Disasters

"Millions of homes are being built in communities with archaic building codes, leaving them vulnerable to flooding, hurricane winds and earthquakes, according to a groundbreaking new federal report that links out-of-date building codes to billions of dollars in property damage."

"Enbridge filed a legal challenge Tuesday to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s recent demand that the company shut down its oil pipeline that crosses the waterway connecting Lake Huron and Lake Michigan."

"Khaled Taleb steps out of his vehicle high on a mountainside in northern Lebanon, and surveys the charred remains of the cedar forest he fought to save. A black carpet of the trees' burned needles crunches underfoot."

"Vickie Hicks, who weaves intricate sweetgrass baskets in Charleston, South Carolina’s historic city market, remembers climbing onto the table at her grandmother’s booth downtown when the floodwaters rushed by."

"No, we haven't reached a climate "point of no return." That's the overwhelming message from climate scientists in response to an alarming climate study that many experts described as flawed when it splashed across social media last week."

"When Category 5 Hurricane Iota roared over the small Colombian island of Providencia in the early hours of Monday morning, Yeisler Chamorro and his wife hunkered down underneath a mattress in their bedroom."

"The Trump administration on Thursday proposed to loosen Obama-era safety regulations for the oil industry in the Arctic Ocean off Alaska to ease the way for petroleum extraction in the region, an effort that President-elect Joe Biden will likely throw out once in office."

"Kristen Shive glanced around the blackened forest and started counting. She stopped at 13 — the number of giant sequoias she spotted with charred trunks, scorched crowns and broken limbs."

"Hurricane Iota has barreled into a Central America still recovering from Eta, bringing with it the possibility of "life-threatening" flooding, catastrophic winds and mudslides."

"President-elect Joe Biden on Monday outlined his plan for rehabilitating the U.S. economy, emphasizing the importance of getting control of the coronavirus pandemic."