🔥 Death count in Northern California wildfire zone rises to 4

Two more bodies were found within the burn zone of a huge Northern California wildfire, raising the death toll to four in the state’s largest blaze of the year, authorities said Tuesday.

Search teams discovered the additional bodies Monday at separate residences along State Route 96, the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. Two bodies were also found found Sunday inside a charred vehicle in the driveway of a home near the tiny unincorporated community of Klamath River.

Scientists have said climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme and wildfires more frequent and destructive.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

☀️ At least 14 heat deaths in Oregon after hot spell

Oregon authorities are investigating four additional deaths potentially linked to last week’s scorching heat wave, bringing the total number of suspected hyperthermia deaths to 14. Temperatures neared the triple digits nearly all of last week in the Portland area, prompting officials to open emergency overnight shelters and cooling stations.

The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning for both the Portland and Seattle regions lasting through late Sunday evening. Temperatures started to cool off on Monday as colder air from the Pacific blows in.

About 800 people died in Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia during that heat wave, which hit in late June and early July of 2021. Climate change is fueling longer heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, a region where weeklong heat spells were historically rare, according to climate experts.

Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗳 Kansas Voters Reject Amendment to Strip State Abortion Rights

By nearly a 2-1 margin, Kansas residents heading to the polls Wednesday declined to reverse a 2019 ruling by the Kansas Supreme Court establishing the right to abortion.

The vote is a major repudiation of recent legislative moves curtailing reproductive rights – most notably the Supreme Court’s June decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.

One middle-aged woman who brought her 16-year-old daughter to the polling station reportedly told the AP that she wanted her child “to have the same rights [her] mother has had most of her life.”

The proposed amendment was sponsored by Value Them Both, a coalition led by Kansans for Life, the Kansas Catholic Conference and Kansas Family Voice. One of the lawyers responsible for crafting the failed constitutional amendment reportedly described the measure as an attempt to keep Kansas from becoming an “unlimited destination for abortion.”

Subscribe to @SputnikInt