Katharine Houreld

@khoureld.bsky.social

Muckraker, traveler, adventuress. East and Southern Africa Bureau Chief for the Washington Post. Email: katharine.houreld at washpost.com

The official NOAA stats out this week confirm that winter 2025-26 was the warmest on record across a huge portion of the western and central U.S., which has contributed to extremely low mountain snowpack & worsened the CO River crisis. Meanwhile, record March heat is in forecast.

Official map from NOAA depicting the relative rank of winter 2025-2026 temperatures at a county level across the contiguous U.S. Many counties in the western and central U.S. are depicted in dark red color, signifying record-warmest winter. All other counties in the west and central U.S. are depicted in dark orange colors, signifying a "near record warm" rank.

Lovely piece on windfarms revitalising a dying Spanish town by @meerasub.bsky.social in @theatlantic.com The town’s shrinking population now sustains itself. Young people stayed & had babies. “We have a group of children,” the mayor told me. "Generation Wind." www.theatlantic.com/science/2026...

Spain’s Wind-Farm Bargain

Renewable-energy projects can boost the economy of a rural town—if the community has a say in development.

theatlantic.com

I've lost my job. To those kind, strong, determined, courageous people I interviewed or worked with over the years: you will always inspire me. To every stranger who helped: thank you. To the arms dealers, liars, thieves, killers of children: I’m keeping my files. See you all on the other side.

4 federal agents pull over an elderly US citizen for the suspected crime of being brown, break her car window, throw her to the ground, then drive off after they find her US Passport in her purse. The Salem Police, when called, say there’s nothing they can do. www.salemreporter.com/2026/01/31/u...

U.S. citizen injured by federal agents in Salem who demanded to see “papers,” union says - Salem Reporter

A home care worker and union worker was pulled from her car and injured by federal agents Thursday according to a statement by SEIU 503. To comment on this story, use the form at the end of the repor...

salemreporter.com

Serving members of Kenya's security forces have been lured to fight for the Russian army in Ukraine, survivors and families say. They include a member of the elite U.S.-trained SPEAR unit, which guards the U.S. embassy in Nairobi. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2026/0...

Kenyan job seekers were lured to Russia, then sent to die in Ukraine

The Post spoke to four Kenyans who fought in Ukraine and relatives of nine other recruits, as a secret pipeline funnels young Africans to Russia’s military.

washingtonpost.com

Cutting the funds to deliver 116,000 medical kits to treat victims of rape saved U.S. taxpayers $2 million. But it meant many women in eastern Congo could not longer get the pills they needed to prevent medicine, HIV, and deadly sexually transmitted diseases. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Congolese rape survivors search in vain for medicine after USAID cuts

In eastern Congo, where rape is widespread, the cancellation of USAID funding for PEP kits has left many victims vulnerable, according to nearly 50 interviews.

washingtonpost.com

It looks like 2025 will end up at about 1.47°C above the 1850-1900 pre-industrial baseline, making it likely the third hottest year in the last 120,000+ years. Meanwhile, the 3-year running average is going to end the year above 1.50°C for the first time.

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Thousands of civilians are being held for ransom after the RSF captured El Fashir, with kidnappers staging torture and executions on camera if families cannot pay. One man could only pay for his wife and children; he was killed in front of them www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

In Sudan, thousands held hostage for ransom — and killed if they can’t pay

RSF fighters in El Fashir have rounded up civilians en masse, survivors told The Post, subjecting them to torture and extorting their families for cash.

washingtonpost.com

Sudanese children - their parents dead or missing - are wandering alone through a burned desert strewn with bodies, desperately seeking help. Some are badly wounded; all are starving. Many saw parents killed; others just lost them in the chaos www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

In Darfur, Sudan’s lost children wander through a landscape of death

Around 200 unaccompanied children have arrived in the Sudanese town of Tewila after escaping El Fashir, where RSF fighters have carried out mass killings.

washingtonpost.com

Just two decades ago, China had little capacity to manufacture cars — and owning one was considered a novelty. Today, China produces and exports more cars than any other country in the world. Meanwhile we in Europe still pretend we can somehow stop EVs from taking off by holding on to old tech.

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The intimacy of the cruelty in Sudan's El Fashir: A wounded man appeals to an RSF commander. “I know you,” he tells Abu Lulu. “I called out to you a while ago.” “I will never have mercy,” the commander responds. “Our job is only killing.” He shoots him dead. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...

Paramilitary massacres unfolding in Sudan’s Darfur, videos show

RSF paramilitary fighters are carrying out mass ethnic killings in the recently captured city of El Fashir, according to videos, aerial images and interviews.

washingtonpost.com

To assume all businesses want to strip away green regulations would be very wrong Companies are complaining about EU failing to deliver on laws originally intended to come into force at the beginning of 2025 to stop commodities tied to deforestation being sold in EU www.ft.com/content/7593...

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Climate curious? Don't wade thru the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — a 3,000-page tome of jargon heavy enough to knock out a hungry polar bear. You can play a card game with some mates instead - and still get the science. www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solu...

Climate-curious but confused? Grab a beer and some cards.

Fresk converts the latest climate science into a hands-on card game, helping players understand the causes, effects and feedback loops of climate change.

washingtonpost.com

The girl died, sweating and shivering. The boy's hand slipped from his mother's as she screamed. Both could have been saved by drugs that the U.S. had already bought, paid for and shipped - only a couple of kilometers away. But USAID cuts had stopped deliveries www.washingtonpost.com/investigatio...

Trump’s USAID pause stranded lifesaving drugs. Children died waiting.

USAID antimalarial and HIV supplies valued at nearly $140 million were delayed in the first half of the year or not delivered at all due to the Trump administration’s foreign aid pause, The Post found...

washingtonpost.com

Sudan's civil war has seen a proliferation of anti-aircraft weapons: deadly drones, MANPADS, and truck-borne surface-to-air missile systems. Even Turkey's advanced Akinci drones, which the military used to help retake the capital, are getting shot down. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

New antiaircraft weapons propel Sudan’s war, imperil global security

Fighters now possess antiaircraft weapons that could threaten civilian air traffic and what appears to be a Chinese surface-to-air missile system, experts said.

washingtonpost.com

Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in the besieged Sudanese city of el-Fasher, cut off by 19 miles of earthen berms built by rebel forces now attacking the town. @khoureld.bsky.social and her @washingtonpost.com colleagues have been speaking with some of those behind the dirt walls.

Starving and surrounded: el-Fasher residents plead for aid - The World from PRX

Hundreds of thousands of people are trapped in the besieged Sudanese city of el-Fasher, cut off by 19 miles of earthen berms built by rebel forces now attacking the town. Katharine Houreld and her Was...

theworld.org

Love & pain in Sudan's el Fashir - the father trying to comfort his daughter, raped when she went to pick wild weeds for her starving family. The man praying a last time with his dying brother, shot as they fled. The mother whose young sons are missing. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Starvation or execution: Sudanese under siege face ‘death everywhere’

Families in El Fashir are eating animal feed. Children have been raped while foraging for food. Those who try to escape have been kidnapped and killed.

washingtonpost.com

The U.S. Air Force has started upgrading the 747 jetliner that the government of Qatar donated to the U.S. this summer, the Air Force said in a statement this week. Industry and Pentagon officials have said the extensive upgrades could cost as much as $1 billion. nyti.ms/4prxszi

Upgrades Begin on Plane Donated by Qatar to Serve as Air Force One

The 747 jetliner needs extensive security modifications. Some members of Congress worry that President Trump will pressure the Air Force to do the work too quickly.

nyti.ms

The last fight for Sudan's capital. Families desperate to escape. An influx of new fighters, drugged up and fleeing defeat. And a massacre denied by RSF leadership, but then proudly owned by a commander on the ground. These were the last days in Salha. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...

Drugs, blood and terror: Inside a paramilitary massacre in Sudan

At least 31 people were massacred on April 27 in Salha, a neighborhood south of Khartoum, survivors said. The Post has reconstructed the events of that day.

washingtonpost.com