Anastasia Moloney

When U.S. lawyer Elizabeth Ling takes calls from women seeking legal advice about their abortion rights, the most challenging cases often come from people seeking to terminate their pregnancy while behind bars, on parole or probation.

In the two years since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling that established abortion rights nationwide, the 'Repro Legal Helpline' has been inundated with calls from women struggling to navigate abortion bans and restrictions.

From the vast Amazon rainforest that unfurls across nine South American territories to the tropical forests that shelter mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo and orangutans in Indonesia, forests are key to human life.

But these rich resources are under threat from deforestation driven by mining, land-grabbing, animal grazing and deadly wildfires. And that's bad news for humans and the planet as rainforests are key to reining in runaway climate change.

Eveline Janvier's teenage son died when he was swept away by floods in Haiti last year and her grief is shot through with the knowledge that this year's hurricane season will likely cause more tragedy in a nation brought to its knees by gang violence.

Janvier 40, lives in the coastal town of Léogâne, about 30 km (19 miles) west of the capital Port-au-Prince, where thousands of people have been killed and displaced by fighting between heavily armed gangs.

With heatwaves breaking records around the world, urban planners and local officials are coming up with solutions to keep sweltering cities cooler, and save lives.

By 2050, heatwaves will affect more than 3.5 billion people globally – half of them in urban centres - according to the U.S.-based Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Center (Arsht-Rock).   

As the era of "global boiling" spawns ever deadlier heatwaves, a handful of heat tsars are working with officials in cities from Miami to Melbourne in a race against time to cool urban heat traps and prevent tens of thousands of deaths. 

Seven chief heat officers - who all happen to be women - are working in Miami, Melbourne, Dhaka, Freetown and Athens to plant trees, create "pocket parks", install water fountains and teach people about the effects of extreme heat on the human body.

Sitting next to dozens of worn, multicoloured tents on a street in downtown Mexico City, two Venezuelan siblings wait for the clock to strike 10am to take out their phones and apply for an asylum appointment in the United States.

Like others in the migrant camp, they are obliged to use the CBP One app to schedule an appointment to present an asylum claim with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) at the U.S.-Mexico border.

From Mexicans left homeless by rising seas to Colombians affected by coral bleaching, hundreds of people are telling the top human rights court in the Americas what climate change means to them in an historic case that could shape international law. 

Environmental lawyers also hope the hearings at the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), which were requested by Colombia and Chile, will define the duties of states to confront the climate crisis and stop it infringing on human rights.

A court's ruling that residents of a polluted Peruvian mining town have the right to a healthy environment could be a milestone for similar cases in Latin America, though the blighted community still faces hurdles in its fight for justice.

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled in March that Peru had failed to regulate a 100-year-old smelter complex in the Andean town of La Oroya and stem pollution that contaminated the air, water and soil for decades, harming local people's health.

When the storm surges and high tides engulf the tiny, overpopulated Panamanian island of Gardi Sugdub, Marcia Hernández watches helplessly as her hut along the shoreline fills with seawater.

"Flooding is getting worse, the winds are getting stronger," said Hernández, who was born on the island, one of about 350 in the Guna Yala or San Blas archipelago off Panama's Caribbean coast and home to the Indigenous Guna people.

As a colossal Chinese container ship manoeuvered into the narrow Miraflores locks on the Panama Canal, around 27 million gallons of water rose around it, propelling the vessel along this vital maritime shortcut between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans.

But the critical water cushion that lifts and lowers ships through a series of locks along the canal is deflating because of repeated droughts, disrupting a key global trade route and slashing revenues that underpin Panama's economy.