Heavy monsoon rains that triggered flooding and landslides in Pakistan this summer have killed over 900 people, including 326 children, and displaced tens of thousands, Pakistani officials say.
The big picture: Millions have been affected by the rains and flooding, which have destroyed more than 95,000 homes and damaged hundreds of thousands more, according to the UN. It's one of the worst monsoon seasons Pakistan has seen in recent years, with last month being the wettest July since 1961, per Reuters.
Wall Street giants have a Texas-sized problem: making good on flashy vows to make clients' investments greener while limiting political and financial blowback from red states.
Catch up fast: On Wednesday, Texas Republican Comptroller Glenn Hegar released a list of 10 companies and 348 investment funds that will be barred from doing business with the state because they “boycott energy companies.”
Billionaire Marc Lore is fleshing out his plan to build a utopian city called Telosa for 5 million people in the American desert — and he's not the only one with such ambitions.
Why it matters: There are about a dozen projects worldwide to create sustainable, hypermodern cities-from-scratch. While they may never come to fruition, the proposals themselves hint at what the city of the future might look like.
California is poised to ban the sale of gas-powered vehicles starting in 2035 in a massive push toward EV adoption being heralded as a major win in the fight against climate change.
Why it matters: The plan would effectively start the clock on what would be a huge challenge for an industry already facing production shortfalls, stressed supply chains and unforeseen cost challenges for electric vehicles.
The White House is more than happy to point out gasoline prices have been falling for over two months. But Democrats aren't out of the political woods on energy costs.
The big picture: Crude prices — the biggest variable in gas prices — have regained ground over the last couple of weeks after falling steeply in recent months.
An array of groups is pressing the Transportation Department to ensure federally funded EV charging stations are accessible to drivers who lack contactless credit cards and face other barriers, Ben writes.
Why it matters: Operating regulations risk freezing out people in low-income and communities of color who lack banking services or are "underbanked," the National Consumer Law Center warns.
The dugong, a gentle sea animal that lived in China's southern waters for hundreds of years, is now functionally extinct in China, per research by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Driving the news: There have been no records of evidence of dugongs presence in China since 2008, making it likely "that this is the first functional extinction of a large mammal in China’s coastal waters," per ZSL.
Celebrities including Kim and Kourtney Kardashian, Kevin Hart and Sylvester Stallone have been served with notices for exceeding their monthly water budgets at least four times, according to officials in California.
Driving the news: They're among more than 1,600 people who have exceeded their water budgets by 150% as the state faces a water and drought crisis exacerbated by climate change, Las Virgenes Municipal Water District spokesperson Mike McNutt told Axios on Tuesday evening.
