Currently in Boston — August 23, 2023: Beautiful weather continues

The weather, currently.

On Wednesday, expect plenty of sunshine with readings in the '70s. Humidity levels will continue to be on the lower side.

As we move to Thursday a front will approach. This will bring partly sunny skies but no rain until the overnight. Temperatures will be in the '70s. On Friday I'm expecting a period of showers and maybe a thunderstorm with readings in the lower 70s along with more humidity. Right now Saturday looks like the clouds continue but by Sunday improvement will bring back sunshine.

— Dave Epstein

What you need to know, currently.

Drought has forced a major slowdown in ship traffic at the Panama Canal, with more than 200 ships waiting up to three weeks to cross.

In an official statement, the Panama Canal Authority said the current drought situation “has no historical precedence.”

Each crossing of the canal uses 51 million gallons of water from nearby lakes, and those lakes are running low. Panama is facing its lowest rainfall since the canal opened in 1914, worsened by climate change and a strengthening El Niño in the Pacific.

It’s not clear how long the situation could last, but some shippers have already been adding surcharges to goods passing through the canal — raising fears that the slowdown could worsen inflation globally.

—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.