Climate & environment

June saw at least three drownings in the region. Here’s how to stay safe.

The Office of People’s Counsel, a state agency that represents Maryland utility customers, says more than $700 million a year in gas infrastructure spending by utilities is worsening the energy burden on low-income communities and hampering the state’s efforts to hit ambitious clean energy and emissions reduction targets.

After showers and storms move through the Baltimore region on Sunday, forecasters are predicting sunny skies and temperatures in the 80s on Monday and Tuesday. Intense heat and possibly storms return on the holiday.

The Chesapeake Bay Program has established a “Beyond 2025″ committee to develop recommendations for future cleanup efforts. The committee’s recommendations are expected to be made public in early July and the final report will be delivered near the end of the year.

Maryland has seen two heat-related deaths so far in 2024 — both before 2023 even saw one.

The rule is intended to restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution.

City officials and their lawyers claim global beverage giants PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, along with six other companies, used deceptive business practices and created a public nuisance, while causing harm to people’s health and the environment, according to a lawsuit filed late last week.

Temperatures in the Baltimore-Washington region could climb to the mid to upper 90s, though the humidity could make it feel closer to 100 to 105 degrees.

The decision allows Virginia to study the viability of a winter fishery, but does not automatically create one.

Katie Pumphrey completed a more than 24-mile swim from the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to the Harborplace Amphitheater in the Inner Harbor.

The earthquake was centered in Montgomery County, Maryland, in Spencerville, according to the United States Geological Survey.

The Baltimore area broke at least two heat records last week. This week, conditions should be cooler.

Howard County residents have voted to name a new tunnel-boring machine “Rocky.” Its first order of business is to cut through 5,000 feet of granite, part of an effort to tame floodwaters in Ellicott City.

I joined more than 150 people Sunday as part of the inaugural Harbor Splash organized by the Waterfront Partnership of Baltimore.

Baltimore's Waterfront Partnership is trying to make the Inner Harbor swimmable. More than 150 people jumped in Sunday morning to prove it's possible.

If the weather cooperates, on Tuesday she will enter the bay near the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and swim more than 24 miles to the Harborplace Amphitheater in Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, one of her longest swims ever — a never-before-done swim and the longest anyone has attempted in the harbor in decades.

Cooling centers are being opened across the region this weekend, offering air-conditioned spaces and water. You can check this map to find one in your area.

A wave of extreme heat has come to the region. Here’s how to stay safe.

The National Weather Service for Baltimore-Washington has issued an excessive heat warning for Saturday. The weather service said dangerous heat is possible with heat index values between 105-110 degrees.

The Carlyle Group is funding the largest depot for electric- and hydrogen-powered buses in the U.S. in Montgomery County. Local officials there are doubling down on their efforts to combat climate change.