Causing in the news: khiến, gây, dẫn đến

News reports have three verbs for "cause", and the choice depends on what comes after.

Khiến takes someone or something, then what happens to them, a verb or an adjective: Mưa lớn khiến nhiều tuyến đường ngập sâu. Heavy rain left many streets deeply flooded. It's the written cousin of everyday làm or làm cho, and like them it can take cho: khiến cho. It's very common with feelings: khiến người dân lo lắng (worried residents).

Gây takes a noun, almost always something harmful: gây thiệt hại (cause damage), gây ô nhiễm (cause pollution), gây tranh cãi (stir controversy), gây ùn tắc (cause congestion). Gây ra is the same with a little more weight: Vụ cháy gây ra thiệt hại lớn. For something good, news uses other verbs, such as mang lại (bring).

Dẫn đến, or dẫn tới, means "lead to". It links a cause to a result further down the line, a noun or a whole statement: Thiếu nước kéo dài dẫn đến mất mùa. A long water shortage led to crop failure. It's the natural choice when there are steps in between.

So it's khiến + person + verb, gây + a harm noun, and dẫn đến + a result. You meet all three in news and papers. In conversation, làm covers most of it: Mưa lớn quá làm ngập hết đường.