William Thomas of Kerr county tells hearing illness meant he did not take part in emergency planning meetings
A key emergency official was sick and asleep for most of the day before devastating flash flooding swept through Texas hill country and killed more than 130 people over the Fourth of July weekend.
Kerr county’s emergency management coordinator, William B Thomas, had not spoken publicly since the floods, one of the state’s worst ever natural disasters. Questions have swirled about his absence and the lack of sufficient warnings to residents about the impending storm before the Guadalupe river surged to record levels in the early hours of 4 July.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
07/31/2025 - 14:56
07/31/2025 - 10:01
The groups have long been at odds over culling of badgers in England as a way to control TB in cattle
The first farmer-led programme to vaccinate badgers against tuberculosis is beginning in Cornwall with an aim to prevent transmission of the disease to cattle.
The programme is significant because farmers and scientists have long been at loggerheads over the culling of badgers as a way to control TB. The three-year trial will start with 70 farms and involve farmers trapping, testing and vaccinating badgers, with training provided by scientists. An earlier pilot study of the approach showed TB rates in badgers fell from 16% to zero in four years.
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07/31/2025 - 10:00
Exclusive: Simon Kennedy warns closed-door party meeting against backsliding on efforts to cut carbon emissions
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One of the Liberal party’s two surviving inner-metropolitan MPs has warned voters see the Coalition as unserious on climate change, suggesting the opposition could lose more seats to Labor if it opposes policies for net zero by 2050.
Simon Kennedy, the member for the Sydney seat of Cook, previously held by Scott Morrison, told a closed-door meeting of Liberal and Nationals MPs at Parliament House that the Coalition should be “wedging” Labor on energy policy, not backsliding on efforts to cut carbon emissions.
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07/31/2025 - 07:00
EPA tries to rescind ‘endangerment finding’ – part of ‘drill, baby, drill’ agenda that experts say poses grave threat
The Trump administration is attempting to unmake virtually all climate US regulations in one fell swoop.
At an Indiana truck dealership on Tuesday, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) unveiled a proposal to rescind the 16-year-old landmark legal finding which allows the agency to limit planet-heating pollution from cars and trucks, power plants and other industrial sources.
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07/31/2025 - 07:00
The 2017 flash, which stretched from east Texas to near Kansas City, beat the previous record by almost 50 miles
A 515-mile (829km) lightning flash has set a new record as the longest ever identified.
The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) confirmed the new world record for the flash registered on 22 October 2017 over the Great Plains in the US. It stretched from east Texas to near Kansas City, Missouri, roughly the distance between Paris and Venice.
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07/31/2025 - 05:18
Local Communist party secretary says there were ‘gaps’ in city’s readiness for extreme weather after at least 40 killed
A Beijing city official has issued a rare public acknowledgment of official failings in the authorities’ response to the severe flooding that hit China’s capital this week.
Yu Weiguo, a Communist party secretary for Miyun, the northern district worst affected by this week’s extreme weather, said in a press conference on Thursday that there were “gaps” in the city’s readiness for the deadly floods.
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07/31/2025 - 00:00
State’s fish and wildlife department posted a video showing an adult female guarding a nest of eggs
Adult winter-run Chinook salmon have been spotted in northern California’s McCloud River for the first time in nearly a century, according to the California department of fish and wildlife (CDFW).
The salmon were confirmed to be seen near Ash Camp, tucked deep in the mountains of northern California where Hawkins creek flows into the McCloud River. A video posted by CDFW and taken by the Pacific states marine fisheries commission shows a female Chinook salmon guarding her nest of eggs on the river floor.
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07/31/2025 - 00:00
Newly appointed expedition botanist Matthew Jeffery feels ‘daunted’ but inspired by his unique globetrotting role collecting wild species
It was described as “the best job in the natural world”: an expedition botanist for Cambridge University Botanic Garden who would follow in the footsteps of Charles Darwin and go on plant-collecting adventures around the world.
Within days of the job advertisement going viral, six people had sent it to Matthew Jeffery and suggested he apply.
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07/30/2025 - 22:16
The 40cm-long insect, named Acrophylla alta, weighs slightly less than a golf ball and may be the heaviest insect in Australia
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A newly discovered stick insect which weighs slightly less than a golf ball may be the heaviest insect in Australia, scientists say.
The 40cm-long new species, named Acrophylla alta, was found in the high altitudes of the Atherton tablelands in north Queensland – and scientists said the habitat could be part of the reason for its large size.
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