Month: June 2020

“We are facing a critical situation,” said Interior MInister Mario Durán. SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — The first tropical storm of the Eastern Pacific season flooded parts of Central America Sunday. According to Noticias El Salvador, Interior Minister Mario Duran said at least 14 people were dead and four others were still missing as of Sunday evening. President Nayib Bukele decreed a 15-day state of emergency to deal with the rains that began pounding the…

This spring, as a global pandemic promised historic suffering and economic ruin, Texas officials reached for unfamiliar tools. They wove together some protections for the vulnerable, expanding unemployment benefits and child care subsidies, limiting evictions, utility shutoffs and debt collections. As summer approaches with no cure for the virus and Texas businesses reopen to diminished profits, many of the threads in that makeshift safety net are being snipped. The dead top 1,600; the jobless exceed 2 million. The state…

Robin Rokobauer doesn’t like to chance it. When there’s a hurricane, she almost always evacuates. Rokobauer lives in Cocoa Beach, Fla., on a barrier island between the Atlantic Ocean and 153-mile-long Indian River Lagoon. Her mother is 93. “She’s got to have flushing toilets,” Rokobauer says of her mother. “She’s got to have fresh water. She’s just got some physical needs that require that.” But this year Rokobauer is thinking hard about her hurricane plan….