Sandstorm Turns Iraq’s Skies Orange and Sends Thousands to Hospitals

A severe sandstorm has swept across central and southern Iraq over the last two days, turning the sky a strange orange, reducing visibility in some places to less than a half mile and sending several thousand people to emergency rooms with respiratory problems.Two airports suspended flights because of poor visibility, and the usually crowded highways of Basra, the largest city in the country’s south, were nearly…