Massive Sahara dust cloud is cloaking the Caribbean on its way to U.S.
A massive plume of Saharan dust is covering the Caribbean as it makes its way toward to the United States, where it is expected to impact the Gulf region and other areas.
Dust was covering Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic and other parts of the region on Tuesday, according to CBS Miami's NEXT Weather radar. The plume was forecast to move northwest and reach Florida mid-week, then hit other states including Georgia, the Carolinas, Texas and Louisiana by Friday.
A dust plume from Africa already made its way to Florida over the weekend, CBS Orlando affiliate WKMG reported. Radar showed dust lingering over the state on Monday.
By mid-week, a larger plume will be over Florida, affecting air quality in the state. It will then flow northward, radar shows, more widely affecting southeastern U.S. states and the Gulf region.
Dust from Africa typically move across the Atlantic every year. It is known the Saharan Air Layer, and dust activity tends to peak from late June to the middle of August, meteorologist Jason Dunion told NOAA's National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service in 2020. New dust plume "outbreaks" can be seen every few days and reach as far west as Texas.
As dust hits the U.S. this week, air quality is also being impacted in some states by wildfire smoke from Canada, where more than 100 fires were burning "out of control" on Tuesday, according to the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center.
January 6 defendant refuses Trump's pardon
Everything we know about the Boulder attack on Israeli hostage march
Exclusive discounts from CBS Mornings Deals
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Gaza doctors give their own blood to patients after scores gunned down seeking aid
By Olivia Le Poidevin GENEVA (Reuters) - Doctors in the Gaza Strip are donating their own blood to save their patients after scores of Palestinians were gunned down while trying to get food aid, the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Thursday. Around 100 MSF staff protested outside the UN headquarters in Geneva against an aid distribution system in Gaza run by an Israeli-backed private company, which has led to chaotic scenes of mass carnage. "People need the basics of also need it in dignity," MSF Switzerland's director general, Stephen Cornish, told Reuters at the protest. "If you're fearing for your life, running with packages being mowed down, this is just something that is completely beyond everything we've ever seen," he said. "These attacks have killed were left to bleed out on the ground." Cornish said staff at one of the hospitals where MSF operates had to give blood as most Palestinians are now too poorly nourished to donate. Israel allowed the private Gaza Humanitarian Foundation to begin food distribution in Gaza last week, after having completely shut the Gaza Strip to all supplies since the beginning of March. Gaza authorities say at least 102 Palestinians were killed and nearly 500 wounded trying to get aid from the food distribution sites in the first eight days. Eyewitnesses have said Israeli forces fired on crowds. The Israeli military said Hamas militants were to blame for opening fire, though it acknowledged that on Tuesday, when at least 27 people died, that its troops had fired at "suspects" who approached their positions. The United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution on Wednesday supported by all other Council members, which would have called for an "immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire" in Gaza and unhindered access for aid.
New York Times
21 minutes ago
- New York Times
Four States Ask F.D.A. to Lift Special Restrictions on Abortion Pill
In a strategy aimed at countering efforts to further restrict the abortion pill mifepristone, attorneys general of four states that support abortion rights on Thursday asked the Food and Drug Administration to do the opposite and lift the most stringent remaining restrictions on the pill. The petition filed by Massachusetts, New York, California and New Jersey might seem surprising given the opposition to abortion expressed by Trump administration officials. But the attorneys general consider it a move that would require the F.D.A. to acknowledge extensive scientific research that has consistently found mifepristone safe and effective, said an official with the Massachusetts attorney general's office who worked on the filing and asked not to be named in order to share background information. It would also prevent the F.D.A. from changing mifepristone regulations while the petition is pending. The petition notes that at a May senate hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the health and human services secretary, responded to questions by Senator Josh Hawley, Republican of Missouri, who opposes abortion, by saying he had ordered the F.D.A. to do a 'complete review' of mifepristone. 'We want to make sure that when F.D.A. is making these decisions that they have all the data in front of them, all of the really powerful data that show that mifepristone is safe' the Massachusetts official said. The F.D.A. is required to respond within 180 days by granting or denying the request, or saying it needs more time. In its responses, the agency must document its position, which could be useful in lawsuits, including one that the four states could file if their petition is denied. Mifepristone, which blocks a hormone necessary for pregnancy development, was approved for abortion in America in 2000. The F.D.A. imposed an additional regulatory framework called Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy, or REMS, on mifepristone. That framework has been used for only about 300 drugs, currently covering only about 60 medications. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fox News
21 minutes ago
- Fox News
Migrant deported to third country returned to US after Trump admin yields to judge's order
A Guatemalan man who was deported to Mexico by the Trump administration was returned to the U.S. this week, his lawyers confirmed to Fox News on Thursday, marking the first known instance of the Trump administration complying with a judge's orders to return an individual removed from the U.S. based on erroneous information. The individual, identified only as O.C.G, was returned to the U.S. via commercial flight, lawyers confirmed, after being deported to Mexico in March. The news comes one week after lawyers for the Justice Department told U.S. District Judge Brian Murphy that they were working to charter a plane to secure the return of the individual, identified only as O.C.G., to U.S. soil. Murphy had ruled that O.C.G., a Guatemalan migrant, had been deported to Mexico earlier this year without due process and despite his stated fears of persecution, and ordered the Trump administration to facilitate his return. Additionally, Murphy told laywers for the administration that O.C.G. had not been given the chance to contest his removal to a country where he could face threats of torture, a right afforded under U.S. and international law. O.C.G. was previously held for ransom and raped in Mexico but was not afforded the chance to assert those fears prior to his removal, Murphy noted in his order, citing submissions from O.C.G.'s attorneys. "In general, this case presents no special facts or legal circumstances, only the banal horror of a man being wrongfully loaded onto a bus and sent back to a country where he was allegedly just raped and kidnapped," Murphy said earlier this month, noting that the removal process "lacked any semblance of due process." "The return of O.C.G. poses a vanishingly small cost to make sure we can still claim to live up to that ideal," Murphy said in his order. Lawyers for the Trump administration told the court last week that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations Phoenix Field Office made contact over the weekend with O.C.G.'s attorneys and are "currently working with ICE Air to bring O.C.G. back to the United States on an Air Charter Operations (ACO) flight return leg." That appears to have happened, and O.C.G. was flown via commercial airline to the U.S. on Wednesday. The news comes amid a broader court fight centered on Trump's use of the 1798 Alien Enemies Act – an 18th-century wartime law it invoked earlier this year to deport certain migrants more quickly. Many were sent to CECOT, El Salvador's maximum-security prison. To date, the Trump administration has not complied with federal court orders to facilitate the return of those individuals to the U.S., even individuals who were deported in what the administration has acknowledged was an administrative error. Unlike the migrants at CECOT, however, O.C.G. had not been detained in Mexico. The Trump administration did not immediately respond to Fox News' request for comment. They did not immediately respond to questions about whether the administration plans to follow suit in other cases in which a federal judge ordered the administration to return an individual deemed to have been wrongfully deported. The news comes just hours after U.S. District Judge James Boasberg ordered the Trump administration to provide all migrants removed to CECOT under the Alien Enemies Act an opportunity to seek habeas relief to contest their removal, as well as the opportunity to challenge their alleged gang status, which was the basis for their removal under the law. Judge Boasberg also gave the Trump administration one week to submit to the court information explaining how it plans to facilitate the habeas relief to migrants currently being held at CECOT. That ruling is almost certain to provoke a high-stakes legal standoff with the administration, and comes as Trump officials have railed against Judge Boasberg and others who have ruled in ways seen as unfavorable to the administration as so-called "activist judges." Trump called for Boasberg's impeachment earlier this year, prompting Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts to issue a rare public statement of rebuke. "America's asylum system was never intended to be used as a de facto amnesty program or a catch-all, get-out-of-deportation-free card," DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement over the weekend.
