Coral reefs are in the midst of an ecological crisis and are at risk of extinction, according to the United Nations Capital Development Fund.

NASA says an astronaut has been released from the hospital after returning from space.

Four astronauts are back on Earth after a space station mission that lasted almost eight months.

Peter Dodge flew hundreds of missions into hurricanes as a radar specialist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

With its mighty strength and its dangerous path, Hurricane Milton has powered into a very rare threat that is flirting with experts’ worst fears.

Is it luck or legend? Locals in Tampa Bay believe their city is protected from direct hurricane hits by a supernatural force.

Ferocious Hurricane Milton is charging its way across the Gulf Coast with Tampa and St. Petersburg, Florida, in its sights.

Hurricane Milton is projected to bring a monster storm to Florida’s west coast this week.

Here’s how you can help victims of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton.

Watch a live tracker of Hurricane Milton as it moves through the Gulf of Mexico towards Florida.

A battalion from the Michigan National Guard based in Montague will be heading to South Carolina to help communities affected by Hurricane Helene.

Forecasters say Tropical Storm Milton has formed in the Gulf of Mexico.

Morning 4 is a quick roundup of stories we think you should know about to start your day.

Massive Hurricane Helene crashed into Florida’s sparsely populated Big Bend region, bringing storm surge and high winds across the state’s Gulf Coast communities before ripping into southern Georgia.

Metro Detroit’s weather is seasonable and mostly calm, but conditions are drastically different in Florida and other parts of the Southeast. On Thursday evening, Hurricane Helene became a Category 4 in the Gulf of Mexico.

Hurricane Helene is advancing across the Gulf of Mexico toward Florida and threatening a “catastrophic” storm surge in northwestern parts of the state.

Helene has strengthened into a hurricane with forecasters warning that the storm would intensify as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico on a path to Florida.

A billionaire spacewalker is back on Earth.

Francine is weakening after striking Louisiana as a Category 2 hurricane as it heads far inland from the Gulf Coast.

Hurricane Francine has slammed into Louisiana as a dangerous Category 2 storm, knocking out power to more than a quarter million customers and threatening a large stretch of the Gulf Coast with flooding and destructive winds.

The National Weather Service says a tropical system in the southwestern Gulf of Mexico was expected to strengthen this week into a tropical storm and dump heavy rains onto Mexico and Texas before reaching the U.S. as a potential hurricane.

Beryl has moved into the the Gulf of Mexico and is taking aim at the south Texas coast, after battering Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Tropical Storm Alberto is rumbling toward northeast Mexico as the first named storm of the season, carrying heavy rains that left three people dead but also brought hope to a region suffering under a prolonged, severe drought.

Tropical Storm Alberto, the season’s first named storm, has weakened as it moves inland over northeast Mexico — but not before bringing heavy rains to the parched region and leaving at least three dead.

Extreme heat in Mexico, Central America and parts of the US South has left millions sweltering, strained energy grids and resulted in iconic Howler monkeys in Mexico dropping dead from trees.

Scientists say temperatures that have gone “crazy haywire” hot, especially in the Atlantic, are close to making the current global coral bleaching event the worst in history.

The world is not doing enough to protect coral reefs.

Reef scientists say coral reefs around the world are experiencing global bleaching for the fourth time due to prolonged warming of the oceans.

Four astronauts from four countries are back on Earth after catching a ride from the International Space Station with SpaceX.

A 14-foot-long white shark might not be something swimmers want to see at the beach.

A handful of super powerful tropical cyclones in the last decade has a couple of experts proposing a new category of whopper hurricanes: Category 6.

Oil companies have offered $382 million for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico after courts rejected the Biden administration’s plans to scale back the sale to protect an endangered whale species.

As much as 1.1 million gallons of oil may have been discharged into the Gulf of Mexico from a pipeline system off Louisiana’s southeast coast.

Far off the Texas coast there is a beautiful surprise in the Gulf of Mexico that draws divers from around the world: a stunning amount of coral coverage on undersea mountains.

A federal appeals court has ordered the Biden administration to carry on with an auction of oil and gas drilling leases for Gulf of Mexico waters in 37 days — rejecting arguments by environmentalists.

The Biden administration has designated four tracts of federal waters in the Gulf of Mexico off the Texas and Louisiana coasts for development of wind energy.

Salt water inching up the Mississippi River is progressing more slowly than once projected — buying time for water systems in metropolitan New Orleans that draw drinking water from the river.

President Joe Biden's administration has proposed up to three oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico over the next five years but none in Alaska.

Salt water flowing from the Gulf of Mexico into the drought-stricken Mississippi River is prompting Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards to ask President Joe Biden to declare a state of emergency.

The Biden administration is appealing a federal judge's order requiring the Interior Department to expand next week’s scheduled sale of Gulf of Mexico oil and gas leases by millions of acres.

Hurricane Idalia is projected to bring dangerous winds and flooding to the Florida Gulf Coast this week, with some evacuation orders in place for coastal communities.

Feeding on some of the hottest water on the planet, Hurricane Idalia is rapidly strengthening as it bears down on Florida.

Hurricane Idalia is expected to bring destructive winds and a life-threatening storm surge to the Gulf Coast of Florida as residents in the area evacuate ahead of landfall.

The Biden administration has tightened offshore oil drilling safety regulations, including rules regarding the use of “blowout preventer” devices on offshore oil and gas drilling rigs.

Sweltering temperatures are lingering in a large swath of the central U.S., causing misery from the Gulf of Mexico to the Great Lakes.

The Biden administration has announced plans for the first sale of offshore wind power leases in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana and Texas coasts.

Tropical Storm Arlene, the first named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, has formed in the Gulf of Mexico.

A private crew is back on Earth after a nine-day trip to the International Space Station.

SpaceX’s giant new rocket exploded minutes after blasting off on its first test flight and crashed into the Gulf of Mexico.

A new study says changes in air patterns as the world warms will likely push more and nastier hurricanes up against the United States’ east and Gulf coasts.

A new National Academy of Science study says that 13 years after a massive BP oil spill fouled the Gulf of Mexico, regulators and industry have reduced some risks in deep water exploration in the gulf but some troublesome safety issues persist.

Offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico give off much more methane emissions than official estimates, according to a study published Monday.

The United States is Earth's punching bag for nasty weather.

Meteorologists are warning of a series of severe storms that could rip across America's Midwest and South over the next couple of weeks, with the first and perhaps most dangerous outbreak forecast to strike Friday.

Oil companies including Chevron and ExxonMobil offered a combined $264 million for drilling rights in the Gulf of Mexico in a sale mandated by last year’s climate bill compromise.

Four space station astronauts are back on Earth after a quick SpaceX flight home.

The Biden administration said Wednesday it is considering the first-ever lease sale for offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Mexico, a key part of a push to deploy 30 gigawatts of offshore wind by 2030 to help fight climate change.

Experts say a natural La Nina weather pattern, unusually warm moist air juiced by climate change, and long-term shift in where tornadoes hit all are factors in Thursday's devastating tornado in Alabama.

A Michigan bird watcher spotted an estimated 25,000 Redhead ducks gathered at the Mackinac Straits on Wednesday.

The U.S. Coast Guard says a passenger who went overboard from a cruise ship in the Gulf of Mexico was rescued on Thanksgiving after likely being in the water for hours.

A federal agency says an outage involving a Coast Guard marine warning system and “data gaps” in radar systems were factors in last year's deadly capsize of an oil industry lift boat off Louisiana's coast.

A quick study by two scientists calculates that climate change made Hurricane Ian 10% rainier than it would have been if there were no such thing as global warming.

Hurricane Ian is quickly gaining monstrous strength as it moves over oceans partly heated up by climate change, just like 30 other Atlantic tropical storms since 2017 that became much more powerful in less than a day.

Hurricane Ian tore into western Cuba as a major hurricane Tuesday and left 1 million people without electricity.

The Biden administration has accepted nearly $190 million in bids from an offshore oil and gas lease sale that was held nearly a year ago but rejected by a federal judge.

Renewable energy incentives in the climate bill signed by President Joe Biden are expected to drastically reduce overall U.S. emissions.

A judge's order that forced the Biden administration to resume sales of oil and gas leases on federal land and waters has been lifted by a federal appeals court.

The world's smallest and most endangered sea turtle has hatched in Louisiana's wilds for the first known time in 75 years.

The Biden administration is proposing up to 10 oil and gas lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and one in Alaska over the next five years.

The Biden administration says it is canceling three oil and gas lease sales scheduled in the Gulf of Mexico and off the coast of Alaska.

SpaceX has returned four astronauts from the International Space Station with a midnight splashdown off the Florida coast.

Gary Franklin and his family were on vacation in Playa del Carmen and doing some snorkeling in the Gulf of Mexico when Franklin felt his University of Michigan class ring slip off his finger.

A plane carrying former President Donald Trump was forced to make an emergency landing in New Orleans last weekend after suffering engine failure over the Gulf of Mexico.

If you’re familiar with the Texas coast, which isn’t known for having crystal clear water, you probably never would have suspected that a mere 100 miles off of Galveston is a 56 square mile marine sanctuary complete.

A federal court has rejected a plan to lease millions of acres in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore oil drilling, saying the Biden administration did not adequately take into account its effect ongreenhouse gas emissions.

The ashes of Winter the dolphin have been returned to the sea, about two months after the beloved marine mammal of movie star fame died at a Florida aquarium.

The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday will auction vast oil reserves in the Gulf of Mexico estimated to hold up to 1.1 billion barrels of crude.

Energy companies have offered a combined $192 million for drilling rights on federal oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico in the first government lease sale under President Joe Biden.

Four astronauts are back on Earth after a 200-day space station mission.

Response to disasters such as Hurricane Ida falls primarily to state and local officials, but the federal government is playing an important support role.

Response to disasters such as Hurricane Ida falls primarily to state and local officials, but the federal government is playing an important support role.

Oil companies began gradually to restart some of their refineries in Louisiana, and key fuel pipelines fully reopened, providing hopeful signs that the region’s crucial energy industry can soon recover from the blow of Hurricane Ida.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell has ordered a mandatory evacuation for a small area of the city outside the levee system.

A U.S. Coast Guard commander says a technical issue prevented it from relaying severe thunderstorm and marine warnings one day last April when a Seacor Power lift boat capsized in the Gulf of Mexico, leaving 13 dead in hurricane-force winds.

U.S. government forecasters say they expect the Atlantic hurricane season to be busier than they first thought.

Given its location next to the Gulf of Mexico, one would think that the Tampa Bay region would have an extensive history with hurricanes. On the contrary, that's not the case.

Mexico's state-owned oil company says it suffered a rupture in an undersea gas pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico.

High winds and heavy rains are striking coastal Louisiana and Mississippi as a disorganized and unpredictable tropical weather system churns through the Gulf of Mexico.

SpaceX has delivered four astronauts back to Earth, making the first U.S. crew splashdown in darkness since the Apollo 8 moonshot.

NASA and SpaceX are promising more Coast Guard patrols and fewer pleasure boaters for this weekend's splashdown by four astronauts.

As the search for survivors of a capsized lift boat ends, attentions turn to comforting the loved ones of the dead and missing, a grim hunt for bodies and a painstaking investigation that could take as long as two years.

The Interior Department said Friday, Feb. 12, 2021 that it is postponing onshore and offshore oil lease sales planned for next month in line with President Joe Biden's executive order on climate change. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, File)NEW ORLEANS – The Interior Department said Friday that it is postponing onshore and offshore oil lease sales planned for next month in line with President Joe Biden's executive order on climate change. The onshore sales were postponed to confirm the adequacy of underlying environmental analyses, said Interior spokesperson Melissa Schwartz. AdLow interest and small attendance at offshore lease sales covering different parts of the Gulf of Mexico prompted President Barack Obama's administration to combine them. “Canceling this huge offshore Gulf oil auction helps protect our climate and life on Earth," said Kristen Monsell of the Center for Biological Diversity.

In the closing months of the Trump administration, energy companies stockpiled enough drilling permits for western public lands to keep pumping oil for years. Its effect could be further blunted by companies that stockpiled enough drilling permits in Trump's final months to allow them to keep pumping oil and gas for years. But Biden’s move could be the first step in an eventual goal to ban all leases and permits to drill on federal land. Oil and gas extracted from public lands and waters account for about a quarter of annual U.S. production. But there are other ways an ambitious Biden administration could make it harder for permit holders to extract oil and gas.

Hurricane experts were closely watching the Caribbean, where Tropical Storm Iota formed Friday afternoon. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said Iota could bring dangerous wind, storm surge and as much as 30 inches (76 centimeters) of rainfall to northern Nicaragua and Honduras. The storm was located about 350 miles (560 kilometers) south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica and had maximum sustained winds of 40 mph (65 kph). Iota is a record-setting 30th named storm of this year’s extraordinarily busy Atlantic hurricane season. Earlier, firefighters in Tampa had to rescue around a dozen people who got stuck in storm surge flooding on a boulevard adjacent to the bay.

One death in Florida was linked to the storm, along with some scattered flooding and forecasters said the tropical storm was on a path offshore of South Carolina that would eventually take it further out to sea. That came amid a combination of moisture from the Gulf of Mexico being carried up by a cold front that had pushed Eta across Florida earlier. Earlier Thursday, Eta was in the Gulf of Mexico when it slogged ashore near Cedar Key, Florida. Before that first brush with Florida, Eta first hit Nicaragua as a Category 4 hurricane and killed at least 120 people in Central America and Mexico, with scores more missing. A 29th named system, Tropical Storm Theta, was centered late Thursday about 440 miles (705 kilometers) south of the Azores and moving east.

Residents clear debris from a flooded street in the Driftwood Acres Mobile Home Park, in the aftermath of Tropical Storm Eta, Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2020, in Davie, Fla. Tropical Storm Eta was squatting off western Cuba on Tuesday after drifting away from South Florida, where it unleashed a deluge that flooded entire neighborhoods and covered the floors of some homes and businesses. Subsequently, a tropical storm warning was issued for the same general area. The storm has been in the Gulf of Mexico since crossing over South Florida on Sunday. Ron DeSantis issued an expanded emergency declaration to include 13 counties along or near the Gulf coast, adding them to South Florida counties.

Hurricane Zeta passed through Wednesday leaving much of the city and metro area without power. Even as Zeta battered the south, the upcoming election was still on the mind of some residents. “Guys, we received the brunt of Zeta, and Zeta gave us a good punch,” McInnis told WDSU-TV. More than 875,000 customers were without electricity in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama, including about 350,000 in metro New Orleans. Winds could be “especially severe” in the southern Appalachian Mountains, where flash flooding is possible, the hurricane center said.

Clouds gather over Playa Gaviota Azul as Tropical Storm Zeta approaches Cancun, Mexico, early Monday morning, Oct. 26, 2020. (AP Photo/Victor Ruiz Garcia)MIAMI – Hurricane Zeta lashed Mexico's Caribbean coast resorts around Tulum with high winds and rain Monday night as it headed toward the Yucatan Peninsula and then a possible landfall on the central U.S. Gulf Coast at midweek. It was the second time this month that boat captain Francisco Sosa Rosado had to perform the same maneuver, after Hurricane Delta hit the resort in early October. Trees felled by Hurricane Delta barely three weeks earlier still littered parts of Cancun, stacked along roadsides and in parks. There was also a Tropical Storm Zeta in 2005, but that year had 28 storms because meteorologists later went back and found they missed one, which then became an “unnamed named storm."

Zeta is moving toward the east-northeast near 55 mph (89 km/h), and this general motion is expected to continue through tonight. On the forecast track, the center of Zeta will emerge over the western Atlantic this evening. Maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph (85 km/h) with higher gusts. A sustained wind of 39 mph (63 km/h) and a gust to 46 mph (74 km/h) were recently reported at Ocean City, Maryland. RAINFALL: The last of the heavy rainfall along the track of Zeta will impact the Mid-Atlantic through this evening.

Environmental groups have asked a federal court to toss out the government's assessment of oil and gas activity's likely effects on endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico. A lawsuit filed Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2020, says the report doesnt consider the likelihood of another catastrophic oil spill like BP's Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010. He predicted the litigation will be lengthy because both the report and suit cover a huge area and many species. It will be largely a battle of experts, he said, but allegations about ignoring large spills are a strength of the suit. The suit said NOAA underestimated the largest spill likely.