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Incredible before-and-after imagery shows impact of California wildfires and drought

(CNN) Remarkable satellite images captured a year apart illustrate the severity of the California drought and the impact of the 2020 Bobcat Fire and Ranch 2 Fire in Los Angeles County. Between June 2020 and June 2021, Angeles National Forest went from green and lush to brown and parched. Water in three reservoirs -- San Gabriel, Morris and Cogswell -- has declined significantly. All of the reservoirs are outlined in brown in the 2021 shot, denoting how much the water level has dropped. The Bobcat fire burned nearly 115,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains and some of the surrounding area between September and December. It was one of the largest fires in Los Angeles County history. The European Space Agency shared the imagery of the forest, which is just north of the greater Los Angeles area, on its Facebook page earlier this week. All of California is in some level of drought, according to the US Drought Monitor, and at increased risk of wildfires. About 33 percent of the state is in "exceptional drought," the most severe classification. Read More

The mysterious origin of the northern lights has been proven

(CNN) The aurora borealis, or northern lights, could easily be described as Earth's greatest light show. A phenomenon that's exclusive to the higher latitudes has had scientists in awe and wonder for centuries. The mystery surrounding what causes the northern lights has been speculated but never proven, until now. The great aurora mystery finally solved A group of physicists from the University of Iowa have finally proven that the "most brilliant auroras are produced by powerful electromagnetic waves during geomagnetic storms," according to a newly released study James Schroeder, from Wheaton College, was the lead author of the study. The study shows that these phenomena, also known as Alfven waves, accelerate electrons toward Earth, causing the particles to produce the light show we know as the northern lights. The aurora borealis lights up the night sky in Iceland. "Measurements revealed this small population of electrons undergoes 'resonant acceleration' by the Alfven wave's electric field, similar to a surfer catching a wave and being continually accelerated as the surfer moves along with the wave," said Greg Howes, associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Iowa and co-author of the study. This idea of electrons "surfing" on the electric field is a theory first introduced in 1946 by a Russian physicist, Lev Landau, that was named Landau damping. His theory has now been proven. Recreating the northern lights Scientists have understood for decades how the aurora most likely is created, but they have now been able to simulate it, for the first time, in a lab at the Large Plasma Device (LPD) in UCLA's Basic Plasma Science Facility. Scientists used a 20-meter-long chamber to recreate Earth's magnetic field using the powerful magnetic field coils on UCLA's LPD. Inside the chamber, scientists generated a plasma similar to what exists in space near the Earth. "Using a specially designed antenna, we launched Alfven waves down the machine, much like shaking a garden hose up and down quickly, and watching the wave travel along the hose," said Howes. As they began to experience the electrons "surfing" along the wave, they used another specialized instrument to measure how those electrons were gaining energy from the wave. The northern lights appear over a waterfall in Iceland. Although the experiment didn't recreate the colorful shimmer we see in the sky, "our measurements in the laboratory clearly agreed with predictions from computer simulations and mathematical calculations, proving that electrons surfing on Alfven waves can accelerate the electrons (up to speeds of 45 million mph) that cause the aurora," said Howes. "These experiments let us make the key measurements that show that the space measurements and theory do, indeed, explain a major way in which the aurora are created," said Craig Kletzing, the study co-author. Auroral beads are seen from the International Space Station. Space scientists around the country were ecstatic to hear the news. "I was tremendously excited! It is a very rare thing to see a laboratory experiment that validates a theory or model concerning the space environment," said Patrick Koehn, a scientist in the Heliophysics Division of NASA. "Space is simply too big to easily simulate in the lab." Koehn said he believes being able to understand the acceleration mechanism for the aurora-causing electrons will be helpful in many studies in the future. "It does help us understand space weather better! The electron acceleration mechanism verified by this project is at work elsewhere in the solar system, so it will find many applications in space physics. It will be of use in space weather forecasting as well, something that NASA is very interested in," Koehn said in an email to CNN. A long way to go Now that the theory of how the illuminating aurora is created has been proven, there's still a long way to go in forecasting how strong each storm will be. The northern lights dance across the night sky, high in the Arctic Circle. "Predicting how strong a particular geomagnetic storm will be, based on observations of the Sun and measurements from spacecraft between the Earth and the Sun, remains an unsolved challenge," said Howes in an email. "We have established the link of electrons surfing on Alfven waves about 10,000 miles above the Earth's surface, and now we must learn how to predict the strength of those Alfven waves using spacecraft observations," he added. Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the affiliation of the physicists who wrote the study. They are from the University of Iowa.

Lightning strike leaves 7-foot gouge in Florida highway after hitting vehicle

(CNN) A man driving on a Florida highway was left uninjured after lightning struck his vehicle Monday morning, according to officials. The lightning strike damaged the compact SUV the 48-year-old was driving and left a 7-foot-long, 4-inch-wide gouge in the pavement, according to Florida Highway Patrol (FHP) . The man, who police didn't name, was driving on Interstate 75 in Broward County when the strike occurred, during a heavy rainstorm, FHP said. "I saw a light and ... I don't know what happened," said Delhonte. "But I survived. I am alive. It's a miracle for me." The electrical system and roof antenna of the man's Nissan Rogue was damaged due to the strike, according to FHP, which left the vehicle disabled. The car came to a stop half-mile north of where the lightning strike occurred, according to WPLG. "A typical cloud-to-ground, actually cloud-to-vehicle, lightning strike will either strike the antenna of the vehicle or along the roofline," reads the National Weather Service's (NWS) website . "The lightning will then pass through the vehicle's outer metal shell, then through the tires to the ground." The vehicle was towed from the scene and a roadway repair crew was notified of the pavement's damage, according to FHP. Last month, two people were injured in Walton County, Florida, when a lightning strike sent a chunk of highway through the windshield of a truck. "The energy from a lightning strike has to go somewhere," CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said about that incident. "And when lightning strikes an object, such as pavement, it can cause that object to "explode" due to the lightning's pressure blast wave which is caused by the sudden superheating of the air surrounding the lightning strike."

Hurricane season is forecast to be above average. So are the hurricane forecasts

(CNN) During the record 2020 Atlantic hurricane season, something happened that many people overlooked -- hurricane forecasts improved. And that saved lives. With another active hurricane season expected, that's great news. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) believes it can build upon last year's success thanks to a targeted initiative, new strategies and updates to long-standing computer models. It's essential to get the forecast right because evacuation costs can soar into the tens of millions. The actual cost is a challenging calculation because it depends on several factors, according to a 2003 study by Dr. John Whitehead. That includes the size and speed of the approaching storm and the population density along the affected coastline. When the NHC plots the familiar "cone of uncertainty," people in the path base evacuation decisions on where that forecast strikes their part of the coastline. Advancements in technology As Hurricane Laura charged through the Gulf of Mexico in mid-August last year, Houstonians feared the worst. However, three days out, forecasters zeroed in on a Louisiana landfall. Houston's emergency managers breathed a sigh of relief and avoided an evacuation cost in the millions. That level of accuracy is part of an expected trend, according to NHC hurricane specialist John Cangialosi. "Advancements in technology and science have greatly improved in recent years," he said in a recent NOAA hurricane webinar. Cangialosi sees forecasting the track of a hurricane as a relatively simple theoretical problem. He says it's like predicting where a cork moving in a stream will go. In general, the cork follows the flow of the stream's current, but it might be impossible to represent each jog the cork makes. Model basics Most atmospheric systems that steer storms are large, easy to measure, and are easily understood, so most models forecast the track well. When a hurricane forms, NHC aims an arsenal of computer models to predict where the storm will go and how strong it will be. Some of those models are no more sophisticated than the GPS in your car. If you're driving north at 60 mph, you should travel 120 miles in two hours. Other models determine the track based on knowing the behavior of past storms forming in similar locations. Then there are models based on more robust calculations. They are designed to emulate the behavior of the low pressure systems at the core of hurricanes, along with the atmosphere around them. Over time, these models have improved thanks to upgrades to the model resolution, mathematical computations used to simulate physical properties and the speed of computers to make the calculations. Average error in the NHC forecast track since 1990 NHC forecasters manually assess the data from the models roughly every six hours to develop the familiar cone forecast. The envelope surrounding the solid line of the track (think of Cangialosi's "cork") represents uncertainty based on the outcomes of favored models. The error in the NHC track forecasts -- the difference between what is forecast and what occurs -- is the baseline measurement that shows improvement. The average error in the 24-hour forecast went from 100 miles in 1990 to less than 50 by 2020. When the five-day forecast debuted in 2000, the average error was 400 miles. It dropped below 200 miles last year. Here's a visual representation of the improvement in the 3-day forecast: While NHC forecasters are encouraged about forecast track improvement, they are also starting to see improvement in an area where they have long struggled -- forecasting hurricane intensity. A better intensity forecast Forecasting a storm's intensity is a "second-order problem," Cangialosi pointed out. That means it depends upon the track. "If you get the track wrong, you can get the intensity wrong simply because you thought the storm was going to be in a different place and in a different environment," he said. Additionally, knowing the intensity depends on the wind, moisture and temperature patterns over the core and the storm's environment. It also depends on internal processes, such as the strengthening that occurs when the eye of the storm reforms suddenly. That action can't be forecast with much accuracy. Yet, something interesting has happened in recent years. The average three-day intensity error from 1970 to 2009 was about 20 knots (23 mph). Since 2010, that too has been nearly cut in half. Average NHC intensity error since 1970. The improvement is primarily due to an intentional effort called the Hurricane Forecast Improvement Project (HFIP), according to Jason Sippel, an NOAA/AOML researcher. The project incorporates a unique NHC model called HWRF, which uses input from an array of real-time data, including Doppler radar data on board the reconnaissance planes flying into the storm -- the Hurricane Hunters. Special radar in the nose and tail of these planes senses the speed and direction of winds inside a storm along with rainfall intensity, the very essence of what Doppler radar does. Sippel says that Doppler radar data is critical for improving both the track and intensity forecast. He notes 2013 as a watershed moment for HFIP, when researchers generated two forecasts for Tropical Storm Karen in the Gulf of Mexico. One used the Doppler radar input and the other did not. According to Sippel, "The forecasts that didn't use the Doppler data were terrible, forecasting a full-blown hurricane. However, the first forecasts that incorporated Doppler data weren't perfect but significantly improved." Since then, the HFIP continues to add more and more operational input to the HWRF and other models. One of those inputs is the cylindrical tubes dropped into storms during reconnaissance missions, called dropsondes. Sippel requested altering the deployment strategy to take different measurements along the flight path. Adding this new data to the models resulted in a further reduction of track errors. One final reason for optimism that hurricane forecasts will improve lies in updates to the long-standing GFS (Global Forecast System) model , also known as the American model. Earlier this spring, researchers super charged the model to better represent the vertical complexities of the atmosphere and ran it on a faster computer, speeding up the time needed for calculations. The 2021 season should be another above average one. Hopefully, these forecast improvements will increase confidence when coastal residents and emergency managers need to make difficult evacuation and other safety decisions. Correction: An earlier version of this story gave the wrong affiliation for Jason Sippel. He is an NOAA/AOML researcher.

NOAA predicts 6th consecutive above-average hurricane season

(CNN) The Atlantic hurricane season doesn't officially begin for another 12 days, but the early signs are it may end up being yet another very busy one. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) issued it's seasonal Atlantic hurricane forecast Thursday afternoon. The forecast calls for 13-20 total named storms, 6-10 hurricanes, and 3-5 major hurricanes (Category 3 or higher). All of those categories are above the average of 14 total named storms, seven hurricanes, and three major hurricanes. The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to November 30 and NOAA is just one of more than a dozen academic institutions , government agencies and private forecasting companies that put out seasonal projections. "Seasonal forecasts from nearly all universities and private agencies are predicting that 2021 will be an above-average season once again," CNN meteorologist Taylor Ward said. Another highly respected forecaster is Colorado State University, which was the first entity to issue a seasonal tropical forecast. Experts there issued their forecast back on April 8 indicating 17 total named storms, eight of which are expected to be hurricanes. "There aren't any big outliers this year, while the (European model) was pretty low last year," said Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at CSU. Klotzbach noted that the strong consensus between seasonal forecast groups is likely due to the shared observation of features that usually trigger a very active season. Reasons behind the predictions There is considerable warmth across much of the Atlantic, where the ocean's surface temperature is 1 to 3 degrees Celsius (1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit) above normal for May. That's important because sea surface temperatures are one of the ingredients needed to fuel hurricanes -- so it makes sense that there would be a correlation between those temperatures and an active season. Sea surface temperatures: Blue areas indicate cooler than normal temperatures. Yellow-Orange areas indicates warmer than normal temperatures. Another big factor is El Niño, or a lack thereof. When El Niño is present, it reduces Atlantic hurricane activity due to increased vertical wind shear -- changes in wind speed and direction that prevent hurricanes from forming. "The primary reasons why we're going above average is the low likelihood of a significant El Niño event and the relative warmth in the tropical (Atlantic) but especially the subtropical eastern Atlantic," said Klotzbach. The Climate Prediction Center has announced that La Niña has officially ended . This is important because La Niña and its counterpart El Niño have significant impacts on tropical seasons in both the Atlantic and Pacific basins. According to the CPC, there is a less than 10% chance of having El Niño conditions at any point for the remainder of this year. That's not what you want to hear regarding the Atlantic basin. El Niño is typically preferred for the Atlantic basin, as it helps to inhibit tropical development and enhancement. Having neutral conditions, or La Niña conditions, means that there is no real widespread influence to help restrict tropical development. #LaNina has ended, with ENSO-neutral conditions likely to continue through the Northern Hemisphere summer (67% chance in June-August 2021). https://t.co/5zlzaYJ1Lp pic.twitter.com/rFyNnqnY5O — NWS Climate Prediction Center (@NWSCPC) May 13, 2021 Average conditions -- or even La Niña conditions -- create a more favorable environment for tropical storm development. So, for the moment, El Niño's calming effect on the Atlantic hurricane season does not seem likely for 2021. Early start to the season At least one named tropical system has formed in the Atlantic prior to June 1 -- the official start of the season -- every year for the past 6 years. This year could become the seventh year in a row. The National Hurricane Center is monitoring a developing weather system currently several hundred miles east of Bermuda. It's expected to strengthen and become more organized in the coming days. If it does strengthen into a tropical storm, the first name on the list in the Atlantic basin is Ana. The eastern Pacific basin also got off to an early start. Nearly two weeks ago, Tropical Storm Andres was named after it formed over 600 miles south of Baja California. Andres became the record earliest tropical storm to ever form during the satellite era in the eastern Pacific, surpassing Adrian in 2017 which formed on May 10. As for the rest of the season, NOAA has also forecast for the eastern Pacific basin to be quite active with a forecast 12-18 total named storms, 5-10 hurricanes, and 2-5 major hurricanes. If a storm forms early, it's not necessarily cause for worry. A pre-season storm doesn't always mean the season will be busy. In fact, in the Atlantic basin back in 2015, Ana became the first named storm of the season on May 7, but the whole season ended slightly below average with 11 total named storms. However, in 2020, the first storm, Arthur, was named on May 16, two weeks prior to the start of the season, which was relentless and went on to be the busiest hurricane season in modern history. Climatologically, about 30% of all Atlantic hurricanes make US landfall . However, you don't need to have all of the forecast storms make landfall in the US for it to be an impactful season. "It doesn't matter if there's 30 storms or one ... if it impacts you, it's a busy season," said Ken Graham, director of the National Hurricane Center.

The Greek alphabet will never be used again to name tropical storms

(CNN) The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season finished with 30 total named storms — the most in any year on record — but three of those names will never be used again. Something else that will never be used again: The Greek alphabet as a backup list for when all the names on the annual storm naming list are used. "The Greek alphabet will not be used in future because it creates a distraction from the communication of hazard and storm warnings and is potentially confusing," the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) announced on Wednesday. The WMO's Hurricane Committee held its annual meeting this week to discuss past hurricane seasons and update its operational plans for upcoming seasons. At Wednesday's meeting, the committee decided to retire the name Laura and replace it with Leah. The committee also retired one name from the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season since it was unable to meet last year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Dorian will be retired from the 2019 season and replaced with Dexter on the list in 2025. The Greek letters Eta and Iota from the 2020 season will be retired as well, which is significant since before this year, the WMO made it very clear that it would not ever retire Greek names. The issue here was that there was no formal plan for retiring Greek names, but the committee realized that any future use of the names Eta and Iota would be "inappropriate." The controversy of the Greek alphabet The WMO oversees the naming off all tropical systems in every ocean basin globally. The list of Atlantic tropical cyclone names repeats every six years unless a storm is so deadly or costly that the WMO retires it from future lists. Hurricanes Eta and Iota were two of the top three deadliest tropical systems last year, but there were additional reasons as to why these Greek letters were retired. "There can be too much focus on the use of Greek alphabet names and not the actual impacts from the storm," the WMO stated in a press release . "This can greatly detract from the needed impact and safety messaging." "There is confusion with some Greek alphabet names when they are translated into other languages used within the Region. The pronunciation of several of the Greek letters (Zeta, Eta, Theta) are similar and occur in succession. In 2020, this resulted in storms with very similar sounding names occurring simultaneously, which led to messaging challenges rather than streamlined and clear communication." The WMO Hurricane Committee agreed that the Greek alphabet will no longer be used to name tropical cyclones. Instead, there is a new supplemental list in case regular names are exhausted Details https://t.co/VQ0gtNvo4L pic.twitter.com/71NcpjiBgi — World Meteorological Organization (@WMO) March 17, 2021 This isn't the only year that this particular topic has been brought up. In 2005, Hurricane Beta became a deadly Category 3 storm, causing nine deaths and more than $15.5 million in damage across four countries. However, 2005 was the first year that the Greek alphabet was ever used in 26 years of consistently naming Atlantic hurricanes. At the time, the committee did not deem it necessary to retire these Greek alphabet names as it did not expect to dip into that list very often. However, this same situation occurred in 2020 -- only 15 years later. The Greek alphabet will be replaced by a supplemental list of names using the same rules as the main Atlantic hurricane season naming list — a list of names A-Z but excluding the letters Q, U, X, Y, and Z — for if and when the initial list of names has been exhausted. This will allow for the supplemental list of names to be more easily retired and replaced when the need arises. "Names beginning with Q, U, X, Y and Z are still not common enough or easily understood in local languages to be slotted into the rotating lists" the committee said. The record season 2020 was a record year for hurricanes in the Atlantic so it's no surprise that there are three names that will be retired — Laura, Eta, and Iota. The record for most retired names in a single season is five, set in 2005: Dennis, Katrina, Rita, Stan, and Wilma. Four other years have had four names retired — 1955, 1995, 2004, and 2017. People along nearly every mile of coastline from Texas to Maine were affected by at least one named storm this season. Laura caused 77 deaths and more than $19 billion in damages, making it the costliest hurricane of the 2020 season. Laura's top winds reached up to 150 mph, and its storm surge exceeded 15 feet causing heavy damage along the southwestern Louisiana coast. Laura was also the strongest hurricane (at landfall) to hit Louisiana since 1856. Hurricane Eta made landfall in Central America as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm stalled over Nicaragua, Honduras, and Guatemala, for several days bringing torrential rain and subsequent flooding wiped entire communities off the map. Landslides swept through the area, leaving mud 50 feet deep in some places. Just weeks later many of the same locations were hit by another devastating storm - Iota. Hurricane Iota is considered the strongest storm to hit Nicaragua in the country's history. More than 400,000 people in Nicaragua were affected by the storm as it made landfall as a strong Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds near 155 mph. The 2020 season got off to an early and rapid start with the first named storm, Arthur, coming two weeks before the official start date of June 1. Due to this, it was also discussed at the meeting this week about moving the formal start date of Atlantic hurricane season up two weeks to May 15, to match the start date of the eastern Pacific hurricane season. However, the committee decided against changing the official start date of the 2021 Atlantic hurricane season. Storm intensity isn't everything Just because a tropical system reaches a high category in strength doesn't mean it will automatically be retired. In 2019, Hurricanes Dorian and Lorenzo reached Category 5 strength, but only Dorian was retired. Both hurricanes were incredibly powerful as well as deadly. Dorian and Lorenzo were the deadliest and second deadliest storms respectively in the 2019 season. But Lorenzo was not retired because it never made landfall as a tropical system. Photos: Hurricane Dorian A body is carried out of the Mudd neighborhood in Marsh Harbour, Bahamas, on Monday, September 9. Hide Caption 1 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Homes are in ruins one week after Dorian hit Marsh Harbour. Hide Caption 2 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A photo album is seen amid the debris in Marsh Harbour on Sunday, September 8. Hide Caption 3 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A damaged home in Hope Town, Bahamas. Hide Caption 4 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A toppled building crane is draped over a new construction project in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 9. Hide Caption 5 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Bodies are loaded onto a plane in Marsh Harbour on Saturday, September 7. Hide Caption 6 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian This aerial photo, taken on September 7, shows damage at the South Riding Point oil-storage facility in the Bahamas. Hide Caption 7 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Boxes of food are loaded onto trucks in Freeport, Bahamas, on September 7. Hide Caption 8 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian People reach out for beverages as they await evacuation in Marsh Harbour. Hide Caption 9 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Evacuees from the Bahamas rest on a Royal Caribbean cruise ship after it arrived in Freeport on September 7. The ship delivered thousands of meals and cases of bottled water. Hide Caption 10 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian People wait to leave Marsh Harbour on September 7. Hide Caption 11 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Waves crash into boats in Halifax, Nova Scotia, as Hurricane Dorian approached on September 7. Hide Caption 12 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A man looks a tree that fell in Moncton, New Brunswick, on September 7. Hide Caption 13 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A man surveys damage at the Boardwalk RV Park in Emerald Isle, North Carolina, on Friday, September 6. Hide Caption 14 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Bryan Philips walks with his dog on a flooded road in Salvo, North Carolina, on September 6. Hide Caption 15 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Evacuees wait to leave Marsh Harbour in the Bahamas. Hide Caption 16 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A fallen tree lies on top of a vehicle in Isle of Palms, South Carolina, on September 6. Hide Caption 17 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Schemelda Saintilien walks past debris and damaged houses on the Bahamas' Great Abaco island. Hide Caption 18 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Police Officer Curtis Resor, left, and Sgt. Michael Stephens check a sailboat for occupants in Beaufort, North Carolina, on September 6. Hide Caption 19 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Homes flattened by Hurricane Dorian are seen on the Bahamas' Great Abaco island on Thursday, September 5. Hide Caption 20 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Rescue workers recover a body in Marsh Harbour on September 5. Hide Caption 21 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Two men stand amid the destruction in Marsh Harbour, Bahamas, on September 5. Hide Caption 22 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A woman from the Bahamas speaks on a cell phone after evacuating on September 5. Hide Caption 23 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A woman battles rain and wind in Charleston, South Carolina, on September 5. Hide Caption 24 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Utility crews work on restoring power in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, on September 5. Hide Caption 25 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Rescue workers walk through floodwaters in Little River, South Carolina, on September 5. Hide Caption 26 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Workers try to restore power after a tornado hit Emerald Isle, North Carolina, on September 5. Several tornadoes were reported in the Carolinas. Hide Caption 27 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Emerald Isle employees work to clear a road after a tornado hit. Hide Caption 28 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian An aerial view of Marsh Harbour, Bahamas, on September 5. Hide Caption 29 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian An evacuee rides in a Coast Guard helicopter after being rescued from Treasure Cay, Bahamas, on Wednesday, September 4. Hide Caption 30 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Boats are piled up on the Bahamas' Great Abaco island on September 4. Hide Caption 31 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Roshane Eyma cries as she is greeted by members of her church on September 4. She had been rescued and flown to Nassau, Bahamas. Hide Caption 32 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Marsh Harbour is seen from above on September 4. Hide Caption 33 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Houses destroyed by Hurricane Dorian are seen on the Bahamas' Great Abaco island on September 4. Hide Caption 34 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A resident recovers dishes from his son's home in Pine Bay, Bahamas, on September 4. Hide Caption 35 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian An aerial view of damage on the Bahamas' Great Abaco island. Hide Caption 36 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A child walks past clothes laid out to dry in Freeport, Bahamas, on September 4. Hide Caption 37 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A broken plane rests on the side of a road in Freeport. Hide Caption 38 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Debris litters the Grand Bahama International Airport on September 4. Hide Caption 39 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Volunteers receive relief supplies at the New Providence Community Center in Nassau. Hide Caption 40 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Boats, docks and houses are destroyed on the island of Great Abaco. Hide Caption 41 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Braden Vick, right, and Scott Ray run along The Battery in Charleston, South Carolina, on September 4. Hide Caption 42 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Bob Quarles boards up his beach house in Oak Island, North Carolina, on September 4. Hide Caption 43 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A house is surrounded by floodwaters on Grand Bahama island. Hide Caption 44 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Debbie Pagan checks her raised furniture one last time before she and her husband evacuated their home in Tybee Island, Georgia, on September 4. Hide Caption 45 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Mailboxes are taped shut in Charleston on September 4. Hide Caption 46 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian This aerial image shows damage on the Bahamas' Great Abaco island on Tuesday, September 3. Hide Caption 47 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A family is escorted to a safe zone after being rescued in Freeport, Bahamas, on September 3. Hide Caption 48 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Julia Aylen carries her dog as she wades through waist-deep water near her home in Freeport on September 3. Hide Caption 49 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Damaged homes are seen in this aerial photograph from the Bahamas on September 3. Hide Caption 50 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Volunteers walk down a flooded road as they work to rescue families near the Casuarina Bridge in Freeport on September 3. Hide Caption 51 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A car is submerged in Freeport floodwaters on September 3. Hide Caption 52 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Residents wade through a flooded street in Freeport on September 3. Hide Caption 53 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Eddie Wright and his dog, Vino, wait on a bus to evacuate Brunswick, Georgia. Hide Caption 54 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A house is flooded in Freeport on September 3. Hide Caption 55 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian People gather donations at the Christ Episcopal Church in Miami. Hide Caption 56 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Boats are piled up at a Bahamian port on Monday, September 2. Hide Caption 57 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A man walks through the rubble left by Hurricane Dorian in Marsh Harbour, Bahamas, on September 2. Hide Caption 58 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian This September 2 photo provided by NASA shows the eye of Hurricane Dorian as seen from the International Space Station. Hide Caption 59 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Evacuation traffic is seen near South Carolina's coast on September 2. Hide Caption 60 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian US Coast Guard helicopter crews have been helping with search-and-rescue efforts in the Bahamas. Hide Caption 61 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A man crosses a street during a downpour in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on September 2. Hide Caption 62 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian This aerial photo shows Marsh Harbour, Bahamas, on September 2. Hide Caption 63 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Agency officials brief Bahamian Prime Minister Hubert Minnis and his cabinet members on September 2. Minnis said many homes, businesses and other buildings have been destroyed or heavily damaged. He called the devastation "unprecedented and extensive." Hide Caption 64 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Businesses are shuttered near Jetty Park in Fort Pierce, Florida, on September 2. Hide Caption 65 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A boy stands near high surf in Vero Beach, Florida, on September 2. Hide Caption 66 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian This view of the storm was taken from the International Space Station on September 2. Hide Caption 67 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Dorian left heavy damage at this resort in Hope Town, Bahamas. Hide Caption 68 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Waves caused by Dorian crash into a man at the Jupiter Beach Park in Florida on September 2. Hide Caption 69 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Strong winds blow the tops of trees and brush in Freeport, Bahamas, on September 2. Hide Caption 70 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A passenger looks at the flight board at the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on September 2. The airport canceled flights and closed because of winds caused by Dorian. Hide Caption 71 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian People watch the waves crash onto Vero Beach, Florida, on September 2. Hide Caption 72 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Clouds loom over a lifeguard tower in Fort Lauderdale on September 2. Hide Caption 73 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Beachgoers watch a man ride a kiteboard in Indialantic, Florida, on Sunday, September 1. Hide Caption 74 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Palm trees blow in strong winds prior to Dorian's landfall in Freeport. Hide Caption 75 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A view outside a car's windshield before Dorian hit Freeport on September 1. Hide Caption 76 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Riverside Mobile Home Park residents Joe Lewis, left, and Rob Chambers work to secure an air conditioner before evacuating the park in Jensen Beach, Florida. Hide Caption 77 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A man places a shutter in a window in Lake Worth, Florida. Hide Caption 78 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Passengers arrive at Orlando International Airport on Saturday, August 31. Hide Caption 79 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Workers install storm shutters in Marsh Harbour, Bahamas. Hide Caption 80 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian NASA employees watch as the Artemis launch tower is rolled back inside a building at the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. Hide Caption 81 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Matt Rohrer loads sandbags in the back of his vehicle in Flagler Beach, Florida, on Friday, August 30. Hide Caption 82 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Workers at Flamingo Gardens in Davie, Florida, move an Allosaurus statue on August 30. Hide Caption 83 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Shoppers wait in line before sunrise for a Sam's Club store to open in Kissimmee, Florida. Hide Caption 84 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A supervised work crew of female jail prisoners fills sandbags in Titusville, Florida, on Thursday, August 29. Hide Caption 85 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian "Here's a look at #HurricaneDorian from @Space_Station," said astronaut Andrew Morgan, who posted this photo to Twitter. "I caught this shot (August 29) as it traveled across the Caribbean north of Haiti and the Dominican Republic." Hide Caption 86 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Shoppers wait in long lines at a Costco in Davie, Florida, on August 29. Hide Caption 87 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A man fills containers with gasoline in Hialeah, Florida, on August 29. Hide Caption 88 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian A man rides a bike by a Miami Beach building with boarded-up windows on August 29. Hide Caption 89 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Dozens of Orange County residents fill sandbags at Blanchard Park in Orlando on Wednesday, August 28. Hide Caption 90 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Empty shelves at a supermarket in Patillas, Puerto Rico, on August 28. Hide Caption 91 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian People stock up with groceries and water in Fort Lauderdale. Hide Caption 92 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Ya Mary Morales and Henry Sustache put plywood over the windows of their home in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, on August 28. Puerto Rico was ultimately spared the brunt of hurricane-force winds. Hide Caption 93 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Workers prepare a store's exterior in Humacao, Puerto Rico, on August 28. Hide Caption 94 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Cars line up for fuel at a gas station in Mayaguez, Puerto Rico, on Tuesday, August 27. Hide Caption 95 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Men board up a shop's windows in Boqueron, Puerto Rico, on August 27. Hide Caption 96 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Municipal employees clear debris in Ponce, Puerto Rico, on August 27. Hide Caption 97 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Residents board up a storefront pharmacy in Bridgetown, Barbados, on Monday, August 26. Hide Caption 98 of 99 Photos: Hurricane Dorian Residents stand in line at a grocery store in Bridgetown on August 26. Hide Caption 99 of 99 Lorenzo attained its peak intensity over the open waters of the Atlantic before weakening considerably and transitioning into an extratropical cyclone. Lorenzo was the second deadliest hurricane of the 2019 hurricane season causing 19 deaths. Eleven crew members of the Bourbon Rhode were killed when the ship sank near the eyewall of the hurricane, while it was over the open ocean. An additional eight people died along the US East Coast due to dangerous surf conditions generated by the hurricane which was several hundred miles away. Hurricane Dorian devastated the Bahamas becoming the worst natural disaster in the country's history. Dorian recorded sustained wind speeds of 185 mph, tying the record for maximum sustained wind speed for an Atlantic hurricane that made landfall. It shares that record with the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane.

A checklist of what to do -- and pack -- when a hurricane's coming

(CNN) This is not a drill. Forecasters say a hurricane is headed your way. Authorities have put out the order to evacuate. You need to get moving. So what should you do first? First of all, don't panic. There are many steps you can take to protect yourself, your loved ones and your property.

High-elevation forests in the Rockies are burning more now than in the past 2,000 years

(CNN) Following a devastating wildfire season in 2020, new research shows that high-elevation forests in the Rocky Mountains are burning more now than any time in the past 2,000 years amid extreme, climate change-induced drought. The study , published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that fire activity in subalpine forests of northern Colorado and southern Wyoming is unprecedented in the last several millennia -- a clear signal that the climate crisis is increasing the severity and extent of wildfires in the West. Rising temperatures and prolonged drought in the West will continue to exacerbate and accelerate wildfire activity for at least several decades, scientists say. Philip Higuera, lead author of the study and fire ecology professor at the University of Montana, told CNN last year's wildfire season was a game changer "After 2020, it's clear we're in uncharted territory," Higuera said. "People are being negatively impacted by these wildfires either directly or indirectly. Climate models suggest that this trend is only set to continue." The current drought sets the stage for another brutal fire season in 2021, particularly in California where rainfall deficits and dead vegetation are already breaking records that scientists didn't expect until August, Higuera said. The 2020 wildfire season pushed Higuera and his colleagues to analyze historical fire records to understand how 21st century activity differs from the past. In addition to historical records, they also used charcoal found in lake sediments around the subalpine forests -- or high-elevation forests -- to compare how often fires have occurred in the area on average in the last two millennia. Higuera's team found that last year's wildfires accounted for 72 percent of the total charred area in the subalpine forests since 1984. They also found the current rate of burning is 22 percent higher than the maximum average rate over the past 2,000 years -- a period of time the temperature in the Northern Hemisphere was actually slightly higher than it was during the 20th century. The study's authors say the increase is a particularly significant climate impact, since subalpine forests typically burn less frequently than lower elevation forests. Higuera called the results "sobering." "Understanding how ecosystems have changed in the past is one of our best ways to learn more about how our forests change as climate changes," Higuera said. "Studying the past is so important because it really helps highlight the degree to which we are changing the landscapes that we live in now." Jennifer Marlon, a climate scientist at the Yale School of the Environment who was not involved with the study, said these results suggest the seasons are shifting. "When you get extreme heat and drought together, that's a recipe for really severe wildfires," Marlon told CNN. "The fingerprints of global warming are all over this kind of fire behavior." Concerningly, Higuera said, what has worked to prevent wildfires at low elevations -- controlled burns -- is not an easy solution for subalpine forests. "In lower elevation forests, it's an easier proposition to say we need to return prescribed fire to these forests to help get them back to conditions similar to how they were before fire suppression," Higuera said. "It's not as feasible in high elevation forests." "Fire managers are faced with challenging decisions," he added, "whether having to modify the way that fire exists in these systems versus accepting these high severity fires, which is hard when they burn close to human communities." Forests are vital to addressing the most dire effects of the climate crisis. They not only protect biodiversity, but also absorb and store carbon dioxide emitted from human activities. But as wildfires worsen, the carbon stored in these forests is increasingly released back into the atmosphere, an impact compounded by bad air quality. Scientists say that forest ecosystems including the subalpine in the Rocky Mountains could soon reach a tipping point unless climate change is addressed. But Higuera warns that the solution isn't to eliminate fire from management systems because it has historically been part of the life cycle of forests. "One of the challenges of living in the West is that we know that fire is an important component on these landscapes," he said. "If we remove it, that will take away a lot of the things we've come to expect such as species composition. The challenge for us is to be able to learn how to live with fire on the landscapes in ways that do not turn into human disasters."

Extreme drought worsens in West, with 'exceptional' conditions covering more than 26% of the region

(CNN) A very dry week with well-above average temperatures has worsened an already severe drought in the Western US, according to the US Drought Monitor. New data shows the entirety of four states are under drought conditions -- California, Oregon, Utah and Nevada. Overall, drought is being experienced in 88% of the Western US as of this week. Scientists say persistent drought conditions in this region are being exacerbated by manmade climate change. In addition to the critical water shortages this year's drought has caused, forecasters have raised concerns that the continued dry conditions will cause a particularly intense wildfire season. As of Thursday the Storm Prediction Center's fire weather outlook was classified as "critical" or "extreme" across parts of Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and Arizona. "Warmer than normal temperatures dominated from California to the Dakotas with departures of 9-12 degrees above normal and even higher in the northern Plains," scientists with the US Drought Monitor wrote on Thursday. Areas of the South and southern Plains saw some improvement which was aided by rain and cooler temperatures. "Exceptional drought" conditions, the most severe category, cover more than 26% of the West and nearly a tenth of the contiguous United States. Around half of the country is in abnormally dry conditions or worse, affecting an estimated 143 million people. Read More

Is the historic drought in the Western US affecting your community? Share your story

(CNN) A drought that began more than two decades ago is growing worse across much of the Western US, with serious consequences for millions of people and ecosystems across the region. As the crisis persists, we want to hear from you: How have you been impacted by the drought and what are you doing to prepare for the months ahead?

The wildfire season is coming quickly and it's coming earlier, California forecasters warn

That's the message from meteorologist Eric Kurth and the National Weather Service in Sacramento, California, as the state deals with a crippling drought and vegetation and grasses that are already beginning to brown. "We are seeing record levels of dryness for this time of year. It's more like what we would see later in June than mid-April," said Kurth. He is concerned about this year's fire season on the heels of an extremely dry year in 2020, and the most active fire season that California has ever recorded. Vegetation still dormant, making fires more likely Someone who gets up close to California's vegetation is Craig Clements. He's a professor of meteorology and director of the Fire Weather Research Laboratory at San Jose State University. He and his students visit various sites every two weeks to take samplings of the plants to study their moisture content. On April 1 they noticed something quite alarming when they went to Blackberry Hill just outside of San Jose. He tweeted this graph that illustrates the grim discovery. Fire season 2021 is looking grim. Our region's FMCs are tracking lower than the minimum-- a new record low. This is caused by the lack/delay of new growth. Average is 137%, low is 115%, 2021= 97% #wildfire #CAwx @wildfirecenter pic.twitter.com/u7ekJ2phjv — SJSU FireWeatherLab (@FireWeatherLab) April 5, 2021 "April 1 is usually the time of year we have the highest fuel moisture content, and this year they are still dormant because lack of rain," said Clements. "They are stressed and there's no new growth. The plants aren't responding because of the lack of moisture." In fact, two out of the three sites they visited, plants were showing no new growth. Moisture in plants and new growth are what California depends on to help keep wildfires at bay. When the plants lack moisture, fires ignite much more easily and spread faster. The lack of rain this season has severely impacted our chaparral live fuel moistures. Wow, never seen April fuels look so... dry. No new growth anywhere in this Chamise. April is climatologically the highest live FMC of the season. Very Scary! #CAwx #firedanger pic.twitter.com/clJ92b3DiX — SJSU FireWeatherLab (@FireWeatherLab) April 3, 2021 Clements' trip up to Blackberry Hill uncovered a record low for new growth. A dire situation, but one he isn't surprised by. "It's a telling sign of the impact of drought," said Clements. He said the plants still have a small window of time to sprout new growth, but because of the delay in new growth, the plants most likely won't reach their peak and will dry out faster. Clements said this could lead to more large fires in June than California typically would see. California's worsening drought CW3E End of Winter Summary: Total precipitation during WY 2021 has been well below-normal across much of California. Drought conditions have persisted over Northern CA and worsened elsewhere in the state. For more information, visit: https://t.co/8Ix7KO6s5o. pic.twitter.com/v38mCb14Fm — CW3E Scripps (@CW3E_Scripps) April 7, 2021 California depends on atmospheric rivers , or plumes of moisture, streaming in off the Pacific to bring in much needed rain each year. This year, most of the rain events followed a more northerly track, sending a huge majority of the rain and moisture to the Pacific Northwest. Clements watched these weather events miss Central California time and time again. "It was dry in January and February, then there was no miracle March," he said. The result is that 92% of the state is now under drought conditions , which is the largest percentage since March 2016. An American flag blows in the wind in front of a burning home in Vacaville, California, during the LNU Lightning Complex fire on August 19, 2020. "It could be a big year when it comes to fire acres," he said. "Climate change has impacted our fire season." Climate change is causing tremendous variations in our day-to-day weather. The world is experiencing more weather extremes, and California is feeling the effects The state is 70% below normal for total precipitation this water year. The water year begins October 1 and last through September 30 of the following year. The rainfall deficit is 50 inches below normal, leaving many of the reservoirs extremely low. The California Department of Water Resources is forecasting the statewide reservoir storage to be about 60% of normal after the snowpack melts. Lake Oroville, the SWP's largest reservoir, is at 53% of average. Statewide CA's major reservoirs are at just 50% of overall capacity. The amount of water expected to enter CA's reservoirs when the snowpack melts is only projected to be 58% of average. https://t.co/kPrs0ZqqWi pic.twitter.com/7jRVNRwkPH — CA - DWR (@CA_DWR) April 2, 2021 The Sacramento Valley usually receives about 85% of its water supply by April 1. This year it has only received just 43%. Many of the streams in this region are flowing at less than 10% of normal. It's a huge wake-up call for the area as it stares head-on at the upcoming fire season. "We're seeing more extremes in terms of year-to-year -- big pendulum swings from wet to dry. It's very unusual," said Kurth. He worries that these extremes are making the vegetation more vulnerable and unable to recover from one year to the next. "We get these extremes and in recent years it's been even more extreme," he says. A satellite image shows a close-up of an active fire line in the August Complex fire in California on September 14, 2020. Last year, California wildfires burned more than 4.2 million acres. The August complex Fire alone, burned more than 1 million acres -- something California hasn't seen before. In response, California's Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed a landmark $536 million wildfire package that will accelerate projects to protect high-risk communities. 'Every year we keep topping the year before' Chief Jesse Alexander is with the Yuba City Fire Department, north of Sacramento. He along with 51 other firefighters have been on the front lines of some of the most devastating fires in California's history. He lists several of the most horrific fires that California has ever seen. He fought the Camp Fire within his own community and explains the toll it takes on the department. Paradise Elementary School burned down during the Camp Fire in Paradise, California, in 2018. "The Camp Fire impacted you because of the loss of life and devastation, it's overwhelming." The Camp Fire was the most deadly and destructive wildfire in California's history -- killing 85 people and nearly wiping the town of Paradise off the map. It burned nearly 19,000 structures. Luckily Alexander's home was spared. "Every fire is different, but it seems to keep escalating. Every year we keep topping the year before," said Alexander. Alexander said his department will deploy for several weeks at a time. "Especially when there is a fire with a large loss of life, those start to take a toll on you." He and his colleagues are many times fighting fires while they don't know if their own families are safe or if they will have a home to return to. It's a grim reality they face, yet they continue to fight on the front lines. Staying fire aware Clements and his students will continue their bi-weekly treks, visiting sites to check for growth. They hope in the tiny window that's left for growth, plants will quickly begin to sprout. "Fuel moisture content is one of the most important factors of fire behavior. It's very critical, so we are constantly monitoring," said Clements. Omar Franklin walks around the site where his home once stood in Paradise, California, in December, 2018. But in the meantime, Clements stresses the importance of the public staying vigilant. "If we don't have an ignition, then we don't have a fire," he said. That's a sentiment the weather service in Sacramento echos. "People need to be aware there is a high threat and this year that threat is coming earlier. The grasses are drying out sooner, so things are quicker in terms of us getting into that extreme fire season. Be careful you aren't a part of starting these fires," said Kurth. The weather service also suggests that people who live in California should make a defensible space if they live in vulnerable areas.

Opinion: Why Derek Chauvin's sentence doesn't resolve things for me

Elliot Williams is a CNN legal analyst. He is a former deputy assistant attorney general at the Justice Department and a principal at The Raben Group, a national public affairs and strategic communications firm. Follow him on Twitter @elliotcwilliams. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN. (CNN) A chapter in American history closed Friday, with Derek Chauvin receiving a sentence of 270 months, or 22.5 years, for the murder of George Floyd. While Chauvin has a right to appeal both his conviction and his sentence, Friday's proceeding, at least in part, brings the case to a symbolic ending point, and provides perhaps a measure of closure. But I don't feel any more resolved than I did a day ago. In saying in their sentencing memo that "no sentence can undo the damage" of Chauvin's actions, prosecutors could also have been describing our collective, grim knowledge that no criminal trial can absolve an entire nation's sins around race. Far more than some others (because of the nature of my job as a CNN legal analyst), I have closely watched the story play out from its earliest moments. I have been called on to follow and interpret the matter from soon after the commission of the crime, long before anyone was aware of the national moment it would soon catalyze. I know that as traumatizing as it was to watch the video of Derek Chauvin's actions in George Floyd's final moments, I certainly wasn't prepared for what was coming. That feeling of having to live with this story, some days around the clock, continued on through the state's decision to bring charges, and on to jury selection, trial and Friday's sentencing. Beyond my professional role, much of this story has been personal to me as a Black American man. Floyd's death was a public reminder of that which I'm sure virtually every Black person in America is intimately aware: racism is real; inequities exist in the criminal justice system; even mundane encounters with law enforcement can quickly become deadly. That Floyd's death seemed to galvanize a national movement and multiracial protests brought others and me equal parts relief and frustration. Relief that finally people were starting to get it about what Black Americans are facing in the streets at the hands of police; frustration that it took an unarmed man's public slaughter for them to get there. JUST WATCHED Chauvin watches as Floyd's young daughter gives statement Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Chauvin watches as Floyd's young daughter gives statement 02:00 After 13 months of living with this story daily and in public view, I have a few final observations. Read More

Opinion: Supreme Court's ruling in cheerleader case is inadequate for the digital age

Denied a spot on the varsity cheer squad in early 2017, 14-year-old Brandi Levy took to Snapchat to vent her frustration. "F**k school f**k softball f**k cheer f**k everything," she wrote on a photo she posted to Snapchat, a message and photo-sharing app where posts vanish 24 hours after they appear. Though she sent her post privately to her followers, someone snapped a photo of it and shared it with the squad and coaches. As a result, Levy received a one-year suspension from cheer. On Wednesday, the Court ruled 8-1 in Mahanoy Area School Dist. v. B. L. that the school had violated Levy's First Amendment rights. And while the Court found decisively in favor of Levy, its ruling reinforces the historical murkiness of minors' political rights, especially the right to free expression -- and was far too narrow to be adequate for students in a digital age. Mahanoy is part of a nuanced subset of free-speech jurisprudence: the First Amendment rights of children attending public school. The Court concluded in 1969 that students did not "shed their constitutional rights to freedom of speech or expression at the schoolhouse gate." Yet even if students did not shed those rights, they surely did not fully retain them. Public schools, adopting a parental role when students were in their care, had the ability to rein in what, where and how students could express themselves. Yet as the Mahanoy case shows, that parental duty easily shades into a paternalism that is more about protecting those with power than guiding children into adulthood. Court intervention on behalf of students' rights is a relatively recent development. To the extent children's rights were recognized before the mid-20th century, they were almost entirely centered on child abuse and child labor laws. It was not until the 1940s that the Supreme Court began to recognize some rights for children in public schools -- that they could not be compelled to salute the flag , or, in a later ruling, that they could not be forced to pray But the idea of a right to free expression did not emerge until the late 1960s. In 1965, three students ranging from 13 to 16 years old were suspended for wearing black armbands to protest the war in Vietnam. The case made its way to the Supreme Court a few years later, where the justices established the "schoolhouse gate" standard. While schools could regulate students' speech, they had to show they were doing so out of "something more than a mere desire to avoid the discomfort and unpleasantness that always accompany an unpopular viewpoint." Future rulings chipped away at that standard, expanding the schoolhouse to include extracurricular activities off-campus events and even areas near the school . And what counted as protected political speech versus just disruptive blurred as well. As late as 2007, the Court ruled that a school was right to punish a student for holding up a "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" sign near school property, because it advocated the use of illegal drugs. That case makes clear the underlying paternalism of schools' approach to speech. The "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" sign might have embarrassed or annoyed school administrators, but the pearl-clutching about "illegal drugs" was overwrought, even in the decade before widespread legalization. It also highlighted the Court's blind spot: If the sign could be read as advocating illegal drug use, it could also have been read as an act of political speech, given the debates around decriminalization and legalization. (Though a more accurate read would be to see it as a little light trolling taking place off school grounds.) Those historical developments are good to have in mind when thinking about the Mahanoy case. In recent decades the Court has sought to widen public schools' parental and paternalist reach, shrinking the sphere of students' free speech rights. After more than a year of remote schooling in many parts of the country, the Court had the potential to constrict those rights even more, as the line between home and school dissolved. That dissolution took place against the backdrop of the rise of social media, which has similarly dissolved the distinction between students' private and public expression. JUST WATCHED When free speech conflicts with liberal causes Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH When free speech conflicts with liberal causes 03:34 The Court plunged into this blurriness and found that student speech rights needed greater protection. In Levy's case, she was using social media off-campus, outside of school hours, to express a criticism of an extracurricular activity. If her school could control that speech, then there would be very little space left for Levy to express herself. Yet the Court took too modest an approach to students' rights. The Mahanoy decision was much narrower than the lower court's. The Third Circuit had ruled that the school had no right to interfere with off-campus speech, a decision that would have significantly expanded students' rights. In Mahanoy, the Court ruled that schools may still regulate student speech off-campus, depending on the circumstances (though did not lay out a framework for those circumstances, leaving that to future court decisions). In the decision , Justice Stephen Breyer wrote that "America's public schools are the nurseries of democracy," underscoring the need to define students' constitutional rights broadly, in order to prepare them for adulthood, when their rights would be fully realized. The language betrayed a view of students as infants, needing intensive oversight. Get our free weekly newsletter Sign up for CNN Opinion's new newsletter. Join us on Twitter and Facebook But public schools are more properly (if less creatively) understood as, well, the schools of democracy, where students are taught and guided and given an opportunity to test out the rights of citizenship. Social media have become an integral part of students' public identity -- indeed, of many adults' public identity. Students should be taught about the inevitable permanence of ephemeral speech. A Snapchat snap, an Instagram story, a Twitter fleet, all designed to disappear, can easily be made permanent. Levy thought she was making a relatively private, fleeting statement, only to find it memorialized in Supreme Court jurisprudence. But students should also have more speech protections, be allowed to criticize the institutions in which they spend so much of their time -- and be largely free of their school's oversight when they are beyond the schoolhouse gates.

Rudy Giuliani is in big trouble (opinion)

Paul Callan is a CNN legal analyst, a former New York homicide prosecutor and counsel to the New York law firm of Edelman & Edelman PC, focusing on wrongful conviction and civil rights cases. Follow him on Twitter @paulcallan. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion on CNN. (CNN) In a carefully reasoned and evidence-packed decision, a New York State appellate court suspended Rudy Giuliani's law license this week. The court found that Giuliani engaged in so many clearly unethical actions while seeking to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election on behalf of his client Donald Trump, that immediate action was necessary to protect the public. The order strips the former US Attorney and New York Mayor of his right to practice law while the court's Attorney Grievance Committee investigates misconduct claims against him. Giuliani can request a court hearing on the interim suspension within 20 days of the order. The decision to suspend an attorney while he is still being investigated is highly unusual and customarily reserved for only the most serious forms of professional misconduct. But the court has made a compelling case that Giuliani's misconduct was a knowing and deliberate attempt by an officer of the court to disrupt and obstruct America's 2020 presidential election in violation of the legal profession's code of professional responsibility. The number of allegedly false claims and acts of outright dishonesty outlined in the decision is truly staggering. Giuliani's career appears destined for ruination while Donald Trump heads for the golf course. The punishment could include disbarment or a forced resignation when the proceedings conclude. Giuliani has hotly contested the validity of the charges as political. His lawyers said in a statement Thursday that "we believe that our client does not pose a present danger to the public interest. We believe that once the issues are fully explored at a hearing Mr. Giuliani will be reinstated as a valued member of the legal profession that he has served so well in his many capacities for so many years." Read More

Opinion: This is my new 'normal'

(CNN) With a growing number of Covid-19 vaccinations administered in the US, many Americans have reemerged into public spaces after over a year of isolation. CNN Opinion contributors share their experiences venturing out in this new "normal." I sang again, and all is as it should be By David M. Perry It's a warm Minnesota night in May 2021, and there's maybe thirty people on the patio when it's my turn to call the song. I play an E-minor then walk it up and around, hitting the low strings to create a bass line. My friend Ann comes in over the top on the fiddle. I start Five Days in May , a song by the Canadian cowboy rock band Blue Rodeo. David M. Perry We're at Ann's house and it's her birthday. She met her husband John on a canoe trip one May long ago, so as far as I'm concerned the song has always been about them. By the time I hit the chorus, "Sometimes the world begins to set you up on your feet again," everyone on the patio is singing. On March 13, 2020, I went to a friend's 60th birthday party and we all sang together, a little afraid of the coming pandemic, but still ignorant of the losses ahead of us. It was the last night of "normal." I finished by playing "Hold On," by Tom Waits, unaware of just how hard it would be to hold on over the coming year. When I don't play music with other people for a while, a part of me goes missing , my mental health frays, the world drags slowly down toward gray and it's harder for me to locate joy. But singing, specifically singing , emerged as a risk factor for the spread of Covid, so except for a few moments in one bubble or another, making music together vanished from my life. But on this day in May, 16 months after the world came to a screeching halt, we're all vaccinated. We can sing. My eyes fill with tears and my throat closes with emotion, but the chorus is done and I nod to Ann to take it away on her fiddle while I pull myself together, and all is just as it should be. I returned to my home: a comedy club By Judy Gold For my entire adult life, I have spent most evenings standing on a bare stage telling jokes. It may sound crazy to those who have never stood in front of an audience and made people laugh on purpose, but getting a laugh, especially with a new bit, is beyond exhilarating. Judy Gold I equate it with being an orchestral conductor. Conductors pore over the music, I write material; they study the time signatures, I make sure there is the correct number of syllables; they rehearse, I try out new material. Then, finally, the seats are filled and we are standing in front of a mass of people, a baton raised or a mic gripped. Their upbeat is my setup, their downbeat, my punchline. Their music is my laughter. It is a give and take, and when a comedian gives and the audience takes, it is truly awesome. Fourteen months of hearing delayed laughter coming out of my computer speakers was like listening to The Vienna Philharmonic on a transistor radio. So, last month, I took the subway to my home -- The Comedy Cellar in New York City. I hugged my comrades, and when it was my turn, I grabbed a clean mic, stepped on stage, thanked the emcee, and looked out into the packed house. I told my first joke, and just like that, it was as if those months had melted away. Every instrument was perfectly tuned -- woodwinds, brass, strings, percussion -- not one missed note, all in perfect rhythm. They laughed out loud, and I cried with joy inside. Judy Gold is a stand-up comic in New York, actress, writer and winner of two Emmy Awards. She is the host of the podcast "Kill Me Now," available on iTunes or at judygold.com/podcast. She is also the author of "Yes I Can Say That," from Dey Street Books. Follow her on Twitter @JewdyGold. We danced in the streets again By Roxanne Jones Dancing with my people. That's what I missed most during the quarantine. Sure, I'd listen to music at home and solo shimmy around my living room but it just was not the same. Roxanne Jones I vowed that if the world ever opened back up, I'd dance more. But when the world did start to open up, and my Brooklyn friend called me and asked me out to lunch about a month ago, I hesitated. Pandemic restrictions hadn't been fully lifted in New York and although I was vaccinated I didn't trust being around other people. Staying inside had kept me safe. Reluctantly, I agreed to go to a sidewalk cafe, provided the tables were spaced out and the restaurant workers were all masked. We headed to a fun spot in Bedford-Stuyvesant called Besos. As we left the cafe, we heard music playing down the block and started following the crowd to see what was going on. "There's a block party today," a neighbor told us. That's all I needed to hear to erase my fears. I knew I needed to dance. In Brooklyn, especially in Black communities, block parties are a summer rite of passage. As we turned the corner, I saw hundreds of beautiful Black and brown people line dancing in the street, dressed in glorious colors, hands lifted to the heavens as they twirled and dipped in unison to songs like " Before I Let Go " by Frankie Beverly and Maze, a staple at any block party. As I joined the crowd and got in sync, it felt as if the sun and the music were healing me, soothing the pain and loss I'd suffered over for the last year. I looked around and more than a few of us had tears in our eyes along with the smiles on our faces that even our masks couldn't hide. I've never felt such gratitude in a crowd. That day in Bed-Stuy we danced till the sun went down, all of us grateful just to be alive. As I seek the closeness of friends, I fear the closeness of strangers who hate By Jeff Yang I've never been much of a hugger. But during my recent first trip back to New York since the outbreak of the pandemic, I ecstatically hugged my mutually vaccinated friends just to feel the substance of human beings who weren't my family. These were people I've known for decades, and this was the first time we'd seen each other beyond the frame of a computer screen in nearly two years. We eagerly indulged in one another's three-dimensional warmth, in part to remind ourselves that doing so was something we should never take for granted again. Jeff Yang Meanwhile, in public, on the streets of Manhattan, I constantly wore my mask -- not to protect against disease, but as a means of camouflage. I reflexively stepped back when random people suddenly drew near. I stood as far away as possible from the edges of subway platforms and flinched from accidental contact whenever I was in crowds. Years of separation had made me hungry for physical closeness with friends. But months of random violence against Asians, as seen on grainy phone videos posted to the internet, have made me wary of it from strangers. Jeff Yang is a frequent contributor to CNN Opinion, a featured writer for Quartz and other publications, and the co-host of the podcast "They Call Us Bruce." He co-wrote Jackie Chan's bestselling autobiography, "I Am Jackie Chan," and is the editor of three graphic novels: "Secret Identities," "Shattered" and the forthcoming "New Frontiers." Seeing my coworkers again made working together worth it By Natasha S. Alford The last time I worked in my office pre-pandemic, I looked out 6th Avenue and thought to myself, "I'm so lucky to live in New York City." Natasha S. Alford The city was bustling and so was our newsroom at theGrio, a vibrant community of journalists. After being away for over a year, I went back to that same office for a meeting with some colleagues two weeks ago and felt like I was entering a strange time warp. The building hallways where we once laughed and dished on the news on the way to lunch were eerily empty, still. Blank walls had been covered with signs reminding people to social distance and to use the newly provided containers of hand sanitizer. But as soon as I opened the door and entered our office space, the energy and joy of seeing my teammates in person after months apart injected life into what had seemed like a vacant building. Despite what anyone says, Slack is no substitute for in-person conversations and this reunion proved it. Although we had to do elbow bumps and what now seems like a standard "I'm vaccinated!" before reaching out to hug someone, it was as if we were picking up where we left off. Of course, we know so much has happened since -- births (including my own baby!), moves, accomplishments, and sadly, lots of loss. But being in a room with people who made work worth it -- knowing we were still here, standing strong and ready to, in a way, start again, was a special moment. Natasha S. Alford, a CNN political analyst, is VP of Digital Content and a senior correspondent at theGrio. Follow her on Twitter or Instagram at @natashasalford. 'I don't have a real normal to return to' By Neelam Bohra I still remember the panic that fluttered through me the first time someone stepped onto my apartment elevator without a mask on. It was February, before vaccines were widely available where I live in Austin, Texas. I held my breath for 7 floors -- as if it would make a difference. Neelam Bohra Now, it happens every day. I still hold my breath, squeeze into the corner as more people file into the elevator at each stop, and pray that every fully exposed face belongs to someone who is vaccinated. Sometimes they come in groups, talking and laughing. I know they don't see my entire body freeze up in fear. Maybe it doesn't sound rational to you, but I won't dare take my mask off in public, not even when I'm on the sidewalk. As a kidney transplant recipient, I've been admitted to the hospital even for something as mild as a normal cold. Between new variants and uncertainty over the vaccine's effectiveness in immunocompromised people , the threat of Covid remains in full force for me. And I don't have a real "normal" to return to. I quarantined for a month after my kidney transplant surgery in 2019. I stocked up on hand sanitizer and wore a mask when I had to venture out. The caution people have practiced during the pandemic -- for those privileged enough to stay home -- is the same caution I've always needed to keep my kidney safe. So, I'll be avoiding indoor dining, concerts and movies for a while. My mask will stay on in the elevator and all other public places until I trust the outside world again. And that may never happen. Neelam Bohra is a rising senior at UT Austin and a national news desk intern for CNN Digital this summer. The day I spent welcoming home formerly incarcerated people By Ashish Prashar Visiting Exodus Transitional Community -- an organization that provides services for adults and youth affected by the justice system -- in Harlem again, for the first time after being vaccinated, and seeing the faces of all the people, reminded me of how much I missed my community, one in which we understand each other's experience without saying a word. I forgot how everything here is centered around love, safety and meeting people's needs. Ashish Prashar Returning also gave me hope that our future can radically depart from what exists now for people coming home from prison. I was reminded that it's on us to make that happen. We can create structures for formerly incarcerated people and communities across the United States that are predicated on restoration and healing instead of punishment -- structures where people's lives are respected and they are left in good health. And that begins with care. While I was nervous because I hadn't been in a closed setting with that many people -- people who I had not met and people I wanted to feel safe around me -- I was undeterred, seeing Exodus' essential workers, and knowing the risks everyone had been facing during the pandemic. They welcomed home one beautiful soul after another throughout the pandemic (Exodus is often the first stop on their journey after incarceration), and the staff's bravery provided a safe space where returning citizens were loved and supported, and an environment where people could share their experiences. The day I walked into Exodus I embraced the founder Julio Medina, my mentor. With every step I walked through the venue, the noise grew. I talked to volunteers and welcomed home people -- whom I call my sisters and brothers -- after incarceration. We came together and shared stories, food and coffee to help everyone keep going. A powerful sense of community ran through me; a reawakening sense of unity and purpose, which brought us all there to protect our fellow human beings. No one is more hopeful than a person coming home from prison -- filled with a desire to make a better life -- and Exodus felt like the heartbeat of humanity. It is the sound of people fighting to live. Ashish Prashar is the global chief marketing officer at R/GA, a marketing and advertising company that designs innovative brands and businesses, and a justice reform activist. He sits on the board of Exodus Transitional Community, Getting Out and Staying Out, Just Leadership, Leap Confronting Conflict and the Responsible Business Initiative for Justice. Follow him @Ash_Prashar 'There are hard days still, even as we step into this new reality' By Mikki Kendall This year was the first time we celebrated Father's Day without my father-in-law. The holiday came and went, and my husband declined to do much to mark it -- not because he is not happy to be a dad himself, but because he is still adjusting to life after losing his father to Covid-19. Mikki Kendall Big Wayne was always present, always someone with opinions and advice, and life has been hard without him. This Father's Day was our first holiday in the "after" -- the new "normal" where you have grieved and will still grieve, but also realize that life is still going to go on. My husband was most comfortable having a quiet day and not talking about it, so that is what we did. It is difficult to see the line between pandemic and post-pandemic in a way that can be easily expressed when in many ways the pandemic is still ongoing. There have been graduations and birthdays, there have also been funerals, some immediate, many long-delayed by the restrictions necessary for public health. We are coming out of a slow-motion natural disaster in a weird, adult version of that childhood game "Red Light, Green Light." We don't know when to stop and when to go. This new normal appears to require a "two steps forward, one step back" approach. There are hard days still, even as we step into this new reality that is focused on the good days. But still, it is good to know that everything we learned in kindergarten is relevant eventually, including the rules about letting people be quiet on hard days so that they can enjoy the good ones. Mikki Kendall is the author of "Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot." I knew things had changed when I walked into my local Walmart By Issac Bailey The day after the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention relaxed mask guidelines for fully vaccinated people, it hit me that the pandemic seemed to end suddenly in the minds of many. This realization came when I walked into a Walmart in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, then a Dollar General, then a restaurant -- and in each place, I was one of a handful of people with something covering my face. Issac Bailey Mask-wearing hadn't been great in our area before the guidelines changed, but the overnight shift was a bit unnerving. Though I had been vaccinated for weeks by that point and had been wearing a mask out of courtesy and compliance with regulations by select stores, I felt naked when I took it off to fit in with the others. I know that even today hundreds of people a day are still being killed by Covid-19 in the US, that most of the world's population has not been vaccinated and because of our relatively low vaccination rates in parts of South Carolina, a resurgence in the fall is a real possibility. But I knew the moment I read that the CDC said the vaccinated could ditch our masks in most places it would signal to even the unmasked that the worst had passed. I just didn't think I'd see it so quickly manifest itself in a local Walmart Supercenter just hours later, particularly knowing that so many people here didn't much care what the CDC had been saying before that moment. So many people are following the science selectively now -- about masks but not vaccinations. And I don't yet know how to feel about that. 'Normal feels blissfully unremarkable' By Nancy Kaffer T.S. Eliot got it backward -- the world ended with a bang, as our doors slammed shut last March, and reopened with a whimper, as normal life crept in this summer. Nancy Kaffer Normal, in my home, depends on who you are: my 10-year-old son, too young to be vaccinated, is still constrained by Covid-19 precautions, and has struggled with this year of online learning. His school stayed closed even as others around us reopened, a harmful decision I've yet to forgive. He hasn't been in a classroom since March 2020 -- his fourth grade year; he'll start middle school in person this fall. It's hard to think about. I've been fully vaccinated since March, when the world still felt awfully dangerous, and none of us understood exactly what protections our inoculation would confer. My forays into regular life were cautious: Wednesday morning coffee indoors and without masks with a vaccinated friend, dinners out with my husband, drinks with my friend at a darling downtown bar, lunch with a friend who just started a new job, a trip to the garden store for daisies and forget-me-nots. The strange part is how normal it felt. We got used to our secluded lives this past year. We've wondered if normal would ever feel normal again. I'm here to tell you: Yes. Normal feels blissfully unremarkable. Michigan ended its mask mandate altogether this week. I met another friend for lunch Tuesday on the patio of a restaurant that still hasn't reopened for inside service. We'd eaten there a month before, walking masked to our table, giving our orders to a likewise masked waitress, wondering if we were doing something wrong. Tuesday, there wasn't a mask in sight, and under a perfectly blue summer sky, it was hard to remember that things had ever been different. Nancy Kaffer is a columnist and member of the editorial board at the Detroit Free Press. Her work has appeared in the Free Press, Politico and the Daily Beast. My café was waiting By Jay Parini My friends and family joke about me being a "café guy." They know that, for more than 50 years, I've been in a groove that starts with heading to a café in the morning. The venue has changed over the years, as I've moved from town to town, even country to country, and favorite spots sometimes go out of business. But I never thought there would be a time when I didn't have "my" place. That was, until Covid hit. Jay Parini All of a sudden, in March of last year, I was forced to stop going to my local Vermont café that looked out on a river and was my ideal place to write. Before the pandemic, I would feel hopeful just walking through the door. And had only to signal to the barista, who had become a friend, to say I'd arrived. She knew I'd be drinking an oat milk latte with half a teaspoon of sugar. I would sit at the same table, as creatures of habit do; I would look around at the familiar gallery of friends or acquaintances -- the faces rarely changed -- and I would nod warmly in their direction. I would settle in, writing in a notebook with a pencil or opening my laptop. (Poetry I write by hand, prose by laptop.) I often stayed for three solid hours, refreshing my drink at intervals. The 14 months when it was closed were awkward for me. I tried to find alternate patterns, getting coffee at a local gas station, sitting under a tree near the café. It wasn't the same. What relief I felt a few weeks ago when, with astonishment, I stepped through the door again, wearing a mask: Vermont is a place where masks die hard. The barista wore her mask, too; but we smiled through our disguises. She remembered my usual drink. My favorite table was empty, and the river seemed not to have noticed my absence. I opened my notebook and almost wept. This was joy: pure joy! The world was (almost) as it used to be. Jay Parini, a poet and novelist, teaches at Middlebury College. His most recent book is "Borges and Me," a memoir of his travels in the highlands of Scotland with Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges in 1971. 'They played on our swing set together happily and effortlessly' By Kara Alaimo My two-year-old daughter has been home since her beloved Montessori school closed in March 2020. Her school sadly wasn't able to survive the pandemic, so she'll be starting a new one this summer, along with one of her friends from her old school. Because we have a newborn and both of our children are unvaccinated, my family hasn't been getting together with other people very much. But recently I invited our daughter's friend who will be going to the new school over for a play date to reacquaint the kids with one another. Since I won't be able to enter her new school due to ongoing pandemic restrictions, I thought it would be less jarring for my daughter if she could walk in with a friend on her first day. Kara Alaimo The boy's family speaks Arabic at home, and because he's so young and has also been out of school for so long, he no longer speaks much English. But when he and my daughter were reunited, it didn't matter in the least. As soon as we parents stopped hovering, my daughter and her friend began communicating with one another in their own ways. They played on our swing set together happily and effortlessly despite their language differences. It was a reminder that, though my husband and I have worried about what being isolated at home these past 15 months might do to our daughter's development, children are profoundly resilient. And while we're ecstatic to be able to expose her to more now that our community is reopening, there are also plenty of things about the world -- like the way grown-ups from different backgrounds often come to misunderstand and be divided from one another -- that I can't quarantine her from long enough. At a Texas bar, I saw signs of trouble -- and hope By James Moore In April 2020, I tried to ride away from the pandemic. James Moore I left Austin, Texas, and headed west of the Pecos River where there were fewer humans to spread disease. I thought the biggest county in Texas might be safe. Brewster County is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined. Surely, no virus would get traction in the great wide-open of 6,193 square miles. My conclusion proved to be wrong. Inside a convenience store, my friend and I were the only ones wearing masks. A ranch hand had insisted that President Donald Trump said we didn't need to bother with face coverings. "Yes, but I don't listen to him," my pal said. There was a pause. "Maybe I'll just take that mask off you." My rather imposing friend replied, "You can try that once. And see what happens." The complainer, wisely, restrained himself, and our trip ended without incident or infection. Months later, at the height of the pandemic, I returned. But when I dismounted my motorcycle and looked inside my favorite watering hole, there were no people. Chairs were upside down on the bar and tabletops. The virus was afoot. Not conversation. This surprised me. The toughest of cowboys, it seemed, had become intimidated by the coronavirus. I had forgotten such things when I went back to the same high desert town after vaccinations were administered. I parked my motorcycle at the train station and peered into the windows of my preferred establishment. People were close together and comfortable, animated. The scene was reassuring. It felt like normality was returning. I still wasn't certain that public socializing was a wise decision. But I tried to convince myself it was a sign the pandemic might be ending. I hope it is. James Moore is an author and communications consultant. He writes a weekly newsletter at Texas to the World. When I stepped into the library again, I thought I might cry By Annika Olson I used to spend a lot of time in the library. (Nerdy, I know, but true.) Prior to the pandemic, I'd spend hours browsing books about old Hollywood actresses and chatting with John, a man who lived in a small tent outside the library. He'd tell me about the memoirs he liked to read and how living outside of the library wasn't so bad. The staff were kind, the patrons were friendly and he got to read as much as he liked. When Covid-19 shut things down, however, everything changed. No library, no studying the spines of every book, no chatting with John. Annika Olson A few weeks ago, I went back to the library again for the first time. Walking in, I thought I might start crying (again, nerdy, but true.) It felt like coming home. Little kids were excitedly checking out books with their parents, folks sat studying at the computers and others lounged in comfy chairs reading magazines. It was like nothing had changed. The library had been closed for a year, but everyone was enjoying the space like it was an ordinary day. I walked over to the memoirs and ran my fingers over the cover of a book. Man, it was good to be back. "Hello friend!" said a voice behind me. I looked around and saw John, beaming. "Want to hear about the memoir I'm reading?" Annika Olson is the assistant director of policy research at the Institute for Urban Policy Research and Analysis at the University of Texas at Austin and a Public Voices Fellow of The OpEd Project. At the movies, cheering for the film and for life as usual By Raul A. Reyes I almost didn't go to the movies that day, earlier this month. I wasn't in the best mood. I was thinking about my Aunt Emma, who passed from Covid-19 in January, and how much I missed her. But I decided on impulse that I would see "In The Heights," because I figured it would cheer me up. Plus, I hadn't been to a movie theater in over a year and a half. Raul A. Reyes In the lobby, it felt like a radical act to be surrounded by so many people in a closed space. I was momentarily self-conscious about being by myself, until I noticed that there were a lot of people there alone, all socially distanced for safety. And once the movie started, it didn't matter anyway. Watching the film was like a dream; a world with no masks or vaccine worries (the movie was shot in 2019). For a few hours, I was engrossed in Lin-Manuel Miranda's story of life in a diverse Latino community. Many of the characters reminded me of my own family. And I strongly sensed my Aunt Emma's presence; we had seen "In The Heights" on Broadway together and she loved going to the movies. In some way, she was there with me in the theater. When the movie ended, the audience burst into applause. I did too, realizing it had been a long time since I'd felt part of something joyous and communal. I was cheering, not only for the movie -- but for a return to normal life and for my aunt's memory as well. Raul A. Reyes is an attorney and a member of the USA Today board of contributors. Follow him on Twitter @RaulAReyes In tears, they got on the bus, maskless By Sarah Lenti Come back to elementary school with me for just a second. Remember the excitement of riding that big, bumblebee yellow school bus for the first time? So many choices: do you sit in the front near the friendly driver, somewhere safely in the middle or all the way back? Sarah Lenti It was a milestone -- proof that you were growing up. Independence. In our household, the anticipation and excitement for that first bus ride was all that my six-year-old twins could talk about in the lead up to "summer camp" (my fun way of saying summer school). After a year of dropping my sons off at Covid-kindergarten -- where they were masked, sanitized and temperature checked several times a day -- they were psychologically prepared to do the same at camp. Only, they were riding the bus! Off we bounded to the bus stop on Monday. Water bottles, check. Backpacks, check. Laptops, check. We could hear the rumbling of the bus in the distance and then it turned the corner and came right to us as scheduled. The boys were squealing. The door folded open and there was the bus driver, mask on and eyes smiling. Suddenly, one of my sons shrieked, "Mom, where are our masks?" He looked at me with what can only be described as all-out panic. My heart dropped. "We can't go without our masks, we can't!" they both exclaimed. "Yes, you can, it's OK, it's OK," I began to coax. The bus driver chimed in, "she's right, it's OK." Slowly, with tears, they inched toward the bus. They kept looking from me to the bus driver to the kids peeping out of the bus, some masked, some not. It was as if I had ripped off a Band-Aid. I hadn't thought to prep them for being maskless. They were scared -- and it was awful. At that moment, I didn't know what they were afraid of: getting in trouble on their first day of "camp"; feeling insecure after 12 months of mask-wearing; or, worse, they were afraid of catching, and potentially dying, from Covid-19? I wanted to run after the bus; but I knew in 6 short hours, I'd have them, wrapped back up, back in a hug, where we would begin to sort the fears out. Sarah Lenti is a political strategist and policy adviser at SML Advisory Partners. She served as a director on the National Security Council under Condoleezza Rice and worked as a lead researcher for Mitt Romney's 2010 book, "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness." 'The rest of the world was going to move on and I was going to be left behind' By Fiana Garza Tulip Before my mom died of Covid-19, she had plans to visit with us in Brooklyn to spend time with her 10-month-old granddaughter, Lua. My mom beamed over Lua's every move. With Covid cases on the rise, at my urging, she canceled her trip. Her heart was broken but I needed her to keep safe. Fiana Tulip One month later, on July 4, we lost my mom to the very disease I had tried to protect her from. There wasn't a doubt in my mind that we needed to be there for her burial. I had to say goodbye to the woman who raised me, loved me and supported me through and through. Flying wasn't an option for us so we drove 40 hours from Brooklyn, New York, to Brownsville, Texas, with a baby in the car. A few months later, my dad, too, caught Covid-19. I was in the same predicament. Due to the pandemic, I couldn't take care of him -- I couldn't even visit him. He recovered at home but his Covid delirium seemed to accelerate the progression of his dementia. It was difficult to hear his mental health decline so rapidly over the phone but the phone was my only option. In the meantime, I saw families gathering, going on vacation, hugging their loved ones. I questioned myself all the time: Was I doing the right thing by not seeing my dad or family? Two weeks after my husband and I received our Johnson & Johnson vaccines, we decided to make the trip to Texas to get a close-up of my dad's health. Driving seemed daunting and expensive, so we made the decision to fly. I felt guilty, uneasy and like I was putting my daughter and family in danger. But all signs pointed to "safe." So, we bought plane tickets. Get our free weekly newsletter Sign up for CNN Opinion's new newsletter. Join us on Twitter and Facebook While on the flight, I was nervous to touch anything. I looked around at people with double masks and kicked myself for not doing that. I wiped everything down with sanitizer -- something I used to make fun of a friend for doing. I looked around and wondered if anyone else around me was dealing with the type of trauma I was dealing with. I wondered if anyone could see how uncomfortable I was and was rolling their eyes. Normal can't be forced on me. It's not a place I can ever go back to because my mom won't be waiting for me on the other side. It was at that moment, on a plane, that I knew the rest of the world was going to move on and I was going to be left behind. Fiana Garza Tulip is a PR/marketing/sales professional who has represented a number of Fortune 500 companies in her 20+ year career. A Texas native based in Brooklyn, she received degrees from UT Austin and the Parsons School of Design.

Opinion: How the 'guilt gap' is hurting American women

(CNN) An engaged mother of three, Vanessa worked as a certified nursing assistant, making just above minimum wage. She had no savings when her employer downsized, and she worried about how her job loss would impact her kids and her fiancé. She decided to sacrifice her health: "I don't take any of my medications. None ... You know, my kids' school clothes and their food and stuff ... it's worth more than your health." Vanessa explicitly stated that she valued her kids' need for food but also "school clothes" and "stuff" ahead of her own health. Sarah Damaske Vanessa was one of 100 unemployed women and men I interviewed living in Pennsylvania. Before the pandemic, I received funding from the National Science Foundation to conduct repeated in-depth life history interviews with people who had experienced job loss. The people I met came from both rural areas and cities, with varying educational and financial backgrounds. Some had lost jobs as waitresses or factory workers, and others had been highflying executives. And while I interviewed women and men, the only people who said things to me that echoed Vanessa's feelings were the women. My research suggests that unemployed women are more likely than unemployed men to sacrifice their health before they ask their families to do without. I call this difference between women and men the "guilt gap" (women tend to feel guilty making their health a top priority, while men don't) -- and while data is hard to come by, it seems probable that the pandemic has made it worse. This worrisome pattern could not only cost families more money when women's health care issues worsen but also may even threaten women's lives. During our conversations, I discovered that many women tied these feelings of guilt about their job loss to a need to sacrifice their health to protect family members from the tolls of unemployment. Among them, a majority of the unemployed women I met stopped taking their medications, visiting their doctors, or taking care of themselves the ways they had before their job loss. For example, some women saved money by borrowing inhalers from neighbors. One registered nurse, Brandi, explained, "I do have asthma, so as far as my inhaler goes, actually, I'll be honest with you. A friend of mine let me use theirs. If it gets that bad, I call her." A year later, when I followed up with another woman I met, Ruth, I learned that she had been hospitalized and left with large medical bills after ignoring a pain in her stomach for months. The ER doctors were able to surgically remove what turned out to be kidney stones, but Ruth learned she may have been able to avoid both the surgery and the hospital if she had had them treated sooner. To solve the "guilt gap" problem, we must ask tough questions about whether and how our mothering ideals harm women. When women feel obligated to provide for their families out of notions of self-sacrifice, they may do so in ways that are detrimental -- or even dangerous -- to themselves. As we move in America toward a post-pandemic recovery, we are rightly focused on how the economic ravages have disproportionately fallen on marginalized people. But as we work to address that, we can't lose sight of the deep inequities that existed before the pandemic and have been exacerbated by it.

Opinion: My life growing up Black and trans in 1980s Atlanta

(CNN) When I was 12 years old, I wore a pink shirt. Right before leaving the house, my stepfather stopped me at the door: "You shouldn't wear that. It's for girls and people will think that you're gay. It's bad enough if people think that you support them." His words were a stark lesson in gender expression. If I couldn't even wear colors associated with girls, how in the world was I supposed to be able to ever tell my family I actually was a girl? As painful as this incident was for someone like me who grew up Black and trans in 1980s Atlanta, Georgia, it was not uncommon. The excessive standards that Black people are held to by the wider society means that nonconformity -- any expression considered "not the right way" -- is dismissed and erased. For me, this meant that I could not speak my truth and use my voice to tell the world who I was when I knew it. Like so many trans people, I grew up invisible. Imara Jones With the eyes of an adult, I understand the motivations of my family and my community. They felt that they were acting in my best interest. But people who do harm often have noble intentions and the reality is that each day of erasure for me was corrosive. Invisibility was a slow-acting poison that made it harder and harder for me to manifest my true self. Sadly, my experience was not unique. This is still true. The world remains an unwelcoming place for trans people and, in some ways, today is even tougher than it was when I was growing up. Although I know what it feels like to be told by your community that you don't matter, I never had to experience the devastating impact of a coordinated attack on my well-being by the anti-trans hate machine. Challenging environments, however, can give us important insights. The upside of my childhood is that I learned just how crucial it is for us to be who we were meant to be. The vital role that self-expression plays in being ourselves is why I've devoted my life to giving a voice to trans people. My organization, TransLash Media , was born out of that fundamental desire I had my whole life to be myself and help others be themselves, even when it's hard.

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Incredible before-and-after imagery shows impact of California wildfires and drought

(CNN) Remarkable satellite images captured a year apart illustrate the severity of the California drought and the impact of the 2020 Bobcat Fire and Ranch 2 Fire in Los Angeles County. Between June 2020 and June 2021, Angeles National Forest went from green and lush to brown and parched. Water in three reservoirs -- San Gabriel, Morris and Cogswell -- has declined significantly. All of the reservoirs are outlined in brown in the 2021 shot, denoting how much the water level has dropped. The Bobcat fire burned nearly 115,000 acres of the San Gabriel Mountains and some of the surrounding area between September and December. It was one of the largest fires in Los Angeles County history. The European Space Agency shared the imagery of the forest, which is just north of the greater Los Angeles area, on its Facebook page earlier this week. All of California is in some level of drought, according to the US Drought Monitor, and at increased risk of wildfires. About 33 percent of the state is in "exceptional drought," the most severe classification. Read More