Hello and welcome to Background Briefing, available 24-7 at background briefing.

I'm Ian Masters, and today we'll examine a number of stories and issues in the news. We'll begin

with the White House's overheated pushback against questions of weather cuts to the National Weather

Service by Trump and Doge contributed to the tragic loss of life from flash floods in Texas, costing 91

lives of mostly children, with 10 girls and a counsellor still missing

from a Christian girls' camp. We will discuss extreme weather and its connection to climate change

as Trump's drill-baby-drill attack on alternative energy at the behest of big oil and dirty coal

has rolled back the clock in the race to prevent a tipping point

from which the planet may not recover.

Joining us is Jeff Masters,

who worked as a hurricane scientist

with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Hurricane Hunters

from 1986 to 1990, after a near-fatal flight into a

category 5 Hurricane Hugo, he left the Hurricane Hunters to complete his PhD in air pollution

meteorology from the University of Michigan. In 1995, he co-founded the popular website,

The Weather Underground,

and served as its chief meteorologist until 2012. He currently writes about extreme weather and climate change for Yale Climate Connections, where his latest article is,

devastating flash floods, slam Texas Hill Country, Tropical Storm Chantal,

heads for Carolinas. Then with Putin's cabinet officials allegedly committing suicide

and more top oil executives falling from 10th floor windows, we will speak with Ogalloutman,

a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis,

who is also the creator and co-host of the Kremlin's podcast series, which features expert

...