ENVIRONMENT

There's a pesky problem in a wide stretch of the Atlantic Ocean that's likely to wash up on some beaches later this year: Seaweed.

Laundry detergent bottles are looking a little different these days.

A report says 26% of the world’s population doesn’t have access to safe drinking water and 46% lacks access to basic sanitation.

The European Union has warned Spain that it won’t tolerate renewed plans by regional politicians in the country’s south to expand irrigation near its endangered Doñana wetlands.

Federal limits on particulate matter commonly known as soot could mean cleaner, safer air for Texans. But environmental experts worry Texas may snub rules.

President Joe Biden has established national monuments in Nevada and Texas and creating a marine sanctuary southwest of Hawaii.

African countries saddled with debt and ravaged by losses and damages from weather events like cyclones, drought and extreme temperatures have agreed to consider swapping debt to invest in climate action in a meeting of finance ministers in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.

A federal judge has paused the Biden administration’s waterway protections in Texas and Idaho.

A relentless winter at Lake Tahoe has now etched its way into the history books as the Sierra's second-snowiest on record.

Voters would have the final say on whether the state sets aside billions of dollars to acquire new water sources and invest in aging infrastructure.

The federal government says endangered Atlantic salmon can coexist with dams on a river in Maine, dealing a blow to environmentalists who want to remove the dams.

The Paris Olympics is going underground to find a way to keep athletes cool at the 2024 Games without air conditioners.

The full footage can be seen in the video, which is part of a series where we are looking back at most-watched viral videos.

There's scientific agreement that carbon emissions must cease in order to address climate change, but how does a company make that transition and remain profitable.

Over a week on from Cyclone Freddy’s second and more devastating landfall in Malawi and Mozambique and nearly a month since it battered Madagascar, the effects are still being felt as locals, officials and aid workers continue to uncover the full extent of the cyclone’s destruction.

Spanish environmental groups have called on the European Union to open an inquiry into the approval of 26.4 million euros of “green” recovery funds to join two ski resorts in the rapidly warming Pyrenees mountain range.

A new report says an estimated 43,000 people died amid the longest drought on record in Somalia last year and half of them likely were children.

Humanity still has a chance, close to the last one, to prevent the worst of climate change’s future harms, a top United Nations panel of scientists said Monday.

Archaeologists say they have found the oldest pearling town in the Persian Gulf on an island off one of the northern sheikhdoms of the United Arab Emirates.

A skier has been killed in a large avalanche just outside a Colorado ski resort boundary, a day after authorities recovered the body of another avalanche victim in the state.

Governments gave their blessing Sunday to a major new U.N. report on climate change, after approval was held up by a battle between rich and developing countries over emissions targets and financial aid to vulnerable nations.

The toll from an earthquake that rocked Ecuador and Peru this weekend stands at 15 dead.

New Mexico's governor has signed legislation that calls for banning the storage of spent nuclear fuel in New Mexico, unless the state provides its consent first.

The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide a critical water rights case in the arid Southwest.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland is facing criticism from political allies after the Biden administration approved a contentious oil drilling project in Alaska.

Spain has entered a period of a long-term drought, owing to high temperatures and low rainfall over the past three years, and likely faces another year of heatwaves and forest fires.

Authorities are still getting to grips with the scale of Cyclone Freddy’s destruction in Malawi and Mozambique since late Saturday, with over 370 people confirmed dead and several hundreds still displaced or missing.

Officials with the Biden administration have visited a Louisiana wildlife refuge touting plans to clean up and plug “orphan wells.”.

The Biden administration’s approval this week of the largest new oil project in years on Alaska’s petroleum-rich North Slope has immediately been met by lawsuits seeking to stop the Willow project.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation granted $2.4 million Thursday for cloud seeding in the Upper Colorado River Basin.

President Joe Biden has made fighting climate change a core part of his agenda.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced seven young climate leaders for his next Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change on Thursday afternoon.

A potential casualty of the powerful rainstorms that drenched coastal California and flooded rivers is hundreds of acres of strawberries.

The majority of developing nations are set to miss out on the economic benefits of booming green technologies, slowing progress toward their climate goals and widening the inequality gap between rich and poor countries, a United Nations report warned Thursday.

A new powerhouse of Dutch right-wing populism has seized the political center stage after winning its first provincial elections.

The European Union has presented plans to fundamentally revamp its policies on promoting clean technologies and dealing with its lack of critical raw materials.

After four days of destructive wind and rain, local communities and relief workers are now dealing with the aftermath of Cyclone Freddy which has killed more than 250 people and displaced tens of thousands of others across Malawi and Mozambique and may still cause further damage.

Record snowfall and rain have helped to loosen drought’s grip on parts of the western U.S., even pushing it out altogether in California after consecutive dry years.

The Biden administration’s approval this week of the biggest oil drilling project in Alaska in decades promises to widen a rift among Alaska Natives.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom says he wants state regulators to decide whether to impose the nation's first penalty on oil companies for price gouging.

A U.S. judge says the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the law when it failed to develop a plan to prevent the harming of humpback whales by West Coast commercial fishermen catching sablefish.

Dozens of bison from a mountain park outside Denver have been transferred to several tribes from across the Great Plains.

The allocation is part of a plan to add $12 billion to the current budget. It hasn’t been approved yet by the House.

California’s 11th atmospheric river has left the storm-soaked state with a bang.

A new “good neighbor” rule issued by the Environmental Protection Agency will restrict smokestack emissions from power plants and other industrial sources that burden downwind areas with smog-causing pollution they can’t control.

Arctic sea ice is in trouble.

As global warming threatens to put much of the ski industry out of business over the next several decades, resorts are beginning to embrace a role as climate activists.

Parts of New England and New York are digging out of a nor’easter that caused tens of thousands of power outages, numerous school cancellations and whiteout conditions on the roads.

The European Union moved closer to ending a trade dispute with U.S. President Joe Biden following months of wrangling over the billions of America-first incentives in his clean technology plans.

When Brazil’s environmental authority busted an illegal gold mine inside the Yanomami Indigenous territory operated by the nation’s most fearsome gang, they found something that is becoming common at such sites: a Starlink kit.

Any cuts in funding in next week's spending announcement will hit poorest people hardest, warn experts.

Actor Tom Bateman recalls how he overcame his claustrophobia in Ron Howard's film Thirteen Lives.

Maggie Rogers on reclaiming her sexuality, and why she left pop music to study divinity at Harvard.

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

For the third year in a row, the Washington Park neighborhood Christmas tree has been destroyed, this time by arson. The children there deserve to know good wins out. A toy drive can help with that.

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.

A federal lawsuit filed in Wisconsin seeks damages against Kenosha authorities for allegedly allowing armed civilians including Kyle Rittenhouse to operate freely during last summer's unrest, resulting in the death of Anthony Huber.

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.

According to the ruling, Volkswagen is basically obliged to pay damages to car owners affected by the diesel scandal. Volkswagen said the decision announced Monday would clear the way for settlement of remaining consumer claims in Germany. The decision affects some 60,000 individual claims brought by car owners there; around 262,000 others have already been covered by an 830 million-euro ($904 million) class-action settlement. For the majority of the 60,000 pending cases, this ruling provides clarity, the company said in a statement. He had sought the full purchase price but the court ruled he must accept less due to depreciation related to the distance he drove.

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.

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, 22, 2020 photo released by the Woodland Park Zoo shows a 2 1/2-month-old male gorilla, Kitoko, with mom Uzumm. Kitoko was injured Saturday, during a skirmish among his six-member family group in Seattle. (Jeremy Dwyer-Lindgren/Woodland Park Zoo via AP)SEATTLE A baby gorilla was badly injured at a Seattle zoo on Saturday when he was caught in a skirmish between his family group members, zookeepers said. Animal health experts at the Woodland Park Zoo say little Kitoko was bitten on the head, likely by accident when another gorilla tried to bite his mother, Uzumma. Gorillas tend to be gentle giants but conflicts among family members do occur, in zoos and in nature, Woodland Park Zoo mammal curator Martin Ramirez 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.

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.

who urged Americans to help fight a worldwide pandemic by recycling the packing materials from their delivery orders. "Right now there is a critical need for all raw materials in the manufacturing supply chain, especially paper and cardboard." Groups in the UK and Europe have also warned of possible shortages of cardboard as a result of increased home deliveries. Here are five ways to be nice to the planet, reduce waste and support efforts to ship you all the things you need (and want). Just don't throw your masks, gloves, and wipes into the recycling during the pandemic -- or anytime.