#drought

#drought

In 2020, Microsoft President Brad Smith announced that the company would reduce its water consumption and even become "water positive" by 2030. This means that Microsoft would replenish more water than it consumes. At the time, this goal seemed achievable, but the rapid rise of generative AI has completely changed the playing field. The construction of new data centers has accelerated, and with it the need for water for cooling.

In the slanting, late-afternoon summer sun, the fields around the small Australian town of Ouyen almost 450km north-west of Melbourne turn the colour of honey. The edges shimmer with silver, that old cruel trick of feigning water where it hasn't rained for weeks. Summer is always hot out here in the sparse, flat Mallee, but this year is shaping up to be particularly harsh.

The Trump administration is pressuring Mexico with more tariffs to force its southern neighbor to settle its water debt of nearly one billion cubic meters, of which Mexico has committed to delivering 249 million before the end of January. Meanwhile, the high demand for water from the agricultural sector is forcing President Claudia Sheinbaum to perform a balancing act to avoid jeopardizing access to water for irrigation systems in the north of the country.

Air pollution has reached "alarming" levels in the Iranian capital, Tehran, leading authorities to close schools and universities and ban truck travel in the region in the latest environmental crisis to strike the Middle East nation. The Air Quality Index in Tehran and surrounding cities on November 29 climbed to between 170 and 200 -- considered to be "unhealthy" for all age groups, Iranian media reported.

The first recorded death from West Nile virus this year in L.A. County was confirmed Friday by the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. The individual, whose details have been kept anonymous, was hospitalized in the San Fernando Valley for neurological illness caused by the mosquito-borne virus. In Southern California, October is the middle of mosquito season. Across Los Angeles County, 14 West Nile virus infections have been documented in 2025; half have been in the San Fernando Valley.

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Rising pressure on local water infrastructure, with prolonged drought, declining inflows and rapid population growth were the focus of a recent Urban Land Institute Austin panel. Speakers called attention to ongoing water policy shortfalls at the state and local levels and warned that continued development could outpace available supply unless legislative and planning reforms are adopted.

The newly discovered tombs are believed to date back to the Hellenistic or Hellenistic-Seleucid period. Archaeologists in drought-hit Iraq have discovered 40 ancient tombs after water levels in the country's largest reservoir declined, according to an antiquities official. The tombs, believed to be more than 2,300 years old, were unearthed at the edges of the Mosul Dam reservoir in the Khanke region of Duhok province in the country's north.

Researchers have now discovered that between 870 and 1100 CE, there were eight extreme drought events on the Yucatan Peninsula, one of the core areas of Mayan civilization.

South Florida is currently under a heat advisory due to feels-like temperatures exceeding 100 degrees, with peak heat index values expected to reach 105 to 110 degrees.