Currently in Portland — August 25, 2023: A bright sunshiney day

The weather, currently.

Good work, team; we’ve made it to another weekend. It’s going to be a warm one, but not as bad as the heatwave we’ve just (mostly) recovered from. High temps Friday-Sunday will hang out in the low 90s, but importantly, overnight temps will dip to at least the mid-60s. Not exactly cold, but at least not that 70-degree nonsense from a couple of weeks ago. For some extra fun, we may wake up to showers on Friday morning, and maybe even a thunderstorm. But that won’t last long and most of the day should be sunny and clear. Personally, I’m rooting for as much rain as possible.

— Stella Harris

What you need to know, currently.

Houston had its hottest day in history on Thursday, with temperatures climbing as high as 109°F (42.8°C).

Officials in Houston warned that rolling blackouts might be necessary to avoid catastrophic power outages, as demand for air conditioning and electricity was near a record high.

Thursday’s high temperature mark in Houston tied other equally warm days in 2000 and 2011, when Texas emergency rooms filled with patients seeking care from heat related illness and injury. This time around, the city has issued mandatory water restrictions, banning outdoor water use in an attempt to keep up water pressure as reservoir levels fall due to drought.

Meanwhile, in Chicago, Thursday’s high temperature was 100°F — and it felt like 120°F (48.9°C) when you factored in the humidity. That’s the highest heat index in that city’s history. This week’s heat wave in Chicago rivals the one back in July 1995, which was one of the deadliest heat waves in US history.

—Eric Holthaus

What you can do, currently.

The fires in Maui have struck at the heart of Hawaiian heritage, and if you’d like to support survivors, here are good places to start:

The fires burned through the capital town of the Kingdom of Hawaii, the ancestral and present home to native Hawaiians on their original unceded lands. One of the buildings destroyed was the Na ‘Aikane o Maui cultural center, a gathering place for the Hawaiian community to organize and celebrate.

If you’d like to help the community rebuild and restore the cultural center, a fund has been established that is accepting donations — specify “donation for Na ‘Aikane” on this Venmo link.