World

Houston keeps buckling under storms like Beryl. The fixes aren't coming fast enough

Published

2 years ago

July 11, 2024

Houston keeps buckling under storms like Beryl. The fixes aren't coming fast enough

HOUSTON (AP) — Sharon Carr is frustrated. Like many others who lost power after Hurricane Beryl slammed into the Texas coast earlier this week, she went to a cooling center in Houston to get relief from summer heat while the city’s utility company warned that restoring everyone’s electricity could take longer than they might hope.

“There’s too much wind, we don’t have power. It’s raining a long time, we don’t have power,” said Carr, who also went without electricity for a week in May when a destructive storm known as a derecho swept through the area.

Carr, who works for the city’s transportation and drainage department, thinks more could be done to keep the lights on — or at least restore them more quickly — if Houston and other urban areas prone to severe weather would stop focusing on immediate problems and look at the bigger picture, including climate change.

“This shouldn’t keep happening,” she said. “If it’s broke, let’s fix it.”

Hurricane Beryl is the latest in a long line of devastating storms to paralyze Houston, underscoring the city’s inability to sufficiently fortify itself against weather events brought on by climate change. Past storms such as Hurricane Ike in 2008 and Harvey in 2017 made clear that the city needed to remove trees, bolster its flood-plain protections and bury more power lines underground, but those efforts fell short or were completely overwhelmed by recent storms that have inundated the city and knocked out power to millions.

With climate change heating up ocean water, fueling storms that are more powerful and intensify much faster, experts say cities need to rethink how they prepare and respond to such events.

“It’s a totally different game that we’re playing today,” said Michelle Meyer, director of the Hazard Reduction & Recovery Center at Texas A&M University. The old playbook, she said, “doesn’t work anymore.”

If we rebuild it, it will flood again

Where and how developers build is one obvious issue, said Craig Fugate, administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency under President Barack Obama. He said that became evident to him 20 years ago while working in Florida, where four successive hurricanes were not enough to stop beachfront development.

“You’ve got to ask yourself, how many times do we need to rebuild something before we either build it back differently or we don’t build back in that same spot?” he said.

Fugate thinks taxpayers are increasingly shouldering the burden, supporting expensive insurance programs for at-risk areas when instead, developers could stop building in storm-prone areas and residents could move out of the floodplains.

“It is the hardest system to implement because people resist,” said Jim Blackburn, co-director of the severe storm center at Rice University. “People really like where they live, as a general proposition.”

Buyouts instead of insurance payments are one way to get people to move, but Fugate notes such programs often take too long to kick in after a storm hits. By the time such funds are ready, persuading someone to take a buyout is “almost impossible,” he said.

Problems with known solutions

In many cases, officials know what actions are needed to mitigate severe weather disasters, but find them hard to implement.
For instance, the city of Houston commissioned a report documenting how falling trees caused power outages after 2008’s Hurricane Ike. But no one wanted to cut down the trees that still stood. Today, utility officials note, they install underground electric lines for every new construction project.
Updating the city’s electrical infrastructure could also go a long way toward preventing power outages, Meyer said, noting that North Carolina did so after Hurricane Matthew in 2016.
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“They were really forward-thinking, like, ‘OK we’re not going to be in this situation again,’” she said.
CenterPoint Energy, which provides Houston’s power, has partially installed an “intelligent grid” system that automatically reroutes power to unaffected lines during an outage. A document on the utility’s website noted that 996 of the devices had been installed as of 2019 — less than half of the grid at the time. It’s not clear if more progress has been made since then. The company did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday.

A changing reality

With more storms like Beryl expected under climate change conditions, cities have to plan for the worst — and the worst is getting nastier.

“It’s all about learning to live with water,” Blackburn said.

After Hurricane Harvey — the fiercest hurricane to hit the U.S. in more than a decade when it slammed into the Texas coast in August 2017 — Houston passed a $2.5 billion bond measure to finance flood damage reduction projects in Harris County, which includes the city. The action resulted in “a lot of improvements,” Blackburn said, but was based on old flood projections.

In addition, a task force Republican Gov. Greg Abbott created in 2018 made dozens of recommendations in a nearly 200-page report, including investigating ways to harden utilities and creating an inventory of mitigation and resiliency projects that are needed across the state.

But with weather becoming more and more unpredictable, even cities that make improvements can be caught unprepared if they don’t plan with the future in mind. The “diabolical” component of climate change, Blackburn said, is that the goalposts keep moving: Just as cities adjust to a heightened risk, the risk escalates again.

Scientists are more equipped than ever before to make decisions about evacuations, development and other measures using computer systems that can predict the damage a certain storm will inflict, noted Shane Hubbard, a research scientist at the University of Wisconsin.

And yet, he added, all the computing power in the world can’t match the unpredictability of climate change. Warming oceans are driving rapidly intensifying weather events that defy models and quickly change conditions on the ground.

“That’s the thing I’m most concerned about” in the future, Hubbard said.

Complicating matters in Texas is that some leaders still don’t acknowledge climate change. The report issued by the governor’s task force in 2018 noted that powerful natural disasters in Texas would become more frequent because of a changing climate. But it made no mention of “climate change,” “global warming” or of curbing greenhouse gases in Texas, the nation’s oil-refining epicenter that leads the U.S. in carbon emissions. Texas is a state where politicians, at least publicly, are deeply skeptical about climate change.

Cities must be willing to face the scientific facts before their planning can truly improve, Blackburn says.

Asked whether coastal cities in general are prepared for climate change, Meyer said simply, “No.”

She said prevention and mitigation measures must evolve to the point that a Category 1 hurricane “will be no problem moving forward.”

A city like Houston “should not be touched by a Cat 1,” she said.

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Walling reported from Chicago. Associated Press/Report for America writer Nadia Lathan in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report. Follow Walling on X: @MelinaWalling.

___

The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

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World

Epstein files fallout: Muted US response vs political reckoning in Europe

Published

1 hour ago

February 24, 2026

Press Room

Epstein files fallout: Muted US response vs political reckoning in Europe

British politician Peter Mandelson has been released on bail after detectives questioned him for hours over the alleged leaking of sensitive government information to the late convicted paedophile, Jeffrey Epstein, while a government minister in the early 2000s.

The former United Kingdom ambassador to Washington was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office on Tuesday. His arrest followed the detention of Prince Andrew, now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, who was also questioned over similar misconduct linked to Epstein.

How have the Epstein files affected British politics?

The developments mark one of the sharpest reversals in recent British political life. Only months ago, Mandelson held one of the most senior (and coveted) diplomatic roles in the country.

He has since lost his post, faced a police raid at his home and now confronts the possibility of criminal charges. He has been forced to step down from the House of Lords, the unelected upper chamber of the UK parliament, and could be stripped of his title.

If convicted, he could face a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

Police lead Peter Mandelson to a waiting car upon his arrest on February 23, 2026 [Screenshot via Reuters]

Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s decision to appoint Mandelson as British ambassador – a move made while his popularity has plunged – triggered the resignation of his chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, and has raised questions about whether he can see out his term.

The scandal has also engulfed the royal family. After Andrew was arrested for leaking sensitive reports during his time as British trade envoy – the first arrest of a senior royal in centuries – King Charles III said “the law must take its course.”

British royal biographer Andrew Lownie, who interviewed the late Virginia Giuffre – who accused Epstein of forcing her to have sex with Prince Andrew three times when she was 17 – has warned that the fallout could also “bring down King Charles”, as scrutiny intensifies over what he knew about his brother’s conduct.

The cases form part of a broader European response to newly released troves of Epstein-related documents from the US.

Across the continent, authorities have opened investigations, and several public figures have stepped down or lost positions.

Andrew Mountbatten Windsor, younger brother of Britain’s King Charles, formerly known as Prince Andrew, leaves Aylsham Police Station — Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor (formerly known as Prince Andrew), younger brother of Britain’s King Charles, leaves Aylsham Police Station in a vehicle on the day he was arrested on suspicion of misconduct in public office, February 19, 2026 [Phil Noble/Reuters]

What’s happened in Europe?

France has also moved. Former Culture Minister Jack Lang resigned from his role leading a Paris cultural institution after the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs sought to question him over contacts with Epstein.

In Norway, former Prime Minister Thorbjorn Jagland has been charged with “gross corruption” following disclosures that he stayed at Epstein’s properties in New York and Florida and visited his private island, as well as having the late sex offender cover his expenses and those of his family. He faces up to a decade in prison if convicted.

Norway’s ambassador to Jordan, Mona Juul, also resigned after reports that Epstein left $10m to her children in his will.

Meanwhile, Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway apologised after documents showed she had holidayed at one of Epstein’s properties.

In Slovakia, national security adviser Miroslav Lajcak stepped down after disclosures about his association with Epstein surfaced. Prime Minister Robert Fico confirmed he accepted the resignation.

For many in Europe, simply appearing in the files has triggered public scrutiny, investigations or resignations.

Governments have treated the document releases as grounds for formal inquiry, even when criminal liability remains unclear.

INTERACTIVE - WHO WAS EPSTEIN

Why has there been less of a fallout in the United States?

In the US, public anger has simmered for years. Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna and Republican Thomas Massie have led a bipartisan effort to release the files, using the term “Epstein class” to describe a wealthy elite who believe themselves to be above the law.

Yet criminal accountability beyond Epstein and his longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell has remained limited. Maxwell is serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking offences.

FBI documents identify eight alleged co-conspirators, including the former CEO of Victoria’s Secret, Lex Wexner, Epstein’s former secretary Lesley Groff and modelling agent Jean-Luc Brunel, who died in custody in France.

None, apart from Maxwell, has faced a US criminal conviction in connection with Epstein’s trafficking case.

The lack of accountability has spanned Democratic and Republican presidents.

Epstein first avoided federal prosecution in 2007-08 through a controversial non-prosecution agreement reached during the administration of George W Bush.

Subsequent administrations under Barack Obama, Donald Trump’s first terms and Joe Biden did not bring sweeping new prosecutions tied to the broader network named in the files.

There is no sign that any prosecutions are under way, despite Congress forcing Trump to release the files.

Who has been affected in the US?

Several prominent Americans have stepped back from roles or faced reputational damage.

Former US Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers took leave from academic duties at Harvard University after scrutiny over his ties to Epstein.

Lawyer Brad Karp resigned as chair of the law firm Paul Weiss. The National Football League said it would review correspondence between Epstein and New York Giants co-owner Steve Tisch.

Longevity specialist and high-profile physician Peter Attia issued an apology and resigned from his role as chief science officer at David Protein over emails exchanged with Epstein. He also stepped down as a CBS News contributor.

Others named in communications with Epstein have not faced formal charges.

Among them are former White House strategist Steve Bannon, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and technology billionaire Elon Musk, who has said he never visited Epstein’s island despite discussing the possibility in emails.

Former President Bill Clinton has testified before Congress regarding his friendship with Epstein.

Trump, who also knew Epstein for years and appears thousands of times in the released documents, has denied wrongdoing, as has the White House.

World

US Says It Struck Vessel in Caribbean, Killing Three Men

Published

11 hours ago

February 23, 2026

Press Room

US Says It Struck Vessel in Caribbean, Killing Three Men

The U.S. military said on Monday that it struck a vessel in the Caribbean, killing three men, the latest such incident in recent months.

President Donald Trump’s administration has touted its success at taking out suspected drug trafficking vessels in the area.

The military said in a post on X the vessel was “engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

Reuters could not immediately verify the information.

—

(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones and Costas Pitas; Editing by Doina Chiacu)

World

Putin puts ‘nuclear triad’ on fast track, Zelenskyy claims ‘World War 3’ underway

Published

12 hours ago

February 23, 2026

Press Room

Putin puts ‘nuclear triad’ on fast track, Zelenskyy claims ‘World War 3’ underway

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President Vladimir Putin said the development of Russia’s nuclear triad was an “absolute priority” Monday as he outlined the country’s stance on its weapons program, according to reports.

Marking Russia’s Defender of the Fatherland Day, the Russian leader spoke about strengthening the country’s nuclear capabilities before presenting state awards to officers involved in the invasion of Ukraine, the Moscow Times reported.

In his speech, Putin referred to the Russian nuclear triad, which is the country’s three-pronged system for delivering nuclear weapons, designed to ensure a credible second-strike capability.

Putin described its development as “an absolute priority,” saying that it “guarantees Russia’s security and ensures effective strategic deterrence and a balance of forces in the world.”

President Vladimir Putin declares Russia’s nuclear triad development an “absolute priority” on Defender of the Fatherland Day, emphasizing strategic deterrence capabilities. ( Contributor/Getty Images)

Putin also emphasized his country would continue to strengthen its army and navy, “taking into account developments in the international situation, based on combat experience gained,” amid the Russia-Ukraine war.

He added that Russia would also “significantly” enhance the capabilities of other branches of the armed forces, increasing their combat readiness, mobility, and ability to operate in all conditions, even the most challenging.

“And, of course, we will accelerate the development of advanced systems for the armed forces,” he added.

Putin’s remarks came after Russia suspended its participation in the New START Treaty on Feb. 5, 2023, the last remaining nuclear arms control agreement between Moscow and Washington.

RUSSIA FIRES NEW HYPERSONIC MISSILE IN MASSIVE UKRAINE ATTACK, KREMLIN SAYS

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warns the Russian leader has launched “World War III.”

The treaty limited the number of deployed strategic nuclear warheads and delivery systems each country could have.

Russian officials have said they will continue to take a “responsible” approach to managing their strategic nuclear arsenal and would respect previously established limits.

Putin’s announcement came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that the Russian leader had effectively launched “World War III” with his invasion of Ukraine four years ago.

“I believe that Putin has already started it. The question is how much territory he will be able to seize and how to stop him… Putin will not stop at Ukraine,” Zelenskyy told the BBC in an interview Feb. 23.

RUSSIA SHIFTS FROM TALK TO ACTION, TARGETING NATO HOMELAND AMID FEARS OF GLOBAL WAR

Smoke rises over the Kyiv skyline after a Russian attack, Monday, July 8, 2024. Russian forces launched multiple ballistic and cruise missiles against Ukrainian targets on Monday, Ukraine’s air force said, with explosions felt and heard across the capital, Kyiv. (AP Photo/ Evgeniy Maloletka)

Zelenskyy described the war as part of Putin’s broader attempt to impose a “different way of life” on the world.

“Stopping Putin today and preventing him from occupying Ukraine is a victory for the whole world,” he said.

However, when asked about the possibility of ceding the embattled Donbas region to Moscow as part of a peace deal, he warned that Russia would likely rebuild its military strength within “no more than a couple of years” and launch another invasion.

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“Where would he go next? We do not know, but that he would want to continue [the war] is a fact,” Zelenskyy said.

Emma Bussey is a breaking news writer for Fox News Digital. Before joining Fox, she worked at The Telegraph with the U.S. overnight team, across desks including foreign, politics, news, sport and culture.