Sorted by date Results 26 - 50 of 68
KATOWICE, Poland (AP) — The world needs to "do more and faster" to prevent global warming on a scale that would cause irreversible environmental damage and hit poor societies hard, the head of the U.N.'s top science panel on climate change said Tuesday. Hoesung Lee, who chairs the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told diplomats at the U.N. climate summit in Poland that scientists had conducted an exhaustive review of data for their recent special report on keeping average global temperature increases to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 F...
CLEAR CREEK, W.Va. (AP) — Workers are removing water and pumping fresh air into a nonoperational coal mine in West Virginia as they search for three people stuck inside. The state Office of Miner's Health, Safety and Training said Tuesday that a man who emerged on his own from the underground Rock House Powellton mine provided details about the location of the three, who he said were alive. The state said rescue teams explored the mine overnight, but came out Tuesday after oxygen reserves were depleted. No coal has been extracted from the m...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Cabinet chiefs and GOP lawmakers celebrated alongside farm and business leaders Tuesday as the Trump administration made good on one of its biggest promised environmental rollbacks, proposing to lift federal protections for thousands of waterways and wetlands nationwide. Environmental groups called the proposed overhaul a grave assault on the aims of the 1972 Clean Water Act, the foundational U.S. water protection law. Administration supporters praised President Donald Trump for knocking back what they said was federal o...
BOSTON (AP) — Natural gas companies in Massachusetts are compromising safety by increasingly turning to outside contractors for pipeline work while cutting back on staff that would oversee these projects, state lawmakers said Tuesday at a hearing following September's natural gas explosions in the Merrimack Valley. "There are fewer full-time employees in many of your operations than was the case five to ten years ago at a time when you're undertaking accelerated construction activity," state Sen. Michael Barrett, a Lexington Democrat, said t...
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Environmental groups sued the Trump administration Tuesday over offshore drilling tests, launching a legal fight against a proposal that has drawn bipartisan opposition along the Atlantic Coast. The lawsuit filed in federal court in Charleston, South Carolina, claims the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act when it issued five permits for the use of seismic air guns. "This action is unlawful and we're going to s...
NEW YORK (AP) — The nation's top border security official told skeptical senators Tuesday that the use of tear gas on a group of migrants that included children was justified to manage a chaotic clash where a crowd was hurling rocks at agents and trying to illegally cross into the U.S. U.S. Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee, answering questions on the separation of families, enforcement operations, illegal drugs and funding for the border wall — at the same time Pre...
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a wild Oval Office confrontation, President Donald Trump heatedly threatened to shut down the U.S. government Tuesday as he and Democratic leaders bickered over funding for his promised border wall and offered a grim preview of life in Washington the next two years under divided government. Trump and House and Senate Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer squabbled for more than 15 minutes in the stunning, televised encounter. Each of them, especially Trump, interrupted the others to question facts, quibble over...
WASHINGTON (AP) — As if spotting a mirage in the Southwestern desert, President Donald Trump and his aides are seeing a wall standing along the Mexico border where none exists. For months Trump has claimed that wall construction is underway and he's brought the matter to the forefront again as the White House presses lawmakers to free up money for what he calls the "remaining sections." That's like toeing the starting line and contemplating the remaining miles of a marathon. In an argumentative Oval Office meeting Tuesday, Democratic leaders j...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate voted overwhelmingly Tuesday for a sweeping agriculture bill that will fund key farm safety net programs for the next five years without making significant changes to the food stamp program. The vote was 87-13. The House is expected to pass the measure soon and send it to President Donald Trump for his signature. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell brought the bill up for a quick vote Tuesday, less than one day after the House and Senate reached an agreement on the final text. The measure is the result of months of n...
RIMBO, Sweden (AP) — Both sides in Yemen's civil war agreed Tuesday to exchange more than 15,000 prisoners by Jan. 20, a member of the rebel delegation said, in what could be the first major breakthrough in the 4-year-old conflict that has killed thousands of people and left millions more facing hunger. Delegations from the internationally recognized government of President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi and Iran-backed Shiite rebels said at news conferences in Sweden that they have exchanged prisoner lists. The lists will be reviewed over four w...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Arkansas soybean farmers have lost at least $77 million this year after heavy rainfall interrupted harvest season and damaged the quality of the crop, according to a recent report by agriculture experts. Wet conditions starting with Tropical Storm Gordon in September and continued rainfall in the following months delayed Arkansas' harvest, costing about $56 million in physical damage to soybeans, according to the University of Arkansas report. Agriculture economists also predict the state's farmers will likely spend a...
The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) On Friday, Dec. 21, nations in the Northern Hemisphere will mark the winter solstice – the shortest day and longest night of the year. For thousands of years people have marked this event with rituals and celebrations to signal the rebirth of the sun and its victory over darkness. At hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of missions stretching from northern California to Peru, the winter solstice sun triggers an e...
WEBSTER, N.Y. (AP) — A New York state man who has been bowling for more than 90 years says he's still trying to improve his game as he turns 105 years old. Tom Pisano bowls in the Monday and Wednesday leagues at AMF Empire Lanes in Webster, a Rochester suburb. League organizer Brad Larson says Pisano also stops by a couple other times a week to bowl additional games. Larson says Pisano averages around 135 per game, but the centenarian always talks about improving his scores. Pisano turns 105 on Wednesday and celebrated his birthday with his l...
GREENWOOD, Ind. (AP) — An apparent Grinch was spotted on surveillance video plowing through a Christmas display outside a suburban Indianapolis home and tips are being sought to find the man. WRTV broadcast the video recorded Sunday night by a neighbor's camera in Greenwood. The video starts with a man getting out of a black SUV and then walking up to take a closer look at the front yard where Casie Arnold says her family had a 12-foot-tall (3.7-meter-tall) inflatable snowman. The man gets back into the vehicle, backs up and drives through t...
MONMOUTH BEACH, N.J. (AP) — Police in New Jersey have given $3 to the person who found it 14 years ago. Paige Woodie was 12 years old when she and a friend discovered the cash and turned it into a Monmouth Beach police officer in 2004. Sgt. Jeff Godwin tells the Asbury Park Press people who turn in found money are able to claim it within a reasonable amount of time if no one comes forward. The cash turned up during an audit and police "thought it had been long enough." Woodie says officers came to her home and asked if she could remember w...
GULFPORT, Miss. (AP) — A Mississippi Gulf Coast man who rammed vehicles because he thought zombies were chasing him has been sentenced to 15 years in prison. The Sun Herald reports 32-year-old Shaun Michael Stroud of Kiln pleaded guilty last week to aggravated assault, grand larceny and malicious mischief. Gulfport police arrested Stroud April 8 after he stole a front-end loader from a recycling center and smashed into at least four cars in a Walmart parking lot, including two with people inside. Stroud's wild ride ended after he hit a palm t...
PHOENIX (AP) — An Arizona family is gaining attention for building a Christmas tree made of dead cactuses. The Arizona Republic reports the Lancasters in Mesa, Arizona, recently completed their four-year journey to erect their "Phoenix Christmas tree" — a tree made entirely from cholla cactus skeletons. Jeff Lancaster recently shared the final product online. Lancaster says he got the sturdy hole-ridden skeleton pieces to build the tree from friends who work in construction. Cactus skeletons aren't protected under the Arizona native plant law...
WASHINGTON (AP) — Scientists are seeing surprising melting in Earth's polar regions at times they don't expect, like winter, and in places they don't expect, like eastern Antarctica. New studies and reports issued this week at a major Earth sciences conference paint one of the bleakest pictures yet of dramatic warming in the Arctic and Antarctica. Alaskan scientists described to The Associated Press Tuesday never-before-seen melting and odd winter problems, including permafrost that never refroze this past winter and wildlife die-offs. The N...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Spacewalking astronauts ripped through thick insulation on a capsule docked to the International Space Station on Tuesday, looking for clues to a mysterious drilled hole that leaked precious cabin air four months ago. Russians Sergei Prokopyev and Oleg Kononenko spotted the tiny hole in the external hull of the Soyuz capsule, more than five hours into their grueling spacewalk. "That is exactly the hole we've been looking for, guys," radioed Russian Mission Control outside Moscow. The spacewalkers reported seeing no d...
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA's new Mars lander has taken a selfie from above, using a camera on its long robotic arm. The InSight lander snapped a series of pictures that NASA turned into a stunning mosaic, released Tuesday. InSight landed on Mars on Nov. 26. In the two weeks since, scientists are thrilled to find the area in front of the spacecraft pretty much free of rocks, hills and holes. That should make it a safe place for InSight's two geology experiments, which will be moved to the ground in the coming weeks. Lead scientist Bruce B...
MILWAUKEE (AP) — A comet named after a Wisconsin astronomer will soon streak past Earth and be the brightest comet of the year. Comet 46P/Wirtanen will fly by Earth in the next week, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported . It will be one of the closest comet flybys since the 1950s, but will look like a dim blur of glowing gray light. "It will be very diffused, a spread-out graying glow," said Jim Lattis, director of University of Wisconsin Space Place, UW-Madison's astronomy outreach center. "You'll see green colors, which is mostly caused b...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) The Standard Model. What dull name for the most accurate scientific theory known to human beings. More than a quarter of the Nobel Prizes in physics of the last century are direct inputs to or direct results of the Standard Model. Yet its name suggests that if you can afford a few extra dollars a month you should buy the upgrade. As a theoretical physicist, I’d prefer The Absolutely Amazing Theory of Almost E...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) What is the place of a profit motive in the production of knowledge at public universities? The Trump administration’s initial budget request presented in 2017 offered one answer to that question. According to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the budget proposal included a 17 percent reduction in funding for basic research. Proposed cuts to particular agencies and programs within them, s...
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is facing escalating criminal investigations in Washington and New York that are examining not only whether his campaign coordinated with the Kremlin but also whether he illegally bought the silence of two women who say they had sex with him. A look at the nearly three dozen people charged by special counsel Robert Mueller and unanswered questions about what may lie ahead for the president — labeled "Individual-1" in court papers — and his administration: WHAT'S THE LATEST? Federal prosecutors in Manha...
A look at where the investigations related to President Donald Trump stand and what may lie ahead for him. WHAT'S THIS ALL ABOUT? Trump is facing criminal investigations in Washington and New York. Special counsel Robert Mueller is looking into whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia and whether the president obstructed the investigation. Trump also plays a central role in a separate case in New York, where prosecutors have implicated him in a crime. They say Trump directed his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to make illegal hush mon...
