The Brief

Climate change is expensive, deadly and preventable, according to the new National Climate Assessment, the most sweeping, sophisticated federal analysis of climate change compiled to date.

Released every five years, the National Climate Assessment is a congressionally mandated evaluation of the effects of climate change on American life. This new fifth edition paints a picture of a nation simultaneously beset by climate-driven disasters and capable of dramatically reducing emissions of planet-warming gasses in the near future.

This is the first time the assessment includes standalone chapters about climate change's toll on the American economy, as well as the complex social factors driving climate change and the nation's responses. And, unlike past installments, the new assessment draws heavily from social science, including history, sociology, philosophy and Indigenous studies.

The new approach adds context and relevance to the assessment's robust scientific findings, and underscores the disproportionate danger that climate change poses to poor people, marginalized communities, older Americans and those who work outdoors.

"Climate change affects us all, but it doesn't affect us all equally," says climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, one of the authors of the assessment. But threaded throughout the report are case studies and research summaries highlighting ways "climate action can create a more resilient and just country," she says.

This is also the first time the National Climate Assessment will be translated into Spanish, although the Spanish-language version won't be available until the spring, according to the White House.

The National Climate Assessment is extremely influential in legal and policy circles, and affects everything from court cases about who should foot the bill for wildfire damage, to local decisions about how tall to build coastal flood barriers. "It really shapes the way that people understand, and therefore act, in relation to climate change," says Michael Burger, the director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.

Hundreds of scientists from universities, industry, and federal agencies contributed to the report. They reviewed cutting-edge research published since the last report and contextualized it in decades of foundational climate research.

The fifth edition of the assessment arrives as millions of Americans are struggling with the effects of a hotter Earth. Dramatic and deadly wildfires, floods and heat waves killed hundreds of people in the United States in 2023.

And, while federal spending on renewable energy and disaster preparedness has increased, the U.S. is also investing in new fossil fuel infrastructure that is not compatible with avoiding catastrophic warming later this century.

Here are the three big takeaways from the Fifth National Climate Assessment. More information about the specific effects of climate change in your area can be found in the assessment's regional chapters.

Climate change makes life more expensive

Food, housing, labor – it all gets pricier as the Earth heats up, according to the National Climate Assessment.

Climate-driven weather disasters, like heat waves, floods, hurricanes and wildfires, are particularly expensive. They destroy homes and businesses, wreck crops and create supply shortages by delaying trucks, ships and trains. Such disasters make it more likely that families will go bankrupt, and that municipal governments will run deficits, the authors note.

Weather-related disasters in the U.S. cause about $150 billion each year in direct losses, according to the report. That's a lot of money – roughly equal to the annual budget for the Energy Department – and it's only expected to go up as the Earth gets hotter.

And that's all before factoring in the less obvious or tangible costs of climate change. For example, healthcare bills for people who are sicker because of extreme heat, or have respiratory illness brought on by breathing in mold after a flood. Exposure to wildfire smoke alone costs billions of dollars a year in lost earnings, the assessment notes – a burden that falls disproportionately on poor people who work outdoors.

"The research indicates that people who are lower income have more trouble adapting [to climate change], because adaptation comes at a cost," says Solomon Hsiang, a climate economist at the University of California, Berkeley and a lead author of the assessment.

For example, one of the simplest ways to adapt to severe heat waves is to run your air conditioner more. But "if people can't pay for it, then [they] can't protect themselves," explains Hsiang.

And the hotter it gets, the more profound the economic harm, assessment warns. Twice as much planetary warming leads to more than twice as much economic harm, the assessment warns.

A roadside memorial to those who died in the wildfire that swept through the town of Lahaina, Hawaii in August. The latest National Climate Assessment underscores the many ways that climate change is already making Americans sick, and even killing them.

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Climate change makes people sick and often kills them

Since the previous NCA was released five years ago, the health costs of climate change have gone from theoretical to personal for many Americans.

The most obvious risk? Extreme weather, particularly heat, says Mary Hayden, the lead author of the chapter examining human health. Heat waves have become hotter, longer, and more dangerous, and they're hitting areas that aren't ready for them–like the "record-shattering" heat dome that descended on the Pacific Northwest in 2021 and caused hundreds of deaths.

But it's not just heat. Wildfire smoke can send people thousands of miles from the fires to hospitals with respiratory problems and heart disease complications. Hurricanes can disrupt people's access to healthcare: when a clinic is flooded or people are displaced, for example, kidney patients can't get dialysis treatment.

In most cases, the people who bear the brunt of the disasters are those already at risk: poor communities, communities of color, women, people with disabilities, and other marginalized groups. Temperatures in formerly redlined neighborhoods in cities across the country can soar nearly 15 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than wealthier areas just blocks away, putting residents at much higher risk of heat exposure.

The assessment also homes in on research tracking less-obvious health impacts. Living through climate disasters, for example, can leave lasting emotional scars. "We're not just talking about [people's] physical health–we're talking about their mental health. We're talking about their spiritual health. We're talking about the health and well-being of communities which are being affected by this," Hayden says.

That means recognizing the long-term effects on communities like Paradise, California, where people still deal with deep emotional trauma five years after their town burned in the 2018 Camp Fire. The report also flags the growing emotional toll on children and young people, for whom anxiety about the future of the planet is bleeding into all parts of their lives.

A lobsterman paddles out to his boat in a harbor in Maine. Climate change is disrupting ways of living with, and from, the ocean.

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Ryan Kellman

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Climate change threatens people's special, sacred places and practices

The places, cultural practices, and traditions that anchor many communities are also in flux because of climate change.

Fishing communities are seeing their livelihoods shift or collapse. The Northeast's iconic lobster fishery, the single most economically valuable in the country, has withered as marine heatwaves sweep through the regional seas. Shrinking snowpack and too-warm temperatures are interrupting opportunities for beloved recreational activities, like skiing or ice fishing.

Indigenous communities are being forced to adjust to new climate realities, which are disrupting traditional food-gathering traditions. In Palau, a monthly tradition of catching fish at a particularly low tide has been upset by sea level rise, which keeps water levels too high to trap fish in the historically-used places. Sea level rise is also forcing coastal communities to re-think their very existence, pulling apart the social fabric that has developed over generations.

But many communities – Indigenous people, farmers and fishers, groups that have lived tightly connected to their environments for a long time – have deep stores of resilience from which to draw, says Elizabeth Marino, a sociologist and the lead author of the chapter on social transformations. "There is quite a lot of wisdom in place to adapt to and even mitigate climate change," she says. "It allows people to come up with solutions that fit the lives that they lead, and that's also a place of hope."

The fixes to climate change can make Americans' lives better

The fifth assessment lays out a stark picture of the climate challenges the U.S. faces. Keeping planetary warming to "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the goal of the international Paris Agreement, will require immediate, enormous cuts to fossil fuel emissions in the U.S and beyond. Keeping warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), an ambitious target written into the Agreement, will be even harder, the report says.

But it also points out many successful efforts underway to adapt to the new reality and to prevent worse outcomes.

"It's not the message that if we don't hit 1.5 degrees, we're all going to die," says Hayhoe. "It's the message that everything we do matters. Every 10th of a degree of warming we avoid, there's a benefit to that."

Addressing fossil fuel-driven climate change can also help people live healthier lives, stresses J. Jason West, the lead author on a chapter on air quality. Dialing back fossil fuel emissions would help prevent further climate change and also lessen the kinds of air pollution most harmful to human health." There really is a lot of opportunity to take action that would resolve both of those problems at the same time," West says.

There's been a subtle shift in the report's perspective since the last one, says Candis Callison, a sociologist and author of the report. There's now a clear acknowledgement, developed through years of rigorous research, that the fossil fuel-powered society the U.S. built over generations was profoundly unjust. Many pollution-producing coal or gas power plants were sited in communities of color rather than white communities, affecting people's health outcomes for generations. And decisions about land and water use for energy extraction often excluded tribal communities, with consequences still playing out today.

The transition forward can look different, she says. "Climate change actually provides us with an opportunity to address some of those inequities and injustices–and to respond to these impacts," Callison says. "That's really a powerful thing."

The Japanese American National Museum announced today it will reopen in January after a two-year, $25 million overhaul of the country’s largest museum dedicated to the Japanese American experience.

The museum in L.A.’s Little Tokyo is reshaping its galleries and expanding its signature exhibition to include more perspectives and connections between Japanese American history and current debates over race, immigration and democracy.

The new exhibition at JANM features A.I.-assisted avatars of Japanese American survivors of incarceration.

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“We want to tell the story in a way that is more expansive and that other immigrants, communities can see their own story reflected,” said Ann Burroughs, the museum’s president and CEO.

That effort to tie history to the present comes as JANM itself has faced political pressure, with the museum losing federal funding amid Trump administration cuts.

From the outside, visitors returning to the museum, which has been closed since January 2024, will recognize its modern, minimalist exterior. Once they step through the doors, though, the experience will be vastly different.

The biggest change will be the installation of a 9,200-square-foot permanent exhibition occupying nearly all of the museum’s first floor — more than twice the space of the exhibition it replaces.

"Common Ground," which opened in 1999, covered Japanese American history from migration to the U.S. in the 1800s to the passage of a federal law — the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 — that formally apologized for the incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II and provided $20,000 in reparations to surviving detainees.

The new exhibition, called "In the Future We Call Now: Realities of Racism, Forging Democracy," will include more recent history, such as Japanese American support for reparations for Black Americans and vocal opposition to the Islamophobia that swelled after 9/11. It will also cover the Japanese American response to ICE detention and incarceration of migrant children, drawing parallels to World War II camps.

Galleries have been reconfigured to include more recent history and more objects from the past, including kimonos owned by women from Japan, who immigrated to the U.S. in larger numbers starting in the turn of the 20th century.

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It will also bring lesser-known perspectives to familiar history through telling the story of incarceration from “women and mothers” and those incarcerated at Tule Lake, the camp in Northern California where Japanese Americans labeled as disloyal by the U.S. government were isolated during World War II.

“JANM hadn’t told that story before,” Burroughs said. “You can’t draw those parallels of what’s happening now if you don’t talk about the camps and if you don’t talk about Tule Lake.”

The new exhibition will also lean more heavily into audiovisual storytelling, using technology and archival media to make the history feel more immediate.

The interactive “StoryFiles” incorporate AI so visitors can pose questions to digital avatars of incarceration survivors like the actor George Takei.

Burroughs stressed that the museum is not using generative AI, but drawing upon hours and hours of interviews in which subjects answered hundreds of questions.

The new exhibition will also draw deeply from JANM’s extensive collection of Japanese American home movies, including footage dating to the 1930s, and give visitors a window into everyday life before World War II.

Some of JANM’s best-known objects will be included in the new exhibition, like barracks from the Heart Mountain incarceration camp in Wyoming and a model of Manzanar in California’s remote Owens Valley, the first of the camps to be built.

The museum is also emphasizing everyday culture, with displays ranging from kimonos brought by Japanese immigrant women at the turn of the 20th century to rice cookers, and the worldwide reach of Hello Kitty.

The Hirasaki National Resource Center has been relocated to the second floor and will showcase work from artists like Ruth Asawa and Isamu Noguchi.

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The larger new exhibition was created without growing the museum's footprint through reconfiguring the building. For example, the museum’s Aratani Central Hall will take on a new role as the museum’s main entrance, with visitors entering through its sweeping curved glass wall and moving directly into the exhibition galleries. But Burroughs said the redesign will not come at the expense of the hall’s longtime function as a community space available to local nonprofits.

Upstairs, visitors will find reconfigured spaces including a new reading room filled with works and furnishings by Ruth Asawa and Isamu Noguchi. Behind the scenes, JANM has upgraded decades-old building systems such as its HVAC and elevators.

The museum overhaul was funded as part of a much larger $135 million fundraising campaign, Burroughs said. The rest of the campaign supports JANM’s operations and long-term financial stability, including about $56 million in endowment and board-designated reserves.

"You know, life is never secure in the nonprofit world or in the museum world," Burroughs said. "We have to do a lot more to build up our endowments. We just will keep going."

Public health officials are urging people to be wary of flea-borne typhus after a recent outbreak of the illness.

The outbreak in late July was centered in the Pico-Union neighborhood of Los Angeles. The L.A. County Department of Public Health said five people were hospitalized; all recovered.

The outbreak comes as typhus cases continue to tick up in L.A. County.

Cases have been increasing fairly steadily for more than a decade, but they nearly doubled over the last three years. The Public Health Department logged a record 220 cases in 2025, and officials say this year is on track to exceed that.

Public health officials say the increase is likely because human-animal interactions are also increasing. That could be due to human population expansions into areas with more animals, available food sources for wildlife in populated areas or more people owning pets.

The bacteria that causes typhus is transmitted from animals to humans through fleas.

Typhus can’t be passed from one human to another, and public health experts say the illness is completely treatable, especially if it’s caught early.

Outbreaks and how to prevent them

Most of the time, typhus cases are spread out across L.A. County. But sometimes, there’s a localized spread over a short period of time that turns into an outbreak.

Public health officials respond to a few of them in L.A. County each year.

Generally, outbreaks are triggered by high concentrations of host animals.

“Wherever these animals may be present or wherever they may be congregating, in those areas we can see an increase in the number of human infections,” said Dr. Aiman Halai with the L.A. County Department of Public Health.

The most common hosts for typhus are rats, opossums and free-roaming cats. When people or pets come in contact with host animals, they can pick up the infected fleas and bring them into homes, spreading them to other people and animals in the process.

Halai says a variety of factors can attract animals and lead to an outbreak, including overflowing dumpsters, overgrown vegetation or a well-meaning neighbor feeding local critters.

You can help prevent outbreaks by securing trash in bins, making sure food isn’t left outside, and ensuring pets are on up-to-date flea control medication. Cutting back overgrown vegetation and blocking off crawl spaces can eliminate places where animals can shelter in and around homes.

Halai also says it’s important not to feed wildlife.

Should you be worried?

Although public health experts are wary of the typhus uptick in L.A. County, the 220 cases recorded in 2025 in L.A. County are not overly concerning.

"That’s a very  low rate at the population level,” said Dr. Jeffrey Klausner, a professor of infectious diseases at USC’s Keck School of Medicine.

Typhus is an acute infection caused by bacteria known as Rickettsia typhi. Variations of the bacteria also cause other illnesses transmitted by fleas, ticks, lice and mites, including tick-borne Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever.

Doctors can test for typhus fairly easily, and it is treatable with antibiotics. Symptoms are similar to the flu, and can include fever, headaches, muscle aches and nausea. It can also cause rashes in some cases.

Most infections are mild, but they can cause hospitalization and, in rare cases, can be fatal.

Klausner said the concern is that testing for typhus is not always routine.

“The most important thing is that when patients come in to their doctor — and they have fever, they may have a rash, they may have headache, may have muscle or joint aches — that the doctor's thinking about potentially flea-borne infectious diseases because the treatment can be different,” Klausner said.

The best treatment for typhus is the antibiotic doxycycline. If a patient with typhus gets another type of antibiotic like penicillin or amoxicillin, the treatment may not be as successful.

According to Klausner, when presented with flu-like symptoms, it’s also a good idea for patients to tell their doctors if they’ve been around animals, spent time in an encampment or even just gone on a hike.

Topline:

Why it matters: The small amphibian is found in the grasslands of Southern California and the Central Valley. But habitat loss, urban sprawl and longer droughts have been threatening the species’ population in recent decades.

What the protections do: Now that the Western spadefoot is a candidate for permanent protections, any development project planned for Western spadefoot habitats will have to take the amphibians into account.

Some exceptions may apply: The commission did carve out exceptions for solar projects in the Central Valley. To take advantage of federal tax credit deadlines, some projects can continue to be built, as long as they protect breeding pools and curtail construction during the season when spadefoots are most active.

What conservationists say: Brendan Cummings, conservation director with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in Southern California the biggest threat to the Western spadefoot is not solar development: “It’s warehouses or data centers and road widenings and all manner of construction activities.”

What happens next: The California Department of Fish and Wildlife will conduct a year-long review to determine if the Western spadefoot should be permanently protected.