The House bill cancels $16 billion of the National Flood Insurance Program’s debt while loaning Puerto Rico $5 billion – money it will have to pay back. By David Dayen.

Health experts warn of the effects of the fine-particulate pollution generated by wildfires, which are worsening in part due to climate change. By Matt Smith.

Fifteen people lived on the 21st floor of Grenfell Tower. What was their story? By Katie Razzall, Sara Moralioglu, Nick Menzies.

Puerto Rico is dying. By Miguel A. Cruz-Díaz.

The island of Vieques is just seven miles from Puerto Rico. Right now, it might as well be 7,000. It's been destroyed by Hurricane Maria. And almost entirely cut off. For seven days, Vieques' people have been watching stocks of food, water and fuel dwindle while they've been in a black hole of no information. Now, crowds line up in the main square to touch the outside world.

It was the swift and anomalous conduct of wildlife that got to me initially, the ants in particular, which had been observed floating in odd heaps throughout the city, each insect clasped to one another, thousands of them, like some kind of freakish, buoyant phalanx... By Micah Fields.

Militarizing Homeland Security in the Climate-Change Era. By Michael T. Klare.

The federal government auctioned off disaster-response trailers at fire-sale prices just before Harvey devastated southeast Texas, reducing an already diminished supply of mobile homes

Zoo nutritionists have the Herculean task of feeding thousands of charges, come hurricane, tornado or terrorist attack. By Jason Bittel.

Florida officials urged residents in flood-prone coastal communities to get out while they can, ordering evacuations in the face of oncoming Hurricane Irma, which could make landfall Sunday and inflict massive destruction not seen in the state since Hurricane Andrew in 1992. Hurricanes have lashed South Florida many times, but officials here at the National Hurricane Center said this is shaping up as a once-in-a-generation storm.

Critics have long complained that the charity's finances are not transparent. A spokesman interviewed by NPR couldn't answer questions about whether that has changed.

The city's gung-ho approach to development has destroyed the area's natural ability to drain away hurricane floodwaters.

Man-made disasters, the kinds that are caused by a lack of preparedness, willful ignorance, corruption, and normalcy bias, are very common. They happen every day. There’s nothing “natural” about corruption and mismanagement. That’s what’s really responsible for most disasters.

The city's topography and a ramped-up building boom make major rain events an even bigger problem

Reporter: "Do you have a message for the people of Texas?" Trump: "Good luck to everybody." #HurricanHarvey pic.twitter.com/Ec5miYYKzr

More than 36 people were killed and 120 injured in a train collision in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria yesterday. One train had been travelling from the capital Cairo, the other from Port Said in the north, when they crashed head-on at speed during Friday evening rush hour.

Survival is less about heroic actions than avoiding mindless mistakes.

“It is too simple to cast Corbyn as a throwback, but it is undeniable that his appeal and his authority derive partly from his willingness to cast a different, less forgiving light on recent history, so that we don’t have to carry on repeating it.” By William Davies.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recently announced world records for the highest death tolls from lightning, tropical cyclones, tornadoes and hailstorms in recorded history.

A night of terror in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. By Justin Heckert.