Smoke from unprecedented wildfires in Canada triggered poor air quality alerts over swaths of the U.S. again on Wednesday, with multiple cities reporting some of the worst air pollution levels of any major city around the world.
The latest: While continuing to choke the Great Lakes region and the upper Midwest Wednesday, the low-lying smoke also drifted southeast and began affecting Ohio Valley and Mid-Atlantic cities.
Heat-related emergency room visits are spiking in Texas, as forecasters warn the dangerously high temperatures will continue to expand into the Lower Mississippi Valley and Mid-South through Thursday.
State of play: Texas saw an average of 837 heat-related emergency department visits per 100,000 from June 18-24 amid ongoing triple-digit temperatures in the record heat wave that's now in its third week — up from 639 visits per 100,000 ER visits for the same period last year, per the CDC.
Hundreds of sea lions and dolphins are washing up dead or sick on California beaches due to a toxic offshore algae blooms, officials warn.
Driving the news: The Marine Mammal Care Center, which serves Los Angeles County, is at full capacity as the nonprofit rescue organization responds to "an unprecedented number of animals" falling ill to a neurotoxin from the bloom, CEO John Warner said at a news conference Tuesday.
The chilly relationship between the U.S. and China on Earthcould raise safety risks in space and the specter of competition on the Moon as both nations aim to send people to the lunar surface in the coming years.
Why it matters: China and the U.S. — the two most dominant players in space today — do not generally collaborate on space research and exploration, and have limited communication in orbit and beyond.
