People & Population

"Rising temperatures are strengthening the destructive force of wildfires, hurricanes and floods, putting tens of millions of Americans at risk."

"In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from the Eastern Shore farm where she was enslaved. Over the next several years, she would return 13 times, rescuing more than 70 enslaved relatives and friends, and inspiring many others to find their own path to freedom. She has become a hero, with two national parks established in her honor, several biographies about her feats, and a major motion picture about to be released about her life."

"Pigeon Creek flows through a narrow mountain hollow along a string of coal mining communities, its water trickling under the reds and yellows of the changing fall foliage. The tranquil scene belies the devastation the creek delivered one night a decade ago as heavy rain fell on soggy soil and thousands of acres of nearby strip mines."

"A pollution-plagued oil refinery that shut down in 2012 is now on the verge of reopening in the U.S. Virgin Islands, thanks to the aid of EPA chief Andrew Wheeler."

"For many people, turning on the tap or flushing the toilet is something we take for granted. But a report released Monday, called "Closing the Water Access Gap in the United States," shows that more than 2 million Americans live without these conveniences and that Native Americans are more likely to have trouble accessing water than any other group."

"For more than 60 years, one section of Enbridge’s elaborate network of pipelines carrying petroleum across Canada has taken a detour through the Bad River Reservation in northern Wisconsin."

"The Makah are the only Native Americans with a treaty right to hunt whales, but they have not been allowed to do so for 20 years. A recent proposal could change that."

"Craig Bettenhausen is terrified every time it rains. After a storm, the junior warden knows what might await him at North Baltimore’s Church of the Guardian Angel: a putrid stench and gray-brown bubbling waste coating the basement floors."

"It was a display of kindness that should have been heartwarming. Instead, Frederick Douglass Elementary School teacher Alison Marcus just felt queasy."