Toxic algae blooms detected in Lake Powell
The cyanotoxin levels are at the high end of safe exposure, posing risks such as rashes, organ failure, and potentially death for humans and animals through ingestion or inhalation during recreational activities.
Although Lake Powell remains open, park officials advise visitors to avoid swimming in water with visible algal blooms and to refrain from boating on scummy water to prevent toxin exposure.
Harmful algal blooms, like the one at Lake Powell, are becoming more frequent and persistent due to climate change, warmer water temperatures, and nutrient run-off.
This issue is not isolated, with similar blooms affecting the recreation area last autumn and increasingly plaguing other bodies of water, such as Lake Erie, where they are lasting longer than before.
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Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Texas flash flooding: 28 children among at least 82 killed; DNA being collected to identify the dead
Death toll rises to at least 82 The number of those killed in the floods is 82, but officials have repeatedly warned that this figure is likely to change, as rescuers work night and day to find survivors and recover bodies. Here are the deaths per county: Kerr: 68 Williamson: 1 Burnet: 4 Tom Green: 1 Travis County: 6 Kendall: 2 George W. Bush and Barack Obama send prayers to Texas Two former presidents have offered prayers for the families in Texas. George W. Bush, who served as governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000, said he and his wife are "holding up our fellow Texans who are hurting." Laura Bush, his wife, used to be a counsellor at Camp Mystic, where 27 people died in the floods. President Barack Obama also shared heartfelt condolences, writing in a post on X that the flash flooding is "absolutely heartbreaking." Watch: US Coast Guard rescues people stuck in flooded mobile home The Coast Guard helped rescue people in flood-affected areas of Texas, including assisting four people from a mobile home community in Leander. White House hit backs at 'disgusting' claims about weather service staffing The White House has hit back at criticism that the National Weather Service was not properly staffed. Officials have said forecasts underestimated the amount of rain, with questions being asked about what warnings were sent out to residents. Critics blamed cuts by the Trump administration. Donald Trump's administration has already ordered 800 job cuts at the science and climate organisation NOAA, the parent organisation of the National Weather Service, which predicts and warns about extreme weather like the Texas floods. A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress. But Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told Sky's US partner NBC News the accusations were "disgusting" lies to target political opponents. "False claims about the NWS have been repeatedly debunked by meteorologists, experts, and other public reporting," Jackson said. "The NWS did their job, even issuing a flood watch more than 12 hours in advance." Texas National Guard rescues 520 people It conducted 361 air evacuations with UH-60 Black Hawks and 159 ground rescues employing various vehicles and assets, the Texas military department said on X. New flash flood warning for Kerr County The flash flood warning is in place until 6.30pm local time (00.30am UK time). This comes after the governor urged drivers to be "extraordinarily cautious" for the next 48 hours due to more rainfall potentially causing further "rapid flash flooding events" - see our post at 21.03 for more. President says he will 'probably' visit Texas on Friday Donald Trump has said he will "probably" visit Texas on Friday, following the flash flooding that killed 79 people in the state. "We want to leave a little time," he told reporters this afternoon. "I would have done it today, but we would just be in their way, probably Friday." He said he has been in touch with the Texas governor. The president was also asked if he plans to continue with cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The US government agency coordinates the disaster response when state and local authorities are overwhelmed in the wake of a situation like the flooding in Texas. But last month, Trump said he intended to phase out FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season, saying states should be able to handle emergency resources on a local level. "We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level," he told reporters in June. "A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can't handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn't be governor." Today, when asked about the planned cuts, he simply said: "FEMA is something we can talk about later, but right now they are busy working, so we will leave it at that." Mayor shares aerial images of flooding damage Joe Herring Jr., the Mayor of Kerrville, has shared images from a helicopter trip he took yesterday to survey the damage. Number of dead is now 79 - but that figure is still likely to change There are now 79 people dead across Texas following the flash flooding on 4 July. Below are the numbers in each county - Kerr county remains the worst affected, with 27 dead at Camp Mystic alone. Kerr: 68 Williamson: 1 Burnet: 4 Tom Green: 1 Kendall: 1 Travis: 4 Officials have repeatedly warned that this figure is likely to change (and it has changed throughout the day), as rescuers work night and day to find survivors and recover bodies. 'We know questions are being asked about emergency notifications' There are still ten children and one camp counsellor missing from Camp Mystic, the county's sheriff has said. Sheriff Larry Leitha says there have been 68 deaths in Kerr County, including 40 adults and 28 children. Of those, eighteen adults and ten children have yet to be identified. Officials will undertake a full review of warning systems in place. "We know questions are being asked about the emergency notifications," city manager Dalton Rice adds. "We will take clear steps to strengthen future preparedness," he said. The next update from Kerr County officials will take place at 4pm tomorrow UK time (10am local time), unless there is a "major update" before then, officials said as they drew the press conference to a close.
The Guardian
2 hours ago
- The Guardian
‘Like working in a volcano': stories from six countries in Europe on a day of extreme heat
Hundreds of millions of people across Europe suffered an extreme heatwave this week, with temperatures smashing records as the continent sweltered. With the human-caused climate emergency pushing the mercury ever higher, early in the summer Europe is experiencing troubling temperatures. From an Italian chef who works in a 60C kitchen to a homeless Dutch man given shelter in a basement, here is the story of how people across Europe coped, told over a single day this past week: Ruth Michaelson Onur Yıldırım woke up early on Tuesday morning and had a cold shower. If he starts the day any later, or without the shower, he'll be 'tired, depressed, and sweaty' all day. With a 12-hour shift of taxi driving ahead of him, he wanted to get on the road quickly. The temperature was already above 20C, and by the end of the day, Turkish firefighters across the country would have fought back multiple wildfires. Yıldırım is lucky – his car has functioning air conditioning, and many of his customers expect he'll use it. But he knows from previous summers that weeks of extreme temperature changes throughout the day can make him sick. Lorenzo Tondo In the searing heart of inland Sicily, Luigi Randazzo, 47, a sous-chef at a restaurant was plating a dish of mussels. 'I was working next to the kettle, where the thermometer read 60 degrees,' he said. 'The fryer was on. So was the oven. It felt like working inside a volcano.' While diners waited in the cool comfort of air conditioning, Randazzo moved from burner to burner in the kitchen, clad in a chef's uniform soaked with sweat. 'It felt like someone had thrown a bucket of water in my face,' he said. 'We have an air conditioner in the kitchen, but it's completely useless when all the machines are running.' In 2021, temperatures in Sicily hit a record 48.8C (119.8F). Randazzo works in the part of the island where the desert is slowly advancing across the countryside, and where, in the last six months of 2023, just 150mm of rain fell. On Tuesday, Randazzo said he was dreaming of going home and taking an ice-cold shower. But the lunch service had just begun. ''My legs were trembling with exhaustion. But you know at that moment you can't stop – not even for a second,' he added. 'That hour felt like an entire summer.' Senay Boztas It was early afternoon in Amsterdam, and Karim Taif, 46, tried to escape the heat at a shelter for homeless people in the city. 'It's cool here and a good place,' said Taif. The well-known shelter, called De Kloof, is in the basement of a historic canal house and is open until 6pm to offer shade, showers, refreshments and sunscreen to the homeless community. For the first time, the city now has a 'summer heat ruling' extending the opening hours of shelters. Taif, who was born in Morocco, grew up in Amsterdam and once worked as a barman in Switzerland. But he struggled to find housing in the Netherlands after returning in 2021 and in October, he said, he crept into a boat tied to a dock. He was found by the owner, but they agreed to let him stay. 'In the winter, it is very cold and in the summer it is so hot, you have to get out of it very early,' said Taif. 'Everything is getting hotter and hotter,' said Taif, smoking a cigarette in the garden of the shelter. 'The south of Europe is drying up … and it feels like the Sahara is moving ever closer.' Ajit Niranjan Sven, 58, had felt the heat creep up over the last two weeks as he rewired a telecommunications box. By Tuesday afternoon, it had hit 33C, and would rise to a sweltering 37C the following day. 'I've set this up to meet my needs,' he said from under a bright green umbrella. 'I've got a coolbox, I avoid working under the blazing sun, and I put a cap on when it hits. Otherwise, it's a case of not moving too fast.' German employees do not have a legal right to take time off work in the heat but bosses have a duty of care to their workers. This can mean setting up fans in offices or setting up shade on construction sites. 'For me, the heat is normal,' said Sven, 'but you do have to do things differently.' Jon Henley Built of cast iron and glass in 1866, a couple of decades before the Eiffel Tower, the Marché St Quentin is the largest covered food market in Paris. It was designed to be light and airy in all seasons, but not for 39.3C – which is what the nearby Lariboisière weather station recorded at 5pm on Tuesday. 'It was inhumane, really brutal,' said Sahra Baadache, 27, one of the market's three cheesemongers. 'A sauna. A steam bath. St Quentin is basically a greenhouse and there's no way of ventilating or cooling it down. It was 42C in here by mid-afternoon. People really suffered. Stallholders who live nearby were going home for cold showers.' Cheese and heat do not mix; textures and flavours change irreversibly. Baadache did what she could to save her 150-odd varieties, bringing out only a small fraction of her stock and covering up her two refrigerated display cabinets to keep the cold in. 'They survived, just,' she said. 'But I was a wreck – sweating about my cheeses, and sat behind two fridge motors generating even more heat.' And, of course, there were no customers: 'No one came. So it was like a double punishment.' Ashifa Kassam On Tuesday evening, as most tourists wandered through Madrid's Plaza Mayor wearing as little clothing as possible, David, 40, climbed into a furry gorilla suit, layered with a Real Madrid shirt. 'I'm soaked through with sweat,' the street performer said. 'It's even hotter inside the suit, as the inner layer is canvas.' Originally from Peru, he had started the job three months ago, perspiring his way through Spain's hottest June on record and now the first heatwave of the summer. 'I make enough to eat,' he said. While the beating sun meant most tourists were huddled under the shade cast by the plaza's arcade or under the parasols and misting systems of the plaza's restaurants and cafes, Daniel hovered in the middle of the shadeless plaza, aiming to attract attention. Every now and then, he was successful, with a trickle of tourists darting towards him just long enough to snap a photo. As temperatures climbed this week, he had done what he could to mitigate the heat, shifting his start time to early evening in the hope that the one- or two-degree drop in temperatures would offer some respite. A quick cold shower, before and after his shift, had also become a necessity. 'I play football, so that helps my body deal with the heat of the summer,' he said. 'But a job's a job – I have no other choice.'
Sky News
2 hours ago
- Sky News
Texas flash flooding: 21 children among at least 82 killed; DNA being collected to identify the dead
Death toll rises to at least 82 The number of those killed in the floods is 82, but officials have repeatedly warned that this figure is likely to change, as rescuers work night and day to find survivors and recover bodies. Here are the deaths per county: Kerr: 68 Williamson: 1 Burnet: 4 Tom Green: 1 Travis County: 6 Kendall: 2 George W. Bush and Barack Obama send prayers to Texas Two former presidents have offered prayers for the families in Texas. George W. Bush, who served as governor of Texas from 1995 to 2000, said he and his wife are "holding up our fellow Texans who are hurting." Laura Bush, his wife, used to be a counsellor at Camp Mystic, where 27 people died in the floods. President Barack Obama also shared heartfelt condolences, writing in a post on X that the flash flooding is "absolutely heartbreaking." Watch: US Coast Guard rescues people stuck in flooded mobile home The Coast Guard helped rescue people in flood-affected areas of Texas, including assisting four people from a mobile home community in Leander. White House hit backs at 'disgusting' claims about weather service staffing The White House has hit back at criticism that the National Weather Service was not properly staffed. Officials have said forecasts underestimated the amount of rain, with questions being asked about what warnings were sent out to residents. Critics blamed cuts by the Trump administration. Donald Trump's administration has already ordered 800 job cuts at the science and climate organisation NOAA, the parent organisation of the National Weather Service, which predicts and warns about extreme weather like the Texas floods. A 30% cut to its budget is also in the pipeline, subject to approval by Congress. But Abigail Jackson, a White House spokesperson, told Sky's US partner NBC News the accusations were "disgusting" lies to target political opponents. "False claims about the NWS have been repeatedly debunked by meteorologists, experts, and other public reporting," Jackson said. "The NWS did their job, even issuing a flood watch more than 12 hours in advance." Texas National Guard rescues 520 people It conducted 361 air evacuations with UH-60 Black Hawks and 159 ground rescues employing various vehicles and assets, the Texas military department said on X. New flash flood warning for Kerr County The flash flood warning is in place until 6.30pm local time (00.30am UK time). This comes after the governor urged drivers to be "extraordinarily cautious" for the next 48 hours due to more rainfall potentially causing further "rapid flash flooding events" - see our post at 21.03 for more. President says he will 'probably' visit Texas on Friday Donald Trump has said he will "probably" visit Texas on Friday, following the flash flooding that killed 79 people in the state. "We want to leave a little time," he told reporters this afternoon. "I would have done it today, but we would just be in their way, probably Friday." He said he has been in touch with the Texas governor. The president was also asked if he plans to continue with cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. The US government agency coordinates the disaster response when state and local authorities are overwhelmed in the wake of a situation like the flooding in Texas. But last month, Trump said he intended to phase out FEMA after the 2025 hurricane season, saying states should be able to handle emergency resources on a local level. "We want to wean off of FEMA, and we want to bring it down to the state level," he told reporters in June. "A governor should be able to handle it, and frankly, if they can't handle it, the aftermath, then maybe they shouldn't be governor." Today, when asked about the planned cuts, he simply said: "FEMA is something we can talk about later, but right now they are busy working, so we will leave it at that." Mayor shares aerial images of flooding damage Joe Herring Jr., the Mayor of Kerrville, has shared images from a helicopter trip he took yesterday to survey the damage. Number of dead is now 79 - but that figure is still likely to change There are now 79 people dead across Texas following the flash flooding on 4 July. Below are the numbers in each county - Kerr county remains the worst affected, with 27 dead at Camp Mystic alone. Kerr: 68 Williamson: 1 Burnet: 4 Tom Green: 1 Kendall: 1 Travis: 4 Officials have repeatedly warned that this figure is likely to change (and it has changed throughout the day), as rescuers work night and day to find survivors and recover bodies. 'We know questions are being asked about emergency notifications' There are still ten children and one camp counsellor missing from Camp Mystic, the county's sheriff has said. Sheriff Larry Leitha says there have been 68 deaths in Kerr County, including 40 adults and 28 children. Of those, eighteen adults and ten children have yet to be identified. Officials will undertake a full review of warning systems in place. "We know questions are being asked about the emergency notifications," city manager Dalton Rice adds. "We will take clear steps to strengthen future preparedness," he said. The next update from Kerr County officials will take place at 4pm tomorrow UK time (10am local time), unless there is a "major update" before then, officials said as they drew the press conference to a close.
