Disasters

"A wildfire that has scorched hundreds of thousands acres of prairie and ranch land in Kansas and Oklahoma since last week was slowly being contained, authorities said on Sunday, with a rare Easter snowfall providing some help to fire-fighting teams."

"On Jan. 21, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry met with Iraq's prime minister in Davos, Switzerland, and handed him a personal note from President Barack Obama pleading for urgent action."

"U.S. officials moved Thursday to strengthen safety rules for the nation's 300,000-mile network of natural gas transmission pipelines in response to numerous fiery accidents, including a 2010 California explosion that killed eight people and injured more than 50."

"Michigan's government on Monday released goals to help the city of Flint recover from a health crisis caused by the lead contamination of its drinking water."

"More than 36 million people face hunger across southern and eastern Africa, the United Nations has warned, as swaths of the continent grapple with the worst drought in decades at a time of record high temperatures."

"The Michigan Department of Environmental Quality repeatedly gave assurances that water from the Flint River was safe, when in reality it had dangerous levels of lead, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder says." CBS News/AP had the story March 17, 2016. The House Oversight Committee will hear testimony from Mich. Gov Rick Snyder and EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy Thursday, March 17, at 9 am ET. The hearing will be cablecast/livestreamed via CSPAN3.

"Five years ago today a magnitude 9.0 earthquake off the coast of northeastern Japan unleashed a powerful, 30-foot-high tsunami that swept across the landscape, killing 15,000 people, displacing nearly 400,000 others, and triggering one of the worst nuclear disasters in history — a triple meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant."

Renee Montagne interviews Gina McCarthy, administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, about EPA's role in the Flint water crisis. McCarthy says Michigan's slow-walking response to the problem made it hard for EPA to intervene. McCarthy is one of several key witnesses to testify this week before the House Oversight Committee. Resigned Regional Administrator Susan Hedman will testify today.

"Sea-level rise, a problem exacerbated by greenhouse gas emissions, could disrupt the lives of more than 13 million people in the United States, three times the most current estimates, according to a study published Monday."

As the Flint water crisis was being discovered, Michigan environmental officials tried to manipulate exemptions in the state's freedom of information law to keep secret emails that should have been subject to disclosure.