A powerful storm caused flooding and damage as it moved up the East Coast, drenching Florida and inundating South Carolina with record rainfall. Rising sea levels driven by human-caused climate change mean even relatively weak weather systems can now produce storm surges previously associated with hurricanes, said Meteorologist Jeff Masters, co-founder of the Weather Underground. In South Carolina that's worsened by natural subsidence along the coast.

A Lyme disease-carrying tick was found on a dog in Fort Simpson, N.W.T., with uncertainty about whether the tick originated locally or from a southern province.

Rapid erosion and permafrost degradation mean school district officials are in a race to shore up the building for the remainder of the school year.

The expedition revealed that gannets have easy access to plastic, as their nests are mostly made from plastic debris. Hundreds of dead gannets were also observed by the experts, with it being estimated that three factors played a role in their deaths: natural attrition, bird flu, and plastic pollution.

A rare, emaciated fin whale was found dead near Kodiak, Alaska, with the local Sun'aq Tribe conducting a necropsy. There isn’t enough data for biologists to declare a trend yet, but these whales are being found on the heels of an unusual mortality event for gray whales in the Pacific Ocean.

It is not common to see fin whales stranding along the West Coast. The species tends to stay in deeper water compared with gray whales, which travel from 10,000 to 14,000 miles (16,000 to 22,500 kilometers) round trip up and down the coast in annual migrations. There were not obvious signs of the cause of death.

A 52-foot fin whale carcass appeared on a San Diego beach with no clear cause of death; it was towed back to sea.