Disasters

"Days after the island was hit by a 5.9-magnitude earthquake, the White House released billions in aid but placed limits on how it can be spent."

"Fiddling While Oz Burns: Rupert Murdoch’s younger son and his wife issued a rare public rebuke of the family’s media empire and its promotion of climate-change skeptics during Australia’s bushfire crisis."

"The bushfires ravaging Australia are a clear sign of what is to come around the world if temperatures are allowed to rise to dangerous levels, according to scientists."

"The National Transportation Safety Board has urged the Trump administration not to allow shipments of liquefied natural gas by rail, citing the risk of "catastrophic" fires and explosions."

"Swarms of desert locusts have spread from Ethiopia and Somalia into eastern and northern Kenya, posing a threat to food production and grazing land, its agriculture minister said on Friday."

"Multiple Australian state police agencies have found limited evidence to suggest the major destructive wildfires in their states were ignited by arsonists, contradicting the international onslaught of misinformation suggesting otherwise."

"The mouse-size dunnart is not as iconic as the koalas or platypuses that draw tourists, but it is arguably the most special mammal on Australia’s Kangaroo Island. Now the Kangaroo Island dunnart’s days may be numbered."

"The number of billion-dollar climate- and weather-related disasters in the United States more than doubled in the last decade, with costs soaring above $800 billion, according to a U.S. government report released on Wednesday."

"A 6.4 magnitude earthquake rumbled across Puerto Rico on Tuesday, killing at least one person and knocking out power to virtually the entire island of more than 3 million."