Editor's note: Read the latest on Hurricane Hilary's forecast here.
Tropical Storm Hilary formed Wednesday off the Southwestern coast of Mexico, and is poised to rapidly intensify into a powerful hurricane through Friday.
Threat level: The storm has the potential to make a rare direct hit, in a weakened form, somewhere between the Baja Peninsula of California and San Diego.
Hawai'i's governor is trying to curb developers from purchasing destroyed lands in Maui as the island reels from the deadliest wildfires in the U.S. in over a century.
The big picture: Concerns are growingthat newly built homes would attract wealthy buyers — exacerbating a housing crisis that has already driven Native Hawaiians and local-born residents out of their land, AP noted.
Jim Skea, the new chair of the influential UN climate science panel, has doubts about the world's ability to meet the Paris Agreement's most ambitious temperature goal, but wants to make it easier for governments to act.
The big picture: In an interview with Axios, Skea said policy makers are making it known that they need more actionable information, at a faster cadence, than what the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has historically produced.
The big picture: The fires that razed much of western Maui and destroyed most of the island's historic town of Lahaina are the most destructive on record in Hawai'i. The Lahaina fire is the deadliest U.S. wildfire since 1918 and many people are still missing.
Authorities in Hawai'i are still searching for survivors of this week's destructive wildfires, which killed at least 106 people and injured dozens more on Maui Island. Officials expect the death toll to rise.
The big picture: The fires are the deadliest in the U.S. in over a century, surpassing the toll from California's 2018 Camp Fire, which killed 85.
Threat level: The National Weather Service has issued excessive heat warnings and heat advisories from California's Central Valley to all of Oregon and Washington state through this week.
Hawai'i's primary energy provider faces at least three lawsuits, two of which seek class action status, after catastrophic wildfires devastated the state, killing at least 99 people and destroying the historic town of Lahaina on Maui.
Why it matters: What caused the wildfires remains unknown, but the lawsuits allege they were ignited by strong winds knocking down Hawaiian Electric's energized power lines.
Nations around the world are looking to unlock the Moon's economic, scientific and geopolitical value.
Why it matters: The Moon could be valuable high ground for the United States, China and other established space powers that see it as a crucial place to further assert dominance in space.
