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The latest on the Key Bridge collapse, New York puts forth legislation to get clean energy projects on the grid and Wisconsin and other states join a federal summer food program to help feed kids across the country.

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Republicans float conspiracy theories on the collapse of Baltimore's Key Bridge, South Carolina's congressional elections will use a map ruled unconstitutional, and the Senate schedules an impeachment trial for Homeland Secretary Mayorkas.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

EPA: More Floods and Higher Heat Will be Deadly for IL

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Friday, July 18, 2008   

Springfield, IL – If the heat doesn't get you, perhaps the flooding will. A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) report analyzes how climate change will affect public health and lifestyles. It predicts more illness and death in Illinois and the surrounding region - a combination of higher temperatures, increased flooding, and poor air quality.

Dr. George Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, says this is a first-of-its kind federal document that details of how climate change could affect people's health and lifestyles.

"There hasn't been a lot of discussion about the actual things that affect people. So, what we're hoping this report will do is begin to raise this as an important issue."

The report stops short of making any recommendations for reducing climate change pollution, although Benjamin thinks it may prompt Congress to take the issue more seriously. In the meantime, he adds, there are things that anyone can do to help.

"We can travel differently, recognizing that one of the causes of climate change is our excessive use of oil from driving our cars."

Benjamin notes that rising temperatures and poor air quality are especially dangerous to the very old, the very young, people on certain medications and those with high blood pressure. He says Illinois residents and communities need to design emergency plans for cooling shelters, and also safe zones during flooding. Congress will now review the EPA report.

Report excerpts may be read online at www.epaclimatereport.com. The full report, "Analyses of the Effects of Global Climate Change on Human Health, Settlements and Welfare," is at www.climatescience.gov.



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