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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Trump Will Seek to Remove Fluoride From Drinking Water

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Saturday that among the first acts of a second Trump administration would be to “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” a stunning potential reversal of what is widely considered one of the most important public health interventions of the past century.The statement, posted on social media, is among the more concrete pledges made by Mr. Kennedy — a former independent presidential candidate who is now backing Mr. Trump — in his capacity as a top adviser on Mr. Trump’s transition team. It also raises the specter of an all-out assault on public-health expertise should Mr. Trump win next week’s election, a prospect that has already caused significant alarm among experts across the medical and environmental fields.As president, Mr. Trump would not have the power to order states and municipalities to remove fluoride from their water supplies; fluoridation is a matter of local control.But a presidential pronouncement would inject the White House into a debate that stretches back to the 1950s, when conspiracy theories swirled around fluoridation, with critics claiming it was a Communist plot to poison Americans’ brains — a view that was memorably parodied in Stanley Kubrick’s film “Dr. Strangelove.”More recently, however, there has been scientific debate around the practice, with some studies suggesting that excess exposure to fluoride — at levels twice the amount recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency — could harm infants’ developing brains. But scientists, including those at the federal government’s National Toxicology Program, say more research is needed to understand whether lower exposure to fluoride has an effect.The process of adding small amounts fluoride to drinking water, or fluoridation, began about 80 years ago to prevent tooth decay. That effort, public health officials say, has been extraordinarily successful. A majority of Americans today live in water systems that are fluoridated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which lists fluoridation as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      A Deluge of Rain Poured Out of the Heavens. But There’s Still No Drinking Water.

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      City officials have refused to provide estimates of when the devastated water system in Asheville, N.C., will be back in operation.Since their home lost running water around 2 p.m. on Sept. 27 from Hurricane Helene, Etiska Jackson and her husband, Jayme, have been driving back and forth between their home in Asheville, N.C., and her brother’s in Madison County, about 25 miles north. There, they wash their clothes, take showers and fetch water from a well to flush their toilet.“I feel like I’m camping in my house,” Ms. Jackson, 61, who works as a receptionist at the Charles George VA Medical Center in Asheville, said from the front yard of her bungalow on Friday afternoon.For Ms. Jackson, the most troubling part of not having running water is not knowing when it may return. “They can’t even give us a time frame,” she said. About a foot of water poured out of the dark, gray sky when the remnants of Helene inundated Asheville and much of western North Carolina. More than a week later, not a drop comes out of most people’s faucets. For many of them, it could be weeks before that changes.Bottled water was the only potable water that residents of the city of 94,000 had as of Friday. A treatment plant capable of serving a part of the city that accounts for about 20 percent of its needs was back at full capacity on Friday and city workers were sampling water in pipes to see if it was safe to drink, said Ben Woody, the assistant city manager. Residents have been told to boil any water that does come to them, before drinking it.During the day, you can see Asheville’s water crisis on street corners and at parks throughout the city.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesAt Pack Square Park, just outside the Buncombe County Courthouse, the limit was two gallons per person, or five per family.Christian Monterrosa for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What We Know About the Deadly Floods in Central Europe

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      At least 17 people have died and thousands have been displaced. “Relief is not expected to come before tomorrow, and more likely, the day after,” an official in Austria said.At least 17 people were dead and several others missing on Monday after days of flooding in Central Europe. Thousands were displaced, and with heavy rains continuing in some places, officials feared there could be more destruction ahead. The floodwaters have ravaged towns, destroyed bridges and breached dams since intense rainfall from Storm Boris — a slow-moving low-pressure system — began in some places late last week. Emergency workers have made daring rescues of people and even pets as officials assessed the scale of the damage.For some, the disaster recalled the devastating floods that struck the region in July 1997, killing more than 100 people and driving thousands of others out of their homes.“This was a very traumatic one for Poland — the one that is remembered,” Hubert Rozyk, a spokesman for Poland’s Ministry of Climate and Environment, said of that disaster. “And in some places, the situation is even worse than in 1997.”Here’s what we know about the destruction in some of the worst-hit countries.RomaniaTwo men rescued a third from rising floodwaters in the Romanian village of Slobozia Conachi on Saturday.Daniel Mihailescu/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesSeven people have died in Romania, Dr. Raed Arafat, the head of the Department for Emergency Situations in the Ministry of Internal Affairs said in a phone call on Monday.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Threatens to Cut California Wildfire Aid Unless Newsom Delivers More Water

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      Donald J. Trump on Friday threatened to withhold federal wildfire aid from California, if elected as president, unless Gov. Gavin Newsom agrees to divert more water to farmers rather than allowing it to flow to the ocean.Mr. Trump, during a news conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif., claimed that the state’s devastating wildfires could be prevented by shifts in how California manages its limited water supply. “If he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put out all his fires,” Mr. Trump said, referring to Mr. Newsom authorizing water diversions to farmers. “And if we don’t give him all the money to put out the fires, he’s got problems.” In his remarks, Mr. Trump, the former Republican president, repeatedly called the Democratic governor “Newscum.”Soon after, Governor Newsom posted a clip of Trump’s comments on X and said that every American voter should pay attention.Mr. Trump “just admitted he will block emergency disaster funds to settle political vendettas,” Governor Newsom said. “Today it’s California’s wildfires. Tomorrow it could be hurricane funding for North Carolina or flooding assistance for homeowners in Pennsylvania. Donald Trump doesn’t care about America — he only cares about himself.” We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Klamath River Dam Removal Should Allow Salmon to Thrive

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      The Klamath River was once so flush with fish that local tribes ate salmon at every meal: flame-roasted filets on redwood skewers, stews flavored with fish tails, strips of smoky, dried salmon. In the language of the Yurok, who live on the river among California’s towering redwoods, the word for “salmon” translates to “that which we eat.”But when hydropower dams were built on the Klamath, which wends from southern Oregon into far northwest California, the river’s ecosystem was upended and salmon were cut off from 420 miles of cooler tributaries and streams where they had once laid their eggs. For decades, there has been little salmon for the tribes to cook, sell or use in religious ceremonies. The Yurok’s 60th annual Salmon Festival this summer served none of its namesake fish.But tribal members hope the situation is about to dramatically change.Four giant dams on the Klamath are being razed as part of the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, a victory for the tribes who have led a decades-long campaign to restore the river. This week, as the final pieces are demolished, a 240-mile stretch of the Klamath will flow freely for the first time in more than a century — and salmon will get their best shot at long-term survival in the river.“The salmon are going to their spawning grounds for the first time in 100 years,” said Ron Reed, 62, a member of the Karuk tribe who has been fighting for dam removal for half his life. “There’s a sense of pride. There’s a sense of health and wellness.”Juvenile chinook salmon before being released into the Klamath River near Hornbrook, Calif.Salmon play an outsize role in nourishing and holding together ecosystems, scientists say, and their plight has fueled a growing trend of dam removals nationwide. Of the 150 removals on the West Coast in the past decade — double that of the previous decade, according to data from American Rivers, an environmentalist group — most have benefited salmon. Chinook salmon, or king salmon, in the Klamath are predicted to increase by as much as 80 percent within the next three decades.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Video Shows Yellowstone Explosion That Sent Tourists Running for Safety

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      The explosion at Biscuit Basin, which sent a column of boiling water, mud and rock shooting into the sky on Tuesday, was caught in dramatic videos.Tourists at Yellowstone National Park ran for cover after a hydrothermal explosion sent a column of boiling water, mud and rock into the air.Vlada March via StoryfulA hydrothermal explosion shot a towering column of boiling water, mud and rock into the air at Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming on Tuesday morning, destroying a section of boardwalk and sending dozens of tourists running for safety, officials said. No injuries were reported, according to the United States Geological Survey, but the area remained closed to the public.The explosion occurred around 10 a.m. in the Biscuit Basin area of the park. Several tourists captured video of the event, and in some footage an adult, Vlada March, can be heard shouting at her two children to run.Ms. March, a tourist who recorded the event on her cellphone, said she was taking a guided tour with her family when the guide pointed out steam rising from the ground.“‘Oh look,’ he said. ‘This is unusual.’ I took out my phone like everyone does. Suddenly it became a huge, dark cloud full of rocks,” she said in a phone interview. “It was a huge cloud, it covered the sun. For a few moments, you couldn’t see the sun it was so dark.”Ms. March, of Palm Desert, Cal., said she shouted for her two young sons to run, and looked frantically for her 70-year-old mother, whom she had lost sight of. When her mother reappeared, Ms. March said, “she was covered in ash, head to toe.”The explosion was a couple of miles north of the Old Faithful Geyser, which regularly shoots steam into the sky. “This is quite a bit different than Old Faithful,” said Michael Poland, the scientist in charge at the Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, who said the hydrothermal event took place near Black Diamond Pool in Biscuit Basin.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Coney Island Drownings Fail to Deter New Yorkers as City Swelters

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      Visitors were mostly unaffected by the third and fourth drownings at New York City beaches this season, matching the total number of swimming deaths last summer.The scene at Coney Island on Saturday was typical for a humid and hot weekend in July: colorful towels, tents and umbrellas packed into the strip of sand.Along the famed boardwalk in Brooklyn, signs warned visitors of the potential dangers posed by lightning or strong currents, and delineated where and when it was safe to swim.Yet in one area, closed off by small red flags staked into the sand, a handful of people ventured into the water with no lifeguards present. To the east, where two teenage sisters drowned in the water the night before, swimmers splashed around, unaware or undeterred, enjoying an escape from the city’s heat as temperatures peaked just below 90 degrees.The two teenage sisters who drowned on Friday entered the ocean after the beach was closed.Dakota Santiago for The New York TimesThe sisters who drowned Friday night, Zainab Mohammed, 17, and Aisha Mohammed, 18, were the second pair of teenagers to drown off New York City’s beaches already this summer. At nearby Jacob Riis Park beach in Queens, two boys, ages 16 and 17, drowned just two weeks earlier. Both incidents happened on especially hot days, after the beaches closed but before the sun had set.On Saturday, another man died after being pulled from the water off Inwood Hill Park in Upper Manhattan, according to the police. He was transported to NewYork-Presbyterian Allen Hospital, where he was pronounced dead. We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      As Heat Wave Bakes New Jersey, Residents Asked to Reduce Water Use

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      The intense and unusually early heat wave that has blanketed much of the Northeast for the past week continued on Sunday to scorch New Jersey, where excessive heat warnings or heat advisories were in effect in most of the state, according to the National Weather Service.Temperatures throughout the region were more than 10 degrees above average on Sunday, according to Joe DeSilva, a meteorologist with the Weather Service. Trenton, the state capital, reached 98 degrees — just two degrees shy of the city’s hottest recorded temperature, last logged in 1952, he said.The worst of the sweltering heat should be over by Sunday evening, Mr. DeSilva said, though temperatures were expected to remain in the 80s in the coming week.Officials in numerous communities urged residents — especially older people, homeless people and those with chronic health conditions — to prevent heat-related illness by staying hydrated, using air-conditioning, limiting strenuous physical activity and wearing loose, light-colored clothing. Pet owners should also monitor their animals for signs of overheating, such as excessive panting, drooling and lethargy, officials said.The state’s Department of Environmental Protection encouraged New Jerseyans to take advantage of the Chill Out NJ tool, an online map of public places where people can find air-conditioning, pools, splash pads, beaches or shady parks.The lengthy heat wave also prompted officials in some places, including Pennsville Township, Moorestown and Vineland in South Jersey, and Ridgewood, Denville and Butler in North Jersey, to announce mandatory or optional water restrictions, asking residents to refrain from washing their cars or watering their lawns. And at Red Bull Arena in Harrison, a National Women’s Soccer League game between Gotham F.C. and the Washington Spirit on Sunday was moved to 6 p.m. from 1:30 p.m. because of the heat.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More