ENVIRONMENT

Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro signed a decree Tuesday that creates stricter rules against environmental crimes in the Amazon rainforest, such as fraud in timber licensing.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing restrictions that would block plans for a copper and gold mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay region.

The risks to the global economy are leading to an increasingly gloomy view of the months ahead for corporate leaders, government officials and other VIPs gathered at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

Hundreds of wildfires have broken out this spring. More than a dozen areas are under voluntary or mandatory water use restrictions, and more than 200 Texas counties have been designated as crop disaster areas.

Executives with German automaker Volkswagen say at the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos that supply chain problems exacerbated by the Russia-Ukraine war are easing but they’re dealing with a huge backlog of orders.

The agency says there’s a 65% chance the Atlantic’s hurricane season will be busier than normal and predicts three to six major hurricanes.

In a story published May 24, 2022 about natural gas wells, The Associated Press misspelled the name of an employee of the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District.

Scientists will set about 1,000 traps in Whatcom County this year in their quest to wipe out the Asian giant hornet in Washington state.

Ford Motor Company has settled claims by 40 U.S. state attorneys general that the company made misleading claims about the fuel economy and payload capacity of some of its vehicles.

Massachusetts’ highest court has rejected a bid by ExxonMobil to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state that accuses the oil giant of misleading the public about the role its products play in causing climate change.

Federal meteorologists say the Atlantic should expect another extra busy hurricane season this year.

Light rain and a bit of snow in the mountains of northern New Mexico helped slow the largest wildfire in North America.

The head of the United Nations is imploring graduating college students to reject jobs at companies that fund the fossil fuel industry he described as “killing our planet.”.

Environmental activists are meeting in South Africa this week to press governments and businesses to reduce the production of plastic because it is harming the continent’s environment.

John Kerry, America’s top official on climate change, says that the U.S. and China are making progress on putting together a group of experts from both countries to work toward quickly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Billionaire investor turned philanthropist George Soros has blamed new technology for helping repressive regimes like Russia and China exert greater control.

Brazil’s far-right President Jair Bolsonaro has announced the creation of a carbon market in Brazil but it is voluntary and the announcement is thin on the kind of details that make for a robust trading forum.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he may impose mandatory water restrictions if people don't start using less as a drought drags on.

The intense heat wave sweeping through South Asia was made more likely due to climate change and is a sign of things to come.

Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, also the incoming president of the next Conference of the Parties to be held in Egypt, says the focus will be on making sure countries implement their climate pledges.

A sandstorm has blanketed parts of the Middle East including Iraq, Syria, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

Cooler weather is helping nearly 3,000 firefighters in New Mexico prevent the nation’s largest active wildfire from growing.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is calling for “maximum” sanctions against Russia during a virtual speech at the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, Switzerland.

Two high-level speakers at the World Economic Forum gathering say Afghanistan’s most urgent need is saving its economy from complete collapse.

A series of complex challenges, including a lack of funding and political will as well as rising insecurity linked to extremist groups al-Qaida and the Islamic State in Burkina Faso, are obstructing progress on Africa’s Great Green Wall, according to experts involved in the initiative.

Australia’s new prime minister was sworn into office before flying to Tokyo for a summit with President Joe Biden.

The mission was to rescue tens of thousands of invaluable tree sprouts from a research center in New Mexico and to keep safe a vital bank of millions of pine, spruce and other conifer seeds that will be used to restore fire-ravaged landscapes across the West.

The much-ballyhooed World Economic Forum in the Swiss Alpine town of Davos gets underway this week after a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Climate change will be one focus of the World Economic Forum's first in-person gathering of business and government leaders in two years.

The World Economic Forum is encouraging European attendees to come to its exclusive gathering in the Swiss Alps by train.

A Defense Department-funded “resiliency review” finds Parris Island facing growing threats from climate change.

The head of the U.S. Forest Service is suspending planned burning operations to clear out brush and small trees at all national forests while his agency conducts a 90-day review of protocols and practices.

Some of the world’s biggest mining companies have withdrawn requests to research and extract minerals on Indigenous land in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest, and repudiated Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s efforts to legalize mining activity in the areas.

Tesla and SpaceX chief executive officer Elon Musk has met with Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro to discuss connectivity and other projects in the Amazon rainforest.

The U.S. energy secretary says it is critical to find a solution for storing the nation’s spent nuclear fuel.

Large parts of Spain are under alert as a wave of intense heat sweeps across the country, leaving residents sweltering through May temperatures that rank among the hottest in two decades.

A court in Germany cast has doubt on claims by a German farmer that automaker Volkswagen is partly responsible for the impact that global warming is having on his family business.

More than 5,000 firefighters are battling multiple wildland blazes in dry, windy weather across the Southwest.

An attorney for an Arizona real estate developer who was referred to the Department of Justice for a criminal investigation by congressional Democrats wants to publicly rebut the allegations.

The federal government is investing in machines that suck giant amounts of carbon dioxide out of the air in the hopes of reducing damage from climate change.

Red state officials are coming out swinging against growing Wall Street efforts to consider environmental risk in investment decisions.

Texas A&M Forest Service has responded to nine fires across the state this week, saying they “have the potential to exhaust state and local resources.”

A closely divided House has approved legislation to crack down on alleged price gouging by oil companies as prices at the pump continue to soar.

But compared to recent times, exactly how much have activities such as recycling, dieting or using electric vehicles changed or evolved?

Chile holds itself out as a global leader on climate change.

A petition to stop the revival of the 118-year-old Jonglei Canal project in South Sudan, started by one of the country’s top academics, is gaining traction in the country, with the waterway touted as a catastrophic environmental and social disaster for the country’s Sudd wetlands.

She has four limbs, expressive eyes and likes to stroll through greenery in New York City.

Brides and grooms who want more sustainable options for their weddings are transforming an industry traditionally fraught with waste.

The European Union’s executive arm is moving to jump-start plans for the EU to abandon Russian energy amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.

Four EU countries plan to speed up the continent’s green transition and help wean it off Russian energy imports through a large new project to build wind farms in the North Sea.

The police watchdog focused on behaviour by mostly PCs based at Charing Cross Police station.

It is "time we left our throwaway culture behind once and for all", the environment secretary says.

Bad candidates probably cost the GOP the Senate in 2010 and 2012. With extreme and baggage-laden candidates emerging again, could we see a repeat? Perhaps, but it's not as likely.

Award-winning singer Iona Fyfe says she was propositioned by a man from a well-known band when she was 20.

Video training for parents could improve communication with their infants, a small study suggests.

More than year into Covid-19, do people in your dreams wear masks or socially distance?

They made Resident Evil weird again.

There are still few places where our homeless can go," Salvation Army Major David Yardley said at the group's downtown center. Blistering temperatures can endanger health, and can lead to heat exhaustion, heat stroke and even death. The daily high temperatures in Phoenix were forecast to hit 110 degrees (43C) or very close to it during the extreme heat warning in effect through Sunday, National Weather Service forecasters said. The cooling stations in metro Phoenix open when the weather service declares extreme heat warnings They were also open for a string of days during an extreme heat warning in late April. In metro Las Vegas, where an excessive heat warning is in effect until Friday evening, four heat relief stations were open.

A U.S. appeals court on Thursday turned down a request by the Trump administration and energy industry groups to revive a permit program for new oil and gas pipelines that had been canceled by a lower court. The case originated with a challenge to the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. but has affected oil and gas pipeline proposals across the nation. Backed by numerous states and industry groups, attorneys for the government argued the cancellation would delay construction of pipelines needed to deliver fuel to power plants and other destinations. Circuit Court of Appeals denied an emergency request to block Morris' ruling. They said in a one-page decision that the government, states and industry groups had not demonstrated sufficient harm to their interests to justify reviving the program while the case is still pending.

An Indian man selling earthen pots beneath a bridge drinks water in Ahmedabad, India, Thursday, May 28, 2020. Cyclone Amphan, a massive super storm that crossed the unusually warm Bay of Bengal last week, sucked up huge amounts of moisture, leaving dry, hot winds to form a heat wave over parts of central and northern India. Gurjar, a top official of Indias Locust Warning Organization, said his 50-person team was scrambling to stop the swarms before breeding can take place during Indias monsoons, which begin in July. Indian environmental journalist Joydeep Gupta said that the perfect storm of pandemic, heat and locusts show India must go green. Its building coping abilities of the very poor to be able to deal with stress after stress after stress, she said.

A juvenile black bear roams through Fort Myers, Fla., Tuesday morning, May 26, 2020. A black bear roaming around a Florida city proved no match for the doughnuts that lured the animal into a humane trap. Wildlife officials say bears tend to move more in the spring in search of mates and, as always, food. Brown said the bear was relocated to a state-managed wildlife area. Authorities estimate there are about 4,000 black bears in Florida.

DENVER Nearly two dozen states and several cities on Wednesday filed a legal challenge to the Trump administrations rollback of Obama-era mileage standards, saying science backed up the old regulations developed with the help of the nation's car makers. The new mileage standards require automakers to achieve 1.5% annual increases in fuel efficiency. The Obama-era standards called for 5% annual increases and were seen as the government's most forceful initiative against climate-changing fossil fuel emissions. The states and cities claim the rule violates the Clean Air Act, the Energy Policy and Conservation Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. Opponents claim dirtier air from the rollback will kill and injure more people than the rollback claims to save in roadway accidents.

A U.S. judge has dealt another blow to the Trump administration's efforts to increase domestic oil and gas output from public lands, saying officials failed to protect habitat for a declining bird species when it issued energy leases on hundreds of square miles. The judge canceled energy leases on more than 470 square miles (1,200 square kilometers) of public land in Montana and Wyoming. But the latest ruling, handed down Friday, appears to go further and strike at the administration's broader energy policies. Their numbers have plummeted due to energy development, disease and other factors. Western Energy Alliance President Kathleen Sgamma noted that some of the cancelled leases had been sold before the Trump administration's policies went into full effect.

Circuit Court of Appeals said state courts are the proper forum for the lawsuits alleging that Big Oil promoted petroleum as environmentally responsible when producers knew it was causing damage. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)LOS ANGELES Big Oil lost a pair of court battles Tuesday that could lead to trials in lawsuits by California cities and counties seeking damages for the impact of climate change. The oil companies strategy is to keep the light from shining on their own behavior. Oil companies got the cases transferred to San Francisco federal court, where two judges reached different conclusions. The companies had argued that federal law controls fossil fuel production, and Congress has encouraged oil and gas development.

Visitors to Yellowstone National Park often leave common sense and situational awareness at home, as those examples in the past year show. Were out there.Other national parks that have reopened include Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee and North Carolina, where park officials urge visitors to arrive early at popular spots. We're expecting there to be less people on the trails than being open all day, said Grand Canyon spokesperson Lily Daniels. A lot of it is self-governance.That's not a good idea, said former Grand Canyon National Park Superintendent Rob Arnberger in an opinion piece Friday in The Arizona Republic. No ones an expert at reopening national parks in a pandemic, Sholly said.

In this Friday, May 15, 2020 photo, Joel Johnson rides his new bicycle on a bike path at Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Johnson hadn't owned a bicycle since he was 15, but soon after the coronavirus pandemic led to a shelter in place order in San Francisco, he bought a bike to avoid crowded public trains and buses. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)SAN FRANCISCO Joel Johnson hadnt owned a bicycle since he was 15, but the pandemic changed all that. San Francisco soon followed, closing sections of twelve streets in a city that already has a robust network of bike lanes. The San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, an advocacy and education group, has seen demand for its classes on city biking now online jump from 30 participants to more than 100, Executive Director Brian Wiedenmeier said.

Acting under an earlier order in the case, the administration in February released an analysis that said the decision to resume coal sales would make little difference over time in greenhouse gas emissions from burning coal, a contention critics said was flawed. Attorneys for the plaintiffs argued the administration only considered emissions from a handful of leases and failed to capture the cumulative, long-term impact of the coal program. Yet critics of the coal program note that some lease sales have continued and say the administrations moves could open tens of thousands of acres of public lands to new mining. The coal program is overseen by the U.S. If those mines are to continue operating, they will need to keep expanding onto federal lands, he said.

This Aug. 1, 2018, aerial photo made available by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection shows Grayton Beach State Park in Santa Rosa Beach, Fla. The squeak,' squeak, 'squeak of the sand when you walk in it.It's a large reason the beach was picked as the best in the United States by Stephen Dr. Beach Leatherman, a coastal scientist and professor at Florida International University, who has been ranking the nation's beaches for 30 years. Grayton Beach State Park won the list's top spot even without a smoking ban based on its sheer beauty. I have caught lots of fish at Grayton Beach State Park, Cherry said.

BRUSSELS The European Commission unveiled plans Wednesday to protect biodiversity across the 27-nation bloc while building a more sustainable food system, insisting on the need to both reduce the use of pesticides and promote organic farming. The commission also wants to plant at least 3 extra billion trees over the next ten years. The use of antimicrobials, which include antibiotics, should also be reduced by 50% for fish and animal farming. The commission also estimates that investing in organic farming will help create 10-20% more jobs per hectare than traditional farming. Farmers alone must not bear the brunt of the costs of further environmental and climate protection," said COPA president Joachim Rukwied.

(Kevin Dietsch/Pool via AP)WASHINGTON Democrats on Wednesday blasted the Trump administration's moves to roll back environmental regulations during the coronavirus crisis, with one senator saying a "pandemic of pollution'' has been released. Administrator Andrew Wheeler said the EPA remains open for business" and "at work meeting our mission of protecting human health and the environment.'' While the rest of the country works around the clock to combat and overcome this deadly respiratory pandemic, the Trump EPA has been spearheading a pandemic of pollution, Carper said. An EPA spokeswoman disputed Democrats claims that the temporary enforcement waiver allows companies to openly exceed pollution limits. He said that Trump's EPA has saved U.S. businesses more than $5 billion in regulatory costs.

The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17% at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found. The world cut its daily carbon dioxide emissions by 17% at the peak of the pandemic shutdown last month, a new study found. For a week in April, the United States cut its carbon dioxide levels by about one-third. The study was carried out by Global Carbon Project, a consortium of international scientists that produces the authoritative annual estimate of carbon dioxide emissions. By contrast, the study found that drastic reductions in air travel only accounted for 10% of the overall pollution drop.

FILE - In this May 18, 1980, file photo, Mount St. Helens sends a plume of ash, smoke and debris skyward as it erupts. May 18, 2020, is the 40th anniversary of the eruption that killed more than 50 people and blasted more than 1,300 feet off the mountain's peak. (AP Photo/Jack Smith, File)COUGAR, Wash. The coronavirus outbreak disrupted what had been big plans to mark the 40th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens in Washington state. And Mount St. Helens may not be done yet. The first of a series of small explosions on Oct. 1 shot volcanic ash and gases into the air.

FILE - In this April 5, 2020 file photo, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks at the National Palace in Mexico City. Industry associations said it will affect 28 solar and wind projects that were ready to go online, and 16 more under construction, with a total of $6.4 billion in investments, much of it from foreign firms. Mexico also has been slow to build supplementary plants for the times when wind or sun power naturally decreases. But the situation really hit crisis levels when the pandemic caused a huge drop in electricity demand as factories closed. There was literally nowhere for the fuel oil to go if the state-run plants didn't burn it, and no money to subsidize the unused power plants.

FILE - In this Wednesday, May 13, 2020, file, photo beachgoers walk and exercise on the beach in Malibu, Calif. Phil Murphy issued guidance Thursday to officials in shore towns on reopening beaches, directing them to set occupancy limits and spacing requirements. Free public beaches opened a few weeks ago. Public health officials were concerned large gatherings could allow the virus to spread. Andrew Noymer, a public health professor at the University of California, Irvine, said it was sensible to start reopening beaches and see how it goes.