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At least seven people are dead as the result of a monster winter storm in the US that has brought heavy snowfall and ice from the Gulf coast to the north-east, leaving more than one million in the south without power and cancelling more than 10,000 flights.

The Louisiana department of health confirmed two deaths related to the winter storm in Caddo parish. According to the agency, two men of unknown ages died of hypothermia.

New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani reported “at least five New Yorkers passed away and were found outside” on Saturday before it started snowing.

“While we do not yet know their causes of death, there is no more powerful reminder of the dangers of the extreme cold, and how vulnerable how many of our neighbors are, especially homeless New Yorkers,” Mamdani said.

He added the storm is bringing colder temperatures for a sustained period than New York City has experienced in eight years.

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A major winter storm is set to sweep the nation this weekend, bringing snow, sleet, ice and sub-zero wind chills from the southern Plains to the Northeast.

While it's still too early to predict snowfall totals for areas east of the Mississippi River, heavy snow is expected in Memphis, Nashville, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York City.

Further west, 8 to 14 inches of snow are expected in Oklahoma City, 6 to 12 inches in Little Rock, Arkansas, and 5 to 10 inches in Amarillo, Texas.

Simultaneously, a long-duration extreme cold event is likely to move in during and after the storm. Those who lose power might endure several days of below-freezing temperatures.

In the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes region, wind chills of 40 to 50 below zero are possible. In Texas and along the Gulf Coast, temperatures could feel like they are in the single digits, down to 10 below zero.

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The world has entered an era of “global water bankruptcy” that is harming billions of people, a UN report has declared.

The overuse and pollution of water must be tackled urgently, the report’s lead author said, because no one knew when the whole system could collapse, with implications for peace and social cohesion..

All life depends on water but the report found many societies had long been using water faster than it could be replenished annually in rivers and soils, as well as over-exploiting or destroying long-term stores of water in aquifers and wetlands. 

This had led to water bankruptcy, the report said, with many human water systems past the point at which they could be restored to former levels. The climate crisis was exacerbating the problem by melting glaciers, which store water, and causing whiplashes between extremely dry and wet weather.

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The aurora could be visible across Canada and much of the northern tier of US states on Monday night, and possibly even further south, following a major disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field, a forecast shows.

The forecast, from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s space weather prediction center, comes amid intense geomagnetic and solar radiation storms, said Shawn Dahl, service coordinator at the center.

The geomagnetic storms could lead to the aurora being visible far more south than the phenomenon is usually seen.

But the storms can also interfere with satellite operations, GPS communications and other infrastructure, according to the US Geological Survey.More...

The intensity of this storm has not been seen in more than two decades, Dahl said. The storm isn’t expected to become much weaker until sometime on Tuesday.

In November, solar storms brought vibrant auroras to parts of Europe including Hungary and the United Kingdom, and as far south in the United States as Kansas, Colorado and Texas.

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For years, the Environmental Protection Agency has assigned a dollar value to the lives saved and the health problems avoided through many of its environmental regulations.

Now, that has changed. The EPA will no longer consider the economic cost of harm to human health from fine particles and ozone, two air pollutants that are known to affect human health. The change was written into a new rule recently published by the agency. It weakened air pollution rules on power plant turbines that burn fossil fuels, which are sources of air pollution of many types, including from fine particles, sometimes called soot.

The EPA writes in its regulatory impact analysis for the new rule that, for now, the agency will not consider the dollar value of health benefits from its regulations on fine particles and ozone because there is too much uncertainty in estimates of those economic impacts.

EPA press secretary Brigit Hirsch clarified that the agency is still considering health benefits. But it will not assign a dollar amount to those benefits until further notice, as it reconsiders the way it assesses those numbers.

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The Trump administration sued two California cities on Monday, seeking to block local laws that restrict natural gas infrastructure and appliances in new construction.

The lawsuit is the administration’s latest attack on energy policies that seek to rein in the use of fossil fuels to combat climate change. California, a Democratic stronghold, has among the most aggressive climate change policies in the world.

Republicans, including Donald Trump, for years have attacked local Democratic efforts to limit gas-powered appliances.

In the complaint filed in US district court in the northern district of California, justice department attorneys alleged that ordinances passed by the San Francisco-area cities of Morgan Hill and Petaluma since 2019 violated a 1975 law that prevents states and cities from regulating the “energy use” of products subject to federal standards.

“The natural gas bans not only impose crushing costs on California residents but are also unlawful,” the complaint said.

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