National Weather Forecast

Two areas of rain are possible on Sunday – one in the lower Mississippi Valley (and surrounding areas) and another in the western United States. Heat builds across the central United States, with 100s possible up to the Twin Cities.

The heaviest rain through Labor Day Monday will be in the western United States, where a system will bring the potential of at least 1-3” of rain.

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Florida’s insurance industry is in flux as Idalia cleanup begins

More from NBC News: “As cleanup begins in the aftermath of Hurricane Idalia, the storm has served as a stark reminder that Florida’s insurance industry remains in flux. … Powerful storms have regularly pummeled Florida’s coastal communities in recent years. The hurricanes have brought high winds, lashing rains and deadly storm surge. Idalia brought much of the same, and it has forced many homeowners to turn to their insurance policies in hope that repairing their homes and replacing their belongings might be covered. But many of those homeowners face uncertainty amid the upheaval that has emerged in Florida’s insurance industry in recent years.

Climate change is making home construction more expensive

More from Marketplace: “The home construction industry has been facing a number of challenges this year. High interest rates are weighing on housing demand, and construction loans are harder to come by. But the lending environment isn’t the only obstacle to home construction. Climate change is making home construction costlier, too. In states where natural disasters are becoming more common, builders are demanding more climate-resistant building materials, like steel-reinforced walls and wind-resistant glass. “And so then that makes it costlier, if there’s a spike in demand coming from all homebuilders in that area,” said Parinitha Sastry, a finance professor at Columbia Business School.

Invasive species have created a cycle of wildfire in Hawaiʻi. Can Maui break it?

More from Grist: “Some forests are not built to burn. Earlier this month, wildfires tore through Maui, engulfing the port city of Lahaina, burning 3,200 acres of land and killing at least 115 people, more than any other wildfire in modern U.S. history. Maui was at a unique disadvantage: Two centuries of colonial occupation and large-scale transformations of the natural landscape have transformed large swaths of the island’s moist, native forests into dry prairie littered with highly flammable invasive grasses. A recent flash drought, a rapid-onset dry period connected to climate change, dried out these grasses and fueled the blazes. Naturally occurring wildfires are not a regular part of Maui’s native ecosystem, which evolved slowly over the course of millions of years. But it is part of the ecosystem in the places where some of the invasive grasses originally came from, like tropical Africa. In the coming weeks, months, and years, those invasive grasses, not Maui’s endemic species, stand to benefit from the wreckage of this year’s wildfires.

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– D.J. Kayser