By Kathryn Watson 8 September 2017 (CBS News) – Four Texas Republicans on Friday voted against the bill that included aid for Hurricane Harvey recovery in their state, along with a debt limit extension.The House approved the legislation 316-90, in a vote that authorized $15.3 billion in aid for those affected by Harvey, raised the […]
By Elizabeth Kolbert 4 September 2017 (The New Yorker) – On 29 August 2005, at six-ten in the morning, Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the border of Mississippi and Louisiana, just east of New Orleans. Katrina had spent days wobbling over the Gulf of Mexico, and by the time it reached the coast it was […]
Dr. Jeff Masters 7 September 2017 (Weather Underground) – Hurricane Irma plowed through the Turks and Caicos Islands (population 31,000) on Thursday evening, as it headed west-northwest at 16 mph towards The Bahamas and Florida. Irma maintained Category 5 intensity with 175 mph winds as its eye crossed the small privately-owned Big Ambergris Cay, but […]
By Suhasini Raj and Jeffrey Gettleman 7 September 2017MURMALA, India (The New York Times) – As the floodwaters sloshed into her hut, Phoolvati, a poor and landless woman living in a farming village in Bihar State, scrambled to grab some jewelry, a soccer ball and a wad of rupees — the last of the family’s […]
By Molly Rubin 7 September 2017 (Quartz) – For the first time in modern history, three hurricanes in the Atlantic are lined up in the most dangerous of ways, according to Eric Blake, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center.The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued advisories on Hurricane Irma (currently located north of […]
By Eric Holthaus 7 September 2017(Grist) – The last Category 5 hurricane to make landfall in the United States was Andrew, which lashed South Florida with wind gusts of up to 177 miles per hour in 1992. It caused immense devastation and forever changed Florida’s approach to hurricanes.Twenty-five years later, we have Hurricane Irma — […]
By Mohi Narayan and Ruma Paul; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani 6 September 2017NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Thousands of people are suffering from an outbreak of diarrhoea, malaria and dengue in Bangladesh and Nepal as the waters from the worst floods in a decade recede, officials and aid agencies said on Wednesday.More than 1,400 people have […]
By Neha Jain 5 September 2017 (Mongabay) – It’s no secret that widespread overfishing is driving many shark species to extinction. Many of these apex predators are ensnared incidentally as bycatch in longline fisheries targeting tuna or swordfish. Shortfin mako sharks — the fastest sharks in the ocean — are among the shark species that […]
6 September 2017 (UN) – Pervasive levels of poverty, protracted conflicts and complex humanitarian emergencies have led to stagnation in reducing the global out-of-school rate over the past decade, prompting the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to call for more investments. With 11.5 per cent of school-age children – or 123 million missing school today, […]
By Steven Hsieh 6 September 2017 (The Stranger) – Microscopic particles floating from a haze of wildfire smoke accumulated in Seattle overnight, downgrading the city’s air quality to levels that are unhealthy for everyone outside. At the “unhealthy level,” everyone may begin to experience health effects and should avoid exercising outdoors. The air could be […]
