DENVER — Metro Denver and the northern Front Range this summer documented one of the worst ozone pollution seasons of the past 30 years, jeopardizing the region’s standing under federal air quality standards and possibly placing a higher financial burden on businesses.

The nine-county region logged 66 days during which ozone pollution ...Read more

DENVER -- A tropical bird never before seen in Colorado drew dozens of Front Range birders to a lake on the Eastern Plains this weekend – and helped one birder become the first person known to spot 500 different species in the state.

Catching a glimpse of the piratic flycatcher, a migratory bird from Central and South America, this far north ...Read more

Meta Platforms Inc. unveiled a palm-sized, dedicated gadget for using Muse, the company’s popular new artificial intelligence assistant, pushing deeper into the AI devices market with a surprise announcement.

The product, unveiled on stage by Meta Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, was born out of the company’s new design lab led by ...Read more

An OpenAI model hacked an Australian government website earlier this year, marking one of the first known cyberattacks by AI on a government database.

The company took three months to notify Canberra that its AI system gained unauthorized access to files on a website for reporting healthcare statistics, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said ...Read more

The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to permanently restore about $19 million in University of California research grants — including studies into wildfire-smoke health effects and water management — it had previously canceled, according to a settlement filed in federal court Wednesday.

The settlement would resolve one part of a ...Read more

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said an OpenAI agent hacked a government website, with the artificial intelligence firm taking three months to alert the government about the breach.

Albanese said he had spoken with OpenAI’s Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman on Wednesday in New York to express “extreme concern about this incident...Read more

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill aimed at deprioritizing commercial logging in a unique state forest system, arguing the measure would jeopardize the ability to test best management practices.

At issue are the state’s 14 demonstration forests — managed by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or Cal Fire �...Read more

LOS ANGELES — California is moving forward with plans to link its signature climate program, cap-and-invest, to that of Washington state, a major step officials say will cut more pollution and increase revenue for key state programs.

Gov. Gavin Newsom announced the move at Climate Week in New York City, where he is meeting with international ...Read more

SAN DIEGO -- Construction crews working on an Oceanside, California, water department project this month uncovered the fossilized remains of what could be a “thunder beast,” a large, hoofed mammal that lived about 45 million years ago.

Contract paleontologist Joseph El Adli had just walked onto the job because the project’s regular state-...Read more

Even if you have never read it, you know the story of Mary Shelley’s second great work of political science fiction after “Frankenstein.” “The Last Man,” published in 1826 but set in the late 21st century, tells the tale of a lethal contagion spread by human conflict and war that sweeps the world and seemingly leaves one sole human ...Read more

Artificial intelligence has revolutionized weather forecasting in just a few years, with global AI weather models now able to produce forecasts that rival some of the world’s best physics-based prediction systems.

This remarkable progress has been driven by three factors: massive amounts of weather data, advances in AI models and ...Read more

Look around you, and you’ll see rare earth elements at work. A phone vibrates because a magnet moves a weight. Its screen was polished with cerium powder. Its connection to the rest of the world crosses oceans on cables amplified with erbium. If you drove today, a rare earth magnet helped you steer, and a cerium compound scrubbed the ...Read more

Computers continue to get smaller and more powerful, yet they often come with fewer ports for connecting accessories. That’s where EZQuest’s new USB 4 Dual Display 8-in-1 Pro Series Hub comes in, solving most port shortages for power users.

EZQuest did a smart thing with this hub: Since USB-C has become the dominant connector for new ...Read more

I had an email exchange with a reader over the last week or so that I think everyone could stand to hear.

The reader had purchased a magnetic power bank that I had recommended from a recent gadget roundup, but when it arrived at his house, it was non-responsive. It didn’t light up when he pressed the power button and it didn’t show any ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — Mature trees are dying. A bridge is swamped. Historic buildings are at risk.

The source of all the mayhem?

A colony of industrious beavers.

Their persistent dam-building is soaking the small town of Scandia northeast of the Twin Cities, causing floodwater to creep up behind City Hall and encroach on the Swedish immigrant ...Read more

MIAMI — Life in Florida was unbearable before the widespread adoption of two life-changing pieces of technology: air conditioning and mosquito control.

And while screen doors and a healthy (or, in hindsight, not-so-healthy) dose of DDT might have done the trick in the 1950s, nowadays, the war on skeeters has entered a new front. Here, the ...Read more

El Niño is coming! El Niño is coming!

Unless “El Niño” is a defenseless child who can be violently separated from his family and thrown into a detention center, President Donald Trump doesn’t want to hear about it.

We’re being treated to a“super” El Niño this year, creating a statewide emergency in California as declared by Gov...Read more

Another round in the legal battle between California and the Trump administration over offshore wind projects has commenced.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta and the California Energy Commission filed a 54-page lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, disputing what they claim was an unlawful buyout that took a major offshore floating wind ...Read more

One of the nation’s leading political voices favoring stricter federal regulations on AI said the technology must be monitored by independent technical experts who have no industry ties.

The core tension on artificial intelligence — whether it offers more help or harm to humanity — and who benefits from its development spilled into plain ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Sea turtles have been sighted laying eggs on the sand in Huntington Beach — the first known instance of a sea turtle of any species spontaneously nesting on the U.S. West Coast.

On Sept. 16, Huntington Beach Fire Department Marine Safety lifeguards were notified of a sea turtle sighting near Seal Beach. When they investigated,...Read more