’s according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service of the European Union. Temperatures globally were several degrees above average in most places outside the western U.S., where a […]

Aerial view of homes buried in snow in Soda Springs, California in March 2023. Photo: Josh Edelson / The Washington Post

A wet winter won’t stave off the Colorado River’s water cuts – “There are discussions going on but they’re not making much progress. The level of distrust and animosity is really remarkable.”

By Joshua Partlow 3 April 2023 GRAND JUNCTION, Colorado (The Washington Post) – The abundant snow in the Rocky Mountains this year has been a welcome relief, but is not enough to overcome two decades of drought that has pushed major reservoirs along the Colorado River down to dangerous levels, Camille Calimlim Touton, the commissioner […]

Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens under 18, 1999-2021. The number of children and teens killed by gunfire in the United States increased 50 percent between 2019 and 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest annual mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Graphic: Pew Research Center

Gun deaths among U.S. children and teens rose 50 percent in two years – Homicide was the largest single category of gun deaths among children and teens in 2021, accounting for 60 percent, followed by suicide at 32 percent and accidents at 5 percent

By John Gramlich 6 April 2023 (Pew Research Center) – The number of children and teens killed by gunfire in the United States increased 50% between 2019 and 2021, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of the latest annual mortality statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2019, before the coronavirus […]

James Richard and Katherine Arroyo trudge through the water in Hollywood, Florida, on 13 April 2023. MOre than 25 inches of rain fell in South Florida since Monday, causing widespread flooding. Photo: Mike Stocker / South Florida Sun-Sentinel / AP

Rain of “biblical proportions”: Fort Lauderdale residents stranded in homes, cars – “This is way more scary and terrifying than any hurricane I’ve been through down here”

By Peter Charalambous 14 April 2023 (ABC News) – More than 2 feet of rain has brought Fort Lauderdale to a standstill, shutting down the city’s airport and stranding drivers on flooded streets — and more flash flooding is on its way. Drivers caught in Wednesday’s flood waters overwhelmed the Broward County Sheriff’s Office with […]

Population histories for all species of California salmon to 2021. On 6 April 2023, the Pacific Fishery Management Council, a quasi-federal body that oversees West Coast fisheries, finalized a decision to recommend closing the salmon season spring of 2024, due to years of drought conditions. Graphic: The Nature Conservancy / casalmon.org

Years of drought force shutdown of salmon fishing season off California

By Dino Grandoni 6 April 2023 (The Washington Post) – Years of drought have taken such a toll on California’s fall run of Chinook salmon that, for the first time in 14 years, fishery managers are canceling next year’s fishing season off the state’s coast to help the population recover. The Pacific Fishery Management Council, […]

A car is stranded on a flooded road near Corcoran, California, on 23 March 2023. Photo: David McNew / Getty Images

A long-dormant lake has reappeared in California, bringing havoc along with it – “This impending monster – a 50-foot-plus deep snowpack that we haven’t seen in 75 years – is sitting up there, and we just don’t know how fast it’s going to turn into water and come out of the mountains”

By Evan Bush 2 April 2023 (NBC News) – People have worked for a century to make California’s Tulare Basin into a food grower’s paradise. That pastoral landscape now looks more like the Pacific Ocean in many areas. Months of atmospheric river storms have pummeled the area and saturated the basin’s soil, which sits about […]

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