Tag: cities

From sponge cities to beavers: 17 ways to protect against climate change

13. Rapid warnings

Early warning systems are considered a “low-hanging fruit” for climate change adaptations. 

They are a relatively low-cost and effective way of protecting people from the hazards of storms, floods, heatwaves and forest fires.

These systems can track the paths of cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes at sea before they make landfall. The severity of droughts can also be tracked and the progress of floods monitored. 

In the UK, a text-based government warning system was introduced in April for emergency events, including extreme weather, and many other countries have the same.

In developing countries, which can be much more vulnerable to extreme weather events, they are much less widespread, however.

14. Shore up sea defences

Climate change is already having a considerable impact on our coastline. 

There are around 520,000 homes in England in areas at risk of coastal flooding and 8,900 homes are at risk of being lost to coastal erosion. 

Often, it’s not worth building sea walls and other defences, but in some cases saving land is possible. 

Barriers can be made out of concrete, stone, asphalt or wood and high revetments can be designed to stop waves from overtopping the defence. 

There are also more creative ways to stop the swell of the sea. In St Andrews, Christmas trees have been buried within dunes and marram grass planted on top in order to reinforce them against the tide.

15. Communal cool rooms 

Making sure people have a cool place to shelter from heat waves can reduce heat-related illness or death and reduce personal energy usage. 

These centres can be specifically designed for large communities as safe locations with plenty of water and air conditioning, or older buildings can be adapted to do the same job. 

This summer cities across China opened the doors of their air raid shelters to offer residents some relief as scorching heat swept the country.

The shelters were equipped with seating areas, offering access to water, heat stroke medicine and amenities like WiFi, television and table tennis equipment. 

Several towns and cities in the United States and Europe also have designated communal cooling rooms when temperatures surge.

Medieval murder maps of three English cities offer window into past

Early on a Sunday evening in April 1299, a young scholar led Margery de Hereford inside a house in Oxford. What began with lust ended in murder: when Margery, a sex worker, demanded to be paid, the unnamed man drew a knife, struck her near the left breast and fled.

Margery may have never received justice but her story is to feature in a collection of interactive maps that use 700-year-old records of coroners’ inquests to locate and detail homicides across three UK cities.

The team behind the project say they hope the approach will offer a window into the past.

“It brings [the records] to life because you can actually locate them in places that you know about,” said Prof Manuel Eisner, the lead murder map investigator and director of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology.

The website, Medieval Murder Maps, expands on the team’s work exploring violent deaths in medieval London and also encompass homicides in Oxford and York, largely from the 14th century.

As well as the written account of the inquest, each entry on the maps is accompanied by links to extra information, and some feature voiceovers.

Dr Stephanie Brown, a researcher on the project, said she hoped the approach would kill off the idea there was no law and order in medieval times – although she noted some processes differed from today’s, with bystanders legally obliged to raise a “hue and cry” when they witnessed a crime, and juries typically comprised people who knew those involved.

The records offer other insights, too. “Yes, these are horrible murder cases, but we can get lots of information about the medieval world, about people’s daily lives, about their occupations, about what they were doing when they met their end,” Brown said.

The team note that Oxford had a per capita homicide rate four to five times higher than the other two cities. “Oxford is sort of this cauldron of violence,” Brown said, adding that students made up the majority of the perpetrators and victims.

This is perhaps not surprising. At the time, only clerics could become members of the university, Brown said. “These should be single men, young men – the type of people who are more likely to commit violence right up through to today,” she said.

As well as opportunities for drinking, sex and freedom from control – still typical of university life – these students had ready access to weapons. As Brown pointed out, men would have carried a short knife as an everyday tool for tasks such as cutting up food – and the inquest records show these were common instruments of murder.

There was no shortage of friction, including between students and town dwellers, and between students from north and south of the Humber. “They really, really hated each other,” Eisner said.

London and York were no strangers to violence either, with records for the latter including a double murder at the minster, a fatal clash between mould-makers, and a nocturnal killing of a chaplain by a husband, his wife and her sister.

Alongside the maps, the team are launching a podcast exploring the medieval murders together with contemporary thinking about crime and violence.

Eisner said he hoped the project would encourage people to reflect on what the motives may have been behind the historical homicides, and explore parallels with altercations they may encounter today.

“That’s what I want to achieve,” he said. “People actually seeing, to some extent, themselves in these stories.”

Sustainable development at heart of Smart Cities, has lessons for Global South: report

Over 70% of projects under the Smart Cities Mission (SCM) are in alignment with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) on cities, clean water and sanitation, clean energy and economic growth, according to a report released Wednesday.

The report — “Smart Cities Mission, India: Localising Sustainable Development Goals” — was the upshot of what officials said was the first such exercise to map all the projects of a national mission against Global Goals. The SCM involves around 8,000 projects.

Prepared by the Union Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry and UN-Habitat, the report was released by President Droupadi Murmu at the annual Smart Cities Conclave in Indore.

“We still have very far to go in that direction,” Murmu said as she emphasised making cities inclusive and sustainable. She said there was also a need for providing health, education and other basic services in rural areas like in cities.

The SDGs are a set of 17 targets part of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which was adopted by all UN member states, including India, in 2015.

According to the report, while the SCM projects have largely contributed, in one way or the other, to 15 of the 17 SDGs, nearly 44% were in line with the aim of SDG 11 — to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

It further said that 13.3% of the SCM projects contributed to SDG 6 (Clean water and sanitation); 8.6% to SDG 7 (Affordable and clean energy) and 6.4% to SDG 8 (Decent work and economic growth).

Highlighting the SCM compliance with SDGs, the report cited as an example a project in Ahmedabad, where sensor-based monitoring of the water network resulted in an additional supply of 50 million litres a day (MLD) by detecting leakages. This, the report said, benefited a population of 1.50 lakh.

It also mentioned the project in Indore, which used a gravity-based network to prevent 205 MLD of untreated sewage from entering the Kahn river, the Saraswati river and the network of 25 drains. “The dissolved oxygen levels in the water bodies now measure at 4mg/litre, indicating a healthier aquatic ecosystem,” the report said.

The report also highlighted the Mudasarlova Reservoir Floating Solar Plant in Visakhapatnam, which led to an annual electricity generation of 3,613 MWh and saved $0.28 million, the report said. The project prevented emission of over 3,000 tonnes of CO2, it added.

Capping it all, the report said that the SCM, with a total of 7,846 projects across 100 cities worth $22 billion, showcases “successful implementation of a national-scale urban mission that aligns comprehensively with global agendas and empowers cities to drive sustainable development”.

“It serves as a living lab for people-centric smart urbanisation and offers valuable lessons for urban areas in the Global South,” it said.

The Smart Cities Mission, launched in 2015, was expected to be completed by June this year, but the Ministry extended its deadline to June 2024.

Speaking at the event, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Puri said of the sanctioned projects worth Rs 1.71 lakh crore, 6,069 projects worth Rs1.10 lakh crore had been completed. The rest were “on target” for completion by June 2024, he said.

“I have full faith that the success of the Smart Cities Mission will gain more momentum when there is the second generation of Smart Cities at district and village levels,” Puri said.

Parul Agarwala, the UN-Habitat India country programme manager and one of the authors of the report, told The Indian Express that the report showcases “India’s commitment to Agenda 2030.”

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“The report demonstrates tangible and measurable impact towards the achievement of SDGs, relying not solely on data but also human stories and perspectives,” she said.

During the event, the President handed out the Smart Cities awards for 2022, with Indore being named the overall best Smart City and Madhya Pradesh the best state.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan chalked up Madhya Pradesh’ success to making the Smart Cities and Swachh Bharat missions into a “mass movement” and not just an official programme.

World’s wealthiest cities revealed, with London in top ten

N

ew York City has been found to be the world’s wealthiest city by research that ranks the number of ‘high-net-worth individuals’, with London coming fourth.

Research by investment firm Henley and Partners found that the US city has 340,000 individuals with a wealth of $1 million (£817,000) or more. This includes 724 centimillionaires, with wealth of at least $100 million, and 58 billionaires.

The metrics were gathered using the US dollar, meaning the number of high-net-worth individuals could be much lower if the pound was considered.

While New York has seen a 40 per cent growth, its nearest competitor, Tokyo, has seen its millionaires fall by five per cent to 290,300. A big riser was the San Francisco Bay area, which grew by 68 per cent to 285,000 and within touch of the Japanese city.

Meanwhile, the number of London millionaires fell by 15 per cent to 258,000, and the city now has 384 centimillionaires and 36 billionaires.

“New York City wears the crown as the world’s top city with the most millionaires in 2023,” Henley and Partners said on Monday.

“Seven of the world’s top 10 cities listed are in countries that host formal investment migration programmes and actively encourage foreign direct investment in return for residence or citizenship rights.”

Manchester and Edinburgh were also in the top 97 of the world’s wealthiest, with 24,200 and 12,300 millionaires respectively.

Behind London were Singapore, Los Angeles, Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, and Sydney to round out the top 10.

“London is the financial capital of the world, offering an international business environment,” Henley and Partners said of the British capital.

“The UK is also renowned for having some of the best educational institutions in the world and an open, international culture.”

The most expensive cities

City/Area HNWI growth %(2012 to 2022) HNWIs (USD 1m+) Centimillionaires (USD 100m+) Billionaires (USD 1bn+)
New York City 40% 340,000 724 58
Tokyo -5% 290,300 250 14
The Bay Area 68% 285,000 629 63
London -15% 258,000 384 36
Singapore 40% 240,100 329 27
Los Angeles 35% 205,400 480 42
Hong Kong -27% 129,500 290 32
Beijing 70% 128,200 354 43

21 Cities, 21 Press Meets: Congress Plan To “Expose” Women’s Quota Bill

Ranjeet Ranjan will hold a press conference in Bhubaneswar and Alka Lamba in Jaipur.

New Delhi:

The Congress will hold press conferences in 21 cities on Monday in which 21 women leaders will “expose the Modi government” on the issue of women’s reservation, the party said.

While MP Rajani Patil will hold a press conference in Ahmedabad, Mahila Congress chief Netta D’Souza will hold a presser in Hyderabad.

Ranjeet Ranjan will hold a press conference in Bhubaneswar, Alka Lamba in Jaipur, Amee Yagnik in Mumbai, Ragini Nayak in Ranchi and Shama Mohamed in Srinagar, among others.

The Congress’ media and publicity department head Pawan Khera said press conferences will be held in 21 cities by 21 women leaders. “Agenda – to expose the treachery by the Modi government in the name of women’s reservation,” he said in a post on X. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Newsom urges SCOTUS to consider encampment ruling that has ‘paralyzed’ California cities

The Grants Pass ruling prevented city officials from enforcing ordinances against sleeping on public property, expanding a prior ruling — Martin v. Boise — that barred cities from criminalizing people who were sleeping in public spaces if there weren’t sufficient beds to accommodate them.

The Ninth Circuit recently upheld that ruling. Those legal precedents have sharply curtailed California officials’ authority to clear homeless encampments, an increasingly ubiquitous feature of West Coast cities that have fanned voter outrage.

San Francisco is fighting an anti-clearance injunction, and San Diego City Council voted this week to back the Grants Pass appeal. Now Newsom has also waded in, laying down a mark in a legal dispute with potentially profound implications for one of California’s most pressing issues.

The Democratic governor has for years assailed judges who limit encampment sweeps, arguing they are undercutting efforts to move people out of dangerous, unsanitary conditions. Newsom reiterated that argument last week in vowing to intervene in the Grants Pass case.

“I hope this goes to the Supreme Court, and that’s a hell of a statement for a progressive Democrat,” Newsom said in an interview with POLITICO last week. “It’s gone too far. People’s lives are at risk.”

What’s next? The Supreme Court will decide whether to take up the case. The high court declined to hear an appeal of the Boise case in 2019.

Missiles onslaught on Ukrainian cities as Kyiv launches deadliest attack yet

Moscow launched rockets at six Ukrainian cities including Kyiv and Kharkiv, leaving at least three dead as it targeted energy hubs.

At the same time, Ukraine targeted Crimea with at least 19 kamikaze drones. Russian claimed to have downed them all.

But at least 30 people reportedly died after a large strike at a Russian airfield in Saky, Crimea, the Ukrainian Security Service and Navy said.

A Ukrainian intelligence source said the attack was by the security service and navy with drones and Neptune cruise missiles.

It “hit the target and caused serious damage” to ­equipment at the air base, the source said.

And blasts struck Sevastopol, near Simferopol and Evpatoria, as well as the settlements Novofedorovka, Dzhankoy and Balaklava. Ukraine also attacked Russian regions Kursk, Belgorod and Oryol regions with drones.

But the overnight barrages came just hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov each addressed the UN Security Council in New York.

Mr Zelensky told delegates: “Most of the world recognises the truth about this war. It is a criminal and unprovoked aggression by Russia.”

Ukraine’s army chief claimed air defences shot down 36 out of the 43 Russian missiles. The strikes left much of the country without power.

In Cherkasy – central Ukraine –at least 23 people were wounded.

Russian sources claimed to have hit a hotel housing “foreign mercenaries” but Kyiv said Moscow had again targeted civilian buildings.

Six missiles hit Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv. Urban hubs Khmelnytskyi, Vinnytsia, Rivne and Ivano-Frankivsk, were also blasted.

Oleksiy Kuleba, of the ­president’s office, said: “Russia launched a massive missile attack.

“Kherson oblast is constantly under fire. The enemy killed three people and wounded five.”

Kyiv warns of ‘difficult’ winter as Russia hits Ukraine cities

KYIV: Ukraine on Thursday (Sep 21) warned that difficult winter months lay ahead after a “massive” Russian missile barrage targeted civilian infrastructure, leaving several dead and wounded in towns across Ukraine.

Moscow hit cities from Rivne in western Ukraine to Kherson in the south, the capital Kyiv and cities in the centre and northeast of the country.

The attacks killed at least three people in Kherson and wounded many in other parts of Ukraine, with authorities still searching for victims in some cities.

Russia launched the strikes as Ukraine prepares for a third winter during Moscow’s 19-month long invasion and as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made his second wartime trip to Washington.

“Difficult months are ahead: Russia will attack energy and critically important facilities,” said Oleksiy Kuleba, the deputy head of Kyiv’s presidential office. He added that Moscow had targeted “civilian infrastructure” across Ukraine.

Kyiv said there were power cuts across the country – in almost 400 cities, towns and villages – as Russia targeted energy sites, but Ukraine added it was “too early” to tell if this was the start of a new Russian campaign against its energy sites.

Last winter saw many Ukrainians without electricity and heating in freezing temperatures as Russia hit Kyiv’s energy facilities.

In Kyiv’s eastern Darnitsky district, frightened residents of a dormitory woke up to their rooms with shattered windows and parked cars outside completely burnt out.

Debris from a downed missile in the capital left seven people, including a child, wounded.

“God, god, god,” Maya Pelyukh, a 50-year-old cleaner who lives in the building, said as she looked at her living room covered in broken glass and debris on her bed.

“The windows and doors were blown away. I was covered with window frames,” Pelyukh said. “I opened my eyes and started to crawl.”

She looked outside, where fire fighters were extinguishing a blaze from the strike.

“There are no soldiers here,” she said, countering Moscow’s claim that it only hits military targets. “This is a dormitory … I don’t know why they are doing this.”

Some residents outside were still in dressing gowns as they watched emergency workers put out a fire that authorities said had spread over 400 sq m.

Daria Kalna held her toddler daughter as she watched workers clear the rubble.

“We thought we were being hit, it was very scary,” she told AFP. “There are no words to describe these emotions.”

Russia strikes cities from east to west Ukraine, killing at least 2

KYIV, Ukraine — Air alerts sounded again and again in Kyiv and residents headed to shelters early Thursday morning, as a massive Russian attack on at least six cities across Ukraine killed at least two people and started fires, wounding at least 21 and trapping possibly dozens of people under rubble.

The early morning missile attack was Russia’s largest since August 15, and came a day after reports of sabotage at a Russian military airfield in Chkalovsk near Moscow.

It also coincided with the United Nations General Assembly summit in New York, where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky delivered a speech and presented a Ukrainian “peace formula,” and came on the International Day of Peace.

The same day, Poland said it would stop transferring its own weapons to Ukraine as it works to modernize its own military.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the decision was not related to a temporary ban on Ukrainian grain imports, nor would it affect weapons transfers through Poland.

A dispute about whether Ukrainian grain should be allowed to enter the domestic markets of Poland and other European Union countries has pushed the tight relationship between Kyiv and Warsaw to its lowest point since Russia invaded Ukraine last year.

“We are no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine because now we will arm ourselves with the most modern weapons,” he said in an interview on the private TV broadcaster Polsat News late Wednesday.

Morawiecki stressed that Poland would defend its economic interests but added that the dispute over grain imports would not hurt Ukraine’s security. He said a NATO and U.S. hub in the Polish city of Rzeszow used for transporting weapons into Ukraine would not be affected.

“We are not going to risk the security of Ukraine,” he said. Poland has transferred large amounts of its older weapons to Ukraine and has been upgrading its own inventory with new equipment purchased from South Korea and other countries.

In the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, near the front lines, two people were killed Thursday and at least five injured after a strike hit a residential building, said regional Governor Oleksand Prokudin.

Seven people were injured in Kyiv, including a 9-year-old girl, reported Mayor Vitalii Klitschko, and some residential and commercial buildings were damaged.

At least six strikes hit the Slobidskyi district of Kharkiv, damaging civilian infrastructure, said regional Governor Oleh Syniehubov. The city’s mayor added that two people had been sent to hospitals.

At least 10 people were injured and at least one person was rescued from under rubble in Cherkasy, in central Ukraine, according to Ihor Klymenko, minister of internal affairs of Ukraine. Up to 23 people may still be buried under rubble in Cherkasy after the morning strike, said Cherkasy regional Governor Ihor Taburets. Rescue services were working to clear the debris.

An industrial zone was hit in the western region of Lviv, damaging buildings and starting a fire, but no information on casualties was immediately available, Klymenko added.

Regional Governor Vitalii Koval reported strikes in the city of Rivne in the northwest region of the same name, without immediately providing details.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said 22 drones were taken down overnight by air defense systems, 19 above Russian-annexed Crimea and three others in the Kursk, Belgorod and Oryol regions near Ukraine. The defense ministry did not say whether there were any casualties.

___

Associated Press journalist Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland contributed to this report.

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For more coverage of the war in Ukraine, visit: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

The post Russia strikes cities from east to west Ukraine, killing at least 2 appeared first on ABC News.

Russia Strikes Cities Across Ukraine in Overnight Attack

Russia launched a widespread missile attack early Thursday on cities across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine denounced Russia’s “criminal and unprovoked aggression” on his country before the United Nations.

The missiles sent civilians rushing to shelters in places ranging from Lviv, on the country’s western edge, to Kharkiv in the northeast. In Kyiv, at least seven people were wounded, fires broke out and a gas pipe was damaged from missile debris, according to the mayor and the regional military administration.

Mr. Zelensky spent two days this week in New York at the United Nations General Assembly appealing for more aid and support against Russia, amid growing concern about Ukraine’s ability to regain territory and the ballooning cost of the war.

On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky was expected to meet with President Biden in Washington to push for ongoing and additional U.S. support for Ukraine as Mr. Biden seeks to push through approval of an additional $24 billion for the country in Congress.

Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app that the latest attacks meant that the city’s residents had endured more than 1,000 hours, or more than 41 days, of being under air alerts since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that six missiles caused multiple blasts and wounded at least two people. In Cherkasy in central Ukraine, an infrastructure facility was hit in the city center, its mayor said on Facebook.

In Kherson in the country’s south, a Russian attack left two people dead and several others hurt, according to the regional military administration. Officials there did not specify if the deaths resulted from a missile strike.

Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne, reported that explosions were also heard in Rivne, Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi in the country’s west.

The post Russia Strikes Cities Across Ukraine in Overnight Attack appeared first on New York Times.

Russia Strikes Cities Across Ukraine in Overnight Attack

Russia launched a widespread missile attack early Thursday on cities across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, hours after President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine denounced Russia’s “criminal and unprovoked aggression” on his country before the United Nations.

The missiles sent civilians rushing to shelters in places ranging from Lviv, on the country’s western edge, to Kharkiv in the northeast. In Kyiv, at least seven people were wounded, fires broke out and a gas pipe was damaged from missile debris, according to the mayor and the regional military administration.

Mr. Zelensky spent two days this week in New York at the United Nations General Assembly appealing for more aid and support against Russia, amid growing concern about Ukraine’s ability to regain territory and the ballooning cost of the war.

On Thursday, Mr. Zelensky was expected to meet with President Biden in Washington to push for ongoing and additional U.S. support for Ukraine as Mr. Biden seeks to push through approval of an additional $24 billion for the country in Congress.

Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app that the latest attacks meant that the city’s residents had endured more than 1,000 hours, or more than 41 days, of being under air alerts since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

In Kharkiv, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that six missiles caused multiple blasts and wounded at least two people. In Cherkasy in central Ukraine, an infrastructure facility was hit in the city center, its mayor said on Facebook.

In Kherson in the country’s south, a Russian attack left two people dead and several others hurt, according to the regional military administration. Officials there did not specify if the deaths resulted from a missile strike.

Ukraine’s public broadcaster, Suspilne, reported that explosions were also heard in Rivne, Vinnytsia and Khmelnytskyi in the country’s west.