Sorted by date Results 1 - 25 of 1682
GALVESTON, Texas (AP) — An endangered sea turtle that was found about a year ago some 5,000 miles (8,047 kilometers) from its native waters has been released into the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Houston Zoo. The Kemp's ridley sea turtle, named Boeier after the boat that rescued it, was found off the coast of the Netherlands after becoming entangled in the net of the commercial fishing boat. The zoo said the turtle apparently was carried away by currents until it was found and the U.S. National Fish and Wildlife Service secured the t...
Forty-three monkeys escaped from a compound used for medical research in South Carolina but the nearby police chief said there is "almost no danger" to the public. "They are not infected with any disease whatsoever. They are harmless and a little skittish," Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said Thursday morning. The Rhesus macaque primates escaped from the Alpha Genesis facility Wednesday when a new employee didn't fully shut an enclosure, Alexander said. The monkeys are females weighing about 7 pounds (3 kilograms) and are so young and...
CAMARILLO, Calif. (AP) — Southern California firefighters made progress against a wildfire that has destroyed 132 structures, mostly homes, and that was fanned by fierce wind gusts that began easing Friday, allowing some people to return to sort through the charred remains of their homes. Joey Parish returned to the site of his former home of more than 20 years in Camarillo Heights. All that was left was part of the burned-out steel frame. "It's tough, it's really tough to know how to process the emotions," he told KNBC-TV late Thursday. He h...
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Southern California firefighters on Saturday were gaining ground on a wildfire that ravaged more than 130 structures as gusty winds subsided with favorable weather conditions expected through the weekend. The Mountain Fire in Ventura County held at 32 square miles (about 83 square kilometers) and was 17% contained, Fire Operations Section Chief Clint Swensen said. The fire broke out Wednesday and exploded in size amid the arrival of dry, warm and gusty northeast winds, forcing thousands of residents to flee and threatening 3...
The spotlight is on Azerbaijan as the small petrostate in the South Caucasus hosts the U.N.'s biggest climate conference. Diplomats from across the world will descend on the capital Baku for the annual climate summit, known as COP29, to discuss how to avoid increasing threats from climate change in a place that was one of the birthplaces of the oil industry. It was in Baku where the world's first oil fields were developed in 1846 and where Azerbaijan led the world in oil production in 1899. Sandwiched between Iran to the south and Russia to...
RINGWOOD, N.J. (AP) — Fire crews battled small wildfires across the Northeast U.S. on Monday, including a blaze in New York and New Jersey that killed a parks employee over the weekend and postponed Veterans Day plans. A quarter-inch of rain fell overnight from Sunday into Monday in a forest area straddling the border between the two states, giving a slight respite to firefighters. The fire is one of several burning on the East Coast amid a lack of much rainfall since September. An employee of the New York State Parks, Recreation, and H...
HAVANA (AP) — Hurricane Rafael made landfall in Cuba on Wednesday as a powerful Category 3 hurricane, shortly after powerful winds knocked out the country's power grid. Forecasters warned Rafael could bring "life-threatening" storm surges, winds and flash floods to western swaths of the island after it knocked out power and dumped rain on the Cayman Islands and Jamaica the day before. The storm was located 40 miles (65 kilometers) south-southwest of Havana on Wednesday. It had maximum sustained winds of 115 mph (185 kph) and was moving n...
CALI, Colombia (AP) — After two weeks of negotiations, delegates on Saturday agreed at the United Nations conference on biodiversity to establish a subsidiary body that will include Indigenous peoples in future decisions on nature conservation, a development that builds on a growing movement to recognize the role of the descendants of some regions' original inhabitants in protecting land and combating climate change. The delegates also agreed to oblige major corporations to share the financial benefits of research when using natural genetic r...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Severe storms and tornadoes battered Oklahoma early Sunday, tossing cars and ripping roofs off buildings in the middle of the night and leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power. Among numerous injuries, 11 people required hospitalization, authorities said. Much of the damage was reported in and around the state capital of Oklahoma City, near the state's center, but also scattered elsewhere around the state. The early morning storms set off tornado warnings that extended south to the Arkansas state l...
PAIPORTA, Spain (AP) — A crowd of enraged survivors hurled clots of mud left by storm-spawned flooding at the Spanish royal couple on Sunday during their first visit to the epicenter of their nation's deadliest natural disaster in living memory. Spain's national broadcaster reported that the barrage included a few rocks and other objects and that two bodyguards were treated for injuries. One could be seen with a bloody wound on his forehead. It was an unprecedented incident for a royal house that carefully crafts the image of monarchs adored b...
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Severe storms and tornadoes battered Oklahoma early Sunday, tossing cars and ripping roofs off buildings in the middle of the night and leaving tens of thousands of homes and businesses without power. Among numerous injuries, 11 people required hospitalization, authorities said. Much of the damage was reported in and around the state capital of Oklahoma City, near the state's center, but also scattered elsewhere around the state. The early morning storms set off tornado warnings that extended south to the Arkansas state l...
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — America's golden eagles face a rising threat from a black market for their feathers used in Native American powwows and other ceremonies, according to wildlife officials, researchers and tribal members. The government's response has been two-pronged: A crackdown on rings illegally trafficking dead eagles coupled with a longstanding program that lawfully distributes eagle feathers and parts to tribal members. But that program has a yearslong backlog, and officials said illegal killings appear to be worsening, with young g...
ROSWELL, N.M. (AP) — Federal officials went door to door in Roswell on Thursday to assess the damage from historic flooding last weekend in the southeastern New Mexico community. The National Guard rescued more than 300 people over the weekend after 5.78 inches (about 14.7 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday, breaking Roswell's previous daily record of 5.65 inches (about 14.6 centimeters) set on Nov. 1, 1901. Mayor Tim Jennings called it "a 500-year flood" and said Thursday that the death toll remained at two. He declined to release the names a...
MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Oscar made landfall early Sunday in the southeastern Bahamas and was heading toward Cuba, an island beleaguered by a massive power outage. The National Hurricane Center in Miami said the storm's center arrived on Great Inagua island. It is expected to produce a dangerous storm surge that could translate into significant coastal flooding there and in other areas of the southeastern Bahamas. Two to four inches of rainfall are expected, with isolated areas seeing up to six inches. Forecasters said five to 10 inches of r...
HAVANA (AP) — Cuba's capital was largely paralyzed on Monday and the rest of the island braced for the fourth night of a massive blackout that has generated a handful of small protests and a stern government warning that any unrest will be punished. Hurricane Oscar was crossing the island's eastern coast with winds and heavy rain after a night that saw protests of several dozen people in urban neighborhoods like Santos Suárez and central Havana. Some banged pots and pans in the streets, while others demonstrated from their balconies. Pr...
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Fearful Florida residents streamed out of the Tampa Bay region Tuesday ahead of what could be a once-in-a-century direct hit from Hurricane Milton, as crews worked furiously to prevent furniture, appliances and other waterlogged wreckage from the last big storm from becoming deadly projectiles in this one. Tuesday marked the last chance for millions of people in the Tampa metro area to prepare for lethal storm surges, ferocious winds and possible tornadoes in a place that has narrowly avoided a head-on blow from a major storm...
As Hurricane Milton bears down on Florida's west coast with powerful winds and flooding rain, environmentalists are worried it could scatter the polluted leftovers of the state's phosphate fertilizer mining industry and other hazardous waste across the peninsula and into vulnerable waterways. More than 1 billion tons of slightly radioactive phosphogypsum waste is stored in "stacks" that resemble enormous ponds at risk for leaks during major storms. Florida has 25 such stacks, most concentrated around enormous phosphate mines and fertilizer...
TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Milton hurled rain, tornadoes and tropical storm-force winds at the U.S. coast Wednesday on the storm's steady, potentially catastrophic march toward Florida, where officials issued a final plea to residents to evacuate or face grim odds of survival. The National Hurricane Center stressed that it was not certain where Milton's center would come ashore Wednesday night because the storm's path might "wobble," but the entire Tampa Bay region and points south were at grave risk. Tropical storm-force winds began l...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The facts emerging from Hurricane Helene's destruction are heartrending: Businesses and homes destroyed, whole communities nearly wiped out, hundreds of lives lost, hundreds of people missing. Yet this devastation and despair is not enough for the extremist groups, disinformation agents, hucksters and politicians who are exploiting the disaster to spread false claims and conspiracy theories about it and the government's response. According to former President Donald Trump, the federal government is intentionally withholding a...
BELLEAIR BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Florida's storm-battered Gulf Coast raced against a Category 5 hurricane Monday as workers sprinted to pick up heaps of appliances and other street debris left over from Helene two weeks ago and highways were clogged with people fleeing ahead of the storm. The center of Hurricane Milton could come ashore Wednesday in the Tampa Bay region, which has not endured a direct hit by a major hurricane in more than a century. Scientists expect the system to weaken slightly before landfall, though it could retain hurricane s...
SWANNANOA, N.C. (AP) — Cadaver dogs and search crews trudged through knee-deep muck and debris in the mountains of western North Carolina on Tuesday looking for more victims of Hurricane Helene days after the storm carved a deadly and destructive path through the Southeast. Meanwhile, across the border in east Tennessee, a caravan including Gov. Bill Lee that was surveying damage outside the town of Erwin drove by a crew pulling two bodies from the wreckage, a grim reminder that the rescue and recovery operations are still very much ongoing a...
Hurricanes in the United States end up hundreds of times deadlier than the government calculates, contributing to more American deaths than car accidents or all the nation's wars, a new study said. The average storm hitting the U.S. contributes to the early deaths of 7,000 to 11,000 people over a 15-year period, which dwarfs the average of 24 immediate and direct deaths that the government counts in a hurricane's aftermath, the study in Wednesday's journal Nature concluded. Study authors said even with Hurricane Helene's growing triple digit...
PERRY, Fla. (AP) — Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 40 people in four states, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters. The Category 4 hurricane knocked out power to some hospitals in southern Georgia, and Gov. Brian Kemp said authorities used chainsaws to clear debris and open up roads. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfal...
PERRY, Fla. (AP) — Massive rains from powerful Hurricane Helene left people stranded, without shelter and awaiting rescue Saturday, as the cleanup began from a tempest that killed at least 56 people, caused widespread destruction across the U.S. Southeast and left millions without power. "I've never seen so many people homeless as what I have right now," said Janalea England, of Steinhatchee, Florida, a small river town along the state's rural Big Bend, as she turned her commercial fish market into a storm donation site for friends and neighbor...
PERRY, Fla. (AP) — The U.S. Southeast grappled Sunday with rising death tolls, a lack of vital supplies in isolated, flood-stricken areas and the widespread loss of homes and property while the devastating toll of Hurricane Helene became clear to officials who warned of a lengthy and difficult rebuild. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper said Sunday that the toll of 11 dead in his state was expected to rise as rescuers and other emergency workers reached areas isolated by collapsed roads, failing infrastructure and widespread flooding. Cooper, s...
