News Information and Media Site: The devastating toll of the mega heat dome

THE BIG STORY

The mega heat dome over the Pacific Northwest has brought death, fire, and misery

Last week, all over the Pacific Northwest and into Canada, many cities broke their all-time temperature records after an extraordinary heat wave. The toll on the corner of the continent was devastating.

In British Columbia alone, at least 500 heat-related deaths were recorded. In Oregon, 95 deaths have been attributed to scorching temperatures, as well as about 20 in Washington. A Vancouver police spokesperson said, "It is typical for three to four sudden death calls to come in each day in the city. But to have 53 in one day is unprecedented … it is truly gut-wrenching."

It's a region of North America that is particularly ill-equipped to handle extreme heat, and authorities struggle to respond to thousands of emergency calls, hundreds of deaths, and explosive wildfires. The unprecedented event is also a sign of more danger to come as climate change leads to more extreme weather across the country.

Scientists and health experts have attributed the record-setting temperatures to the climate crisis — and warn that it's only going to get worse going forward.

With the temperature well over 100 degrees, firefighters in Spokane, Washington, check on the welfare of a man in Mission Park on June 29, 2021. Colin Mulvany / AP

STAYING ON TOP OF THIS

The search for bodies in the Surfside building collapse

"You're not on a pile of debris — you're in somebody's house." That's what Dino Zeljkovic, a 33-year-old rescue specialist, told us about his current operation. Zeljkovic is part of the rescue team at the Surfside building collapse.

Carefully, "piece by piece," they're moving the rubble. It's now been nearly two weeks since Champlain Towers South, a high-rise condo right on the beachfront, collapsed in the middle of the night, devastating the small, heavily Jewish community of Surfside.

Nearly 120 people are still missing, suspected to be in the rubble. No tragedy is easy to wrap your head around, but this disaster feels particularly unfathomable. Read this moving report from Amber Jamieson and Lissandra Villa.

Over the weekend, four more bodies were found after the standing tower in Surfside was demolished. That brings the total number of dead to 28.

A view of the partially collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo July 3. Michael Reaves / Getty Images

SNAPSHOTS

A gas leak caused a fire in the Gulf of Mexico and the videos are unreal. The fire broke out in the southern waters of the Gulf of Mexico after an underwater pipeline leaked. Videos of flames spewing out of the ocean went viral, as the internet reacted with horror.

An NHL player has died after being hit by fireworks on the 4th of July. Matiss Kivlenieks, a 24-year-old goaltender with the Columbus Blue Jackets, was sitting in a hot tub at a private home in Michigan, when a nearby firework tilted and headed toward him and struck him in the chest.

Sprinter Sha'Carri Richardson tested positive for cannabis. Richardson will receive a one-month ban. The test also disqualified her from running the 100-meter race at the Tokyo Olympics. In an interview with NBC, the 21-year-old confirmed that she had tested positive after she used cannabis, which she used after hearing that her mother had died.

ADVANCING THE GENRE

Netflix's newest true crime show wrestles with the allure of the dead white woman

While there's no decrease in audience interest in true crime, we're in an era where the genre is being reframed in light of how we think about which victims get attention, and how police treat these cases. So now, good true crime has to balance meaningful analysis and re-creating the original tension around the crime.

Netflix's newest offering, Sophie: A Murder in West Cork, is clearly in one of the more enduring categories of crime: solving the mysterious demise of a beautiful white woman.

Despite its shortcomings, there's a lot to be said for the show. As Alessa Dominguez writes, the series "shows glimmers of originality in its meta approach to the genre's seemingly endless appeal, exploring how these cases mushroom in the media and attain the status of town folklore."

ON THE ROAD AGAIN

My annual road trips show me how men can build intimacy

For eight years, I've been going on road trips with three of my close guy friends and it's really deepened our relationships. I wrote about how the road trips have changed, and changed us in the process.

A sample from the piece: "During our first trip, one of us drank enough bourbon to run into the woods in East Nashville, screaming (no one is sure about what, exactly). Eight road trips later, the drinking is intermixed with sharing new insights we might've picked up from our therapists."

Remember there is power in holding your boundaries,

Elamin

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