Disasters

"A pair of House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a bill that would tighten regulations for trains with hazardous materials, a direct response to the train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, earlier this month that spilled chemicals into the area."

"Hurricane winds fueled by climate change will reach further inland and put tens of millions more Americans’ lives and homes at risk in the next three decades, according to a detailed new analysis released Monday."

"President Joe Biden on Friday directed federal agencies to go door-to-door in East Palestine, Ohio, to check on families affected by the toxic train derailment that has morphed into a heated political controversy."

"Climate change is reshaping the U.S. in another way, as journalist Jake Bittle explains in his new book, The Great Displacement: "Each passing year brings disasters that disfigure new parts of the United States, and these disasters alter the course of human lives, pushing people from one place to another, destroying old communities and forcing new ones to emerge."

"A U.S. train derailment that spilled toxic chemicals in an Ohio town might have been avoided if the railway company's alarm system had given engineers an earlier warning that bearings were overheating, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board said on Thursday with the release of a preliminary investigation."

"American homes in flood zones are overvalued by hundreds of billions of dollars, according to a study published on Thursday in the journal Nature Climate Change."

"Long before this month’s fiery derailment, railroad industry leaders battled regulations meant to boost freight train safety, including plans to bolster some of the very same tank cars that ruptured and released chemicals in eastern Ohio."

"The Environmental Protection Agency will take control of the response to the Ohio train derailment and order rail company Norfolk Southern to clean up the contamination, the agency said Tuesday, the Biden administration’s strongest response yet to the disaster."

"A massive winter storm spreading across the U.S. West into the Northern Plains and Midwest on Tuesday could produce blizzards, brutal cold, and record snowfall, making road travel treacherous and disrupting air travel."

"Communities alongside rail lines had two more close calls this week as freight trains carrying hazardous materials derailed in Houston and Detroit."