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Rescue teams in central Texas are still searching for about 160 people who went missing in the catastrophic flash floods on July 4. The official death toll has climbed to at least 121 victims. State policymakers are now in the spotlight, as questions swirl around Texas's lack of emergency precautions and the climate denialism of Republican political leaders. "Many of those lost lives could have been saved if links in our disaster response chain hadn't been broken," says Monica Medina, a former official at National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal administration that, among other tasks, monitors extreme weather. NOAA has been hit by major cuts to funding and staffing under Trump, despite the increasing frequency and intensity of natural disasters from climate change. Medina is among many climate and policy experts sounding the alarm on the defunding of NOAA and other meteorological and disaster preparedness services. "We are firing the people. We're stopping taking in the data. We're ending the research. We're turning off the satellites. We're doing everything we possibly can to put our heads in the sand in the midst of what is increasingly dangerous weather."
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Brazilian filmmaker Petra Costa's latest documentary, Apocalypse in the Tropics, explores the impact of evangelical Christianity on Brazil's political landscape. Once a small minority, evangelicals now constitute about 30% of Brazil's population and played a key role in the rise of former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro. "It's one of the fastest-growing religious shifts in the history of mankind," Costa tells Democracy Now! She says right-wing evangelicalism in Brazil is largely a U.S. import, after Washington sought to undermine the influence of left-wing Catholic teachings during the Cold War.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday threatened to impose 50% tariffs on Brazil, partly as retribution for what he calls the "witch hunt" against Bolsonaro, now facing trial in Brazil for an alleged coup attempt following his defeat in the 2022 presidential election to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Apocalypse in the Tropics is available on Netflix starting July 14. Costa's previous film, The Edge of Democracy, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.
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