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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Monster Hurricane Melissa batters Jamaica, the strongest storm of the 2025 Atlantic hurricane season; Trump Administration denies disaster funding to blue states that did not vote for him; PLUS: Billion-dollar weather disasters hit new record the United States... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Storm drenches Central Florida, creating 'particularly dangerous' situation; Trump Transportation secretary says he will pull $160M from California over non-citizen truck licenses; EPA plan to kill a major climate rule is worrying business leaders; Trump offshore drilling plan faces fierce opposition in Congress; Exxon sues California over new climate disclosure laws... PLUS: Ranchers agreed to leave a national park. Then RFK Jr. got involved... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Hurricane Melissa strikes Jamaica, breaking records:
• Live updates: Hurricane Melissa expected to hit Jamaica as its strongest storm since records began (AP):
  
  Hours before the storm, the Jamaican government said it had done all it could to prepare as it warned of catastrophic damage. The streets in the capital, Kingston, remained largely empty except for the lone stray dog crossing puddles and a handful of people walking briskly under tree branches waving in a stiff wind. "There is no infrastructure in the region that can withstand a Category 5," Prime Minister Andrew Holness said. "The question now is the speed of recovery. That’s the challenge."
• Melissa is one of the most powerful hurricanes ever. Here’s how it ranks. (Washington Post)
• Jamaica braces for Cat 5 Hurricane Melissa, Earth’s strongest storm of 2025 (Yale Climate Connections)
• death toll
• Hurricane Hunters Found Something in Melissa’s Eye: Trapped Birds (NY Times)
• Yes, climate change plays a role in Hurricane Melissa's ferocity:
• Climate Change Is 'Increasing Melissa’s Potential Damages By As Much As 50%,' Climate Scientists Say (Weather Channel)
• As the Atlantic Ocean warms, climate change is fueling Hurricane Melissa’s ferocity (AP):
  
  The warming of the world’s oceans caused by climate change helped double Hurricane Melissa’s wind speed in less than 24 hours over the weekend, climate scientists said Monday...A 2023 study had found that Atlantic hurricanes are now more than twice as likely as before to intensify rapidly from minor storms to powerful and catastrophic events.
• Hurricanes are getting so intense, scientists propose a Category 6 (Washington Post, 2/5/2024)
• NOAA, NWS, and Hurricane Hunters working without pay:
• National Hurricane Center Employees Working Through Shutdown Without Pay (NewsRadio WFLA)
• 'Hurricane Hunters' who flew into eye of Melissa had to turn back due to turbulence (Yahoo News)
• Trump denies disaster aid to blue states that did not vote for him:
• Trump gives disaster declarations to Alaska and others but denies Illinois, Vermont and Maryland (AP)
• Trump Approves Disaster Relief—But Just for States That Voted for Him (The New Republic):
  
  Whether or not a state receives federal disaster aid under the Trump administration appears to boil down to their vote in the 2024 presidential election...North Dakota and Nebraska received aid approval to deal with fallout from multiple storms and tornadoes in August. Trump said Thursday he granted North Dakota $3 million, emphasizing on social media that he "won THREE times in 2016, 2020, and 2024."
• Transcript: Trump Nixing Dem Storm Aid Backfires, Screwing MAGA Voters (Greg Sargent, The New Republic)
• Trump administration denies FEMA aid for Western Maryland floods (Washington Post)
• Trump approves disaster declarations for red states, as blue states go without (MSNBC):
  
  The president’s online statement didn’t just announce the relief funding, it also emphasized the number of times he won Missouri’s electoral votes, as if there were some kind of connection between his political support in the state and his eagerness to provide disaster aid.
• Trump denies federal disaster aid for Vermont’s July 2025 flooding (VT Digger)
• Trump Interior Dept. approves drilling in ANWR, again:
• Trump administration finalizes plan to open pristine Alaska wildlife refuge to oil and gas drilling (AP):
  
  The Trump administration on Thursday finalized plans to open the coastal plain of Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to potential oil and gas drilling, renewing a long-simmering debate over whether to drill in one of the nation’s environmental jewels.
• First half of 2025 was the costliest for climate disasters in the U.S.:
• America Had 14 Separate Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters In 2025, Report Finds (Weather Channel)
• Now at Climate Central: U.S. Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters (Climate Central)
• Climate disasters in first half of 2025 costliest ever on record, research shows (Guardian):
  
  "This dataset is simply too important to not be updated, we were getting requests from the private sector, local communities and academia for this information," said Adam Smith, who headed the billion-dollar disaster project at Noaa, before ending his 20-year spell at the agency in May amid a purge of the federal workforce by Trump.
• In First Six Months, Cost of Weather Catastrophes on Pace to Break a Record (NY Times)
• AUDIO: Exiled NOAA Scientists Resurrect Critical Billion-Dollar Disaster Database (The BRAD BLOG)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• Storm Drenches Central Florida, Creating ‘Particularly Dangerous’ Situation (NY Times)
• Trump Transportation secretary says he will pull $160M from California over noncitizen truck licenses (NBC News)
• An EPA plan to kill a major climate rule is worrying business leaders (NY Times)
• Trump offshore drilling plan faces fierce opposition in Congress (E&E News)
• Green groups gird for life in Trump’s crosshairs (E&E News)
• Exxon sues California over new climate disclosure laws (NY Times)
• Ranchers agreed to leave a national park. Then RFK Jr. got involved (E&E News)
• VIDEO: Authors of 'Science Under Siege' warn of concerted effort to discredit science (PBS Newshour)
• Climate change is accelerating, scientists find in 'grim' report (Yale Climate Connections)
• How Trump's War on Climate Science impacts all Americans (Bloomberg)
• Solar Is Liberation (Rolling Stone)
• Governments legally required to address climate change, global court says (Inside Climate News)
• David Attenborough's 'Ocean' is a brutal, beautiful wake-up call from the sea (AP)
• Wall Street Journal: Clean energy transition is unstoppable (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Can we avoid the enshittification of clean-energy tech? (David Roberts, Volts)
• Stop emissions, stop warming: A climate reality check (Dr. Andrew Dessler, Climate Brink)
• Who Will Care for Americans Left Behind by Climate Migration? (Pro Publica)
• Is the Atlantic Overturning Circulation Approaching a Tipping Point? (The Oceanography Society)
• How Oil Companies Manipulate Journalists (Drilled)
• How To Spot 5 Of The Fossil Fuel Industry's Biggest Disinformation Tactics (Guardian)
• The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone (The Atlantic)
• How to electrify your life when you rent (The Verge)
• Complete Series: Farmers Under Attack for Supporting Clean Energy (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Feeling Overwhelmed About Going All-Electric at Home? Here's How to Get Started (Inside Climate News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)

                 

Article Categories: Alaska, Environment, FEMA, Green News, Haiti, Donald Trump, Climate change, Extreme weather, Cuba, Oceans/Sea Level Rise, Dept. of Interior, NOAA/National Weather Service, wildfires, Jamaica, Hurricane Melissa