Climate Change & Environment
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Typhoon Shanshan threatens heavy rain and traffic disruption in southwestern Japan

A powerful typhoon was approaching Japan's southwestern islands Tuesday, with weather officials cautioning residents about heavy rain and violent winds expected in the region over the coming days.

The Japan Meteorological Agency said Typhoon Shanshan was about 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of the southern island of Amami on Tuesday morning as it slowly headed north toward Kyushu while packing winds of up to 162 kilometers (100 miles) per hour.

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Biden promised to clean up heavily polluted communities, here's how he did it

After World War II, Black people in Houston found the rare chance to buy a nice home in the new community of Pleasantville, Texas. But in the years that followed, officials routed the Interstate 610 loop with its tailpipe exhaust along one side of Pleasantville and cement plants and other heavy industry grew nearby.

Just days after taking office in 2021, the Biden administration made huge promises to heavily polluted Black, Latino, Indigenous and lower income areas like this, known as environmental justice communities.

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Rare orchid survives on few tracts of prairie, researchers want to learn its secrets

On a remote tallgrass prairie in North Dakota, a secretive orchid pokes up from the ground. You'll only find it if you know where to look.

The striking, bright white blooms of the western prairie fringed orchid are elusive to fans who try to catch a glimpse — and as a threatened species protected by the federal Endangered Species Act, it is also a puzzle for researchers trying to learn more about the orchid's reproduction and role in its ecosystem.

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Cows obstruct Nigeria's capital as climate change leave herders with nowhere to go

At an intersection seven miles from the presidential villa, frustrated drivers honk as a herd of cattle feeds on the grass beautifying the median strip and slowly marches across the road, their hooves clattering against the asphalt. For the teenage herder guiding them, Ismail Abubakar, it is just another day, and for most drivers stuck in the traffic, it's a familiar scene unfolding in Nigeria's capital Abuja.

Abubakar and his cattle's presence in the city center is not out of choice but of necessity. His family are originally from Katsina State in northern Nigeria, where a changing climate turned grazing lands into barren desert. He moved to Idu — a rural, bushy and less developed part of Abuja — many years ago. But it now hosts housing estates, a vast railway complex and various industries.

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Alaska landslide kills 1 person and injures 3 in Ketchikan, authorities say

One person was killed and three were injured by a landslide that prompted a mandatory evacuation in the Alaska city of Ketchikan, authorities said.

Three people were transported to Ketchikan Medical Center following the landslide, which struck around 4 p.m. Sunday and damaged homes and infrastructure, the Ketchikan Gateway Borough and City of Ketchikan said in a joint statement Sunday.

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What has worked to fight climate change?

To figure out what really works when nations try to fight climate change, researchers looked at 1,500 ways countries have tried to curb heat-trapping gases. Their answer: Not many have done the job. And success often means someone has to pay a price, whether at the pump or elsewhere.

In only 63 cases since 1998, did researchers find policies that resulted in significant cuts of carbon pollution, a new study in Thursday's journal Science found.

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Tropical storm forecast to bring strong winds and heavy rain to Hawaii this weekend

A tropical storm is expected to deliver strong winds and heavy rain to Hawaii this weekend, particularly to the Big Island and Maui, as it passes south of the island chain.

The National Weather Service on Thursday evening issued a tropical storm watch for Hawaii County, which includes all of the Big Island, in anticipation of Tropical Storm Hone.

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As more floods batter Bangladesh and India, death toll rises to 30

Floods wreaked more havoc in India's northeast and neighboring Bangladesh's eastern region, raising this week's total death toll to 30, officials and media reports said Friday.

Rain stopped in many parts of Bangladesh on Friday and weather officials in Dhaka said the waters had started receding in some areas, but said the flooding would not be over for days.

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Summer heat scorches Texas and US Southwest

Summer heat scorched Texas and the Southwest on Wednesday, pushing Phoenix to nearly 90 consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures and putting millions of people under excessive heat warnings.

Meanwhile, energy demand in Texas hit an unofficial all-time high Tuesday, according to data from the state's grid operator.

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Floods maroon many people in Bangladesh and India, causing at least 15 deaths

Floodwaters have stranded hundreds of thousands of people in India's northeast and neighboring Bangladesh's eastern region, causing at least 15 deaths as rescuers struggled to reach those who needed help, officials and media reports said Thursday.

At least 11 people were killed and thousands displaced from homes as floods and mudslides have ravaged India's northeastern Tripura state, bordering Bangladesh, since Wednesday.

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