Climate Change & Environment
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Typhoon Shanshan dumps rain on southern Japan, leaving 3 injured and 3 missing

A typhoon moving at bicycle speed began dumping rain on southern Japan on a path that will bring strong winds, high waves and significant rainfall to most of the country, prompting weather officials to issue the highest-level warnings Wednesday.

Three people were injured and three others were missing due to a storm-related landslide and driving accident.

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Drying lakes and thirsty trees: In drought-hit Greece, water trucks keep crops alive

Six weeks before harvest, there's no water left in the ground for farmer Dimitris Papadakis' olive grove in northern Greece, so he has started a new morning routine.

Joined by his teenage son, he uses a truck to bring water from nearby areas. Using a small generator, he connects the vehicle to irrigation pipes to save what's left of his thirsty crop.

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24 people missing after floods tore through a northern Yemen village

Floodwaters swept through a village in northern Yemen, inundating homes and shops and leaving at least 24 people missing, authorities said Wednesday.

Heavy rains over the past few days pounded the Melhan district in Al-Mahwit province, triggering floods that caved in seven homes and four shops, according to a statement by Yemen's Houthi rebels.

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Unusual cold storm that frosted US West Coast peaks provides hint of winter in August

Ski season is still at least several months away, but the unusually cold storm that frosted West Coast mountain peaks late last week brought a hint of winter in August.

The calendar briefly skipped ahead to November as the system dropped out of the Gulf of Alaska, down through the Pacific Northwest and into California.

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Rising seas especially imperils Pacific paradises, Guterres says

Highlighting seas that are rising at an accelerating rate, especially in the far more vulnerable Pacific island nations, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued yet another climate SOS to the world. This time he said those initials stand for "save our seas."

The United Nations and the World Meteorological Organization Monday issued reports on worsening sea level rise, turbocharged by a warming Earth and melting ice sheets and glaciers. They highlight how the Southwestern Pacific is not only hurt by the rising oceans, but by other climate change effects of ocean acidification and marine heat waves.

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Wild week of US weather: Heat wave, tropical storm, landslide, flash flood and snow

It's been a wild week of weather in many parts of the United States, from heat waves to snowstorms to flash floods.

Here's a look at some of the weather events:

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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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