What began as a straightforward question from one water-quality advocate has morphed into a high-stakes battle over an oil pipeline at the highest levels of the U.S. government – with implications that go far beyond the fate of a technical legal conflict.

The question arose after a 2010 Enbridge Energy oil spill in Michigan. The ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The opposition appeared overwhelming: Tens of thousands of emails poured into Southern California’s top air pollution authority as its board weighed a June proposal to phase out gas-powered appliances. But in reality, many of the messages that may have swayed the powerful regulatory agency to scrap the plan were generated by a ...Read more

The decline of California’s kelp forests since the marine heat wave of 2013-17 has seen only minor recovery despite heroic efforts at restoration carried out by scientists, fishermen, coastal tribes, volunteer divers and conservationists. Nor is the threat to kelp localized. Rather the loss, like the expansion of mega-wildfires on land from ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Yuba Water Agency and state officials reported encouraging water-quality test results following the large pipe rupture at the New Colgate Powerhouse in Yuba County.

In a Friday news release, the agency said samples collected downstream in the Yuba River and at Englebright Lake showed no “concerning results.”

The ...Read more

Editor’s note: Extreme cold weather can produce unusual phenomena, from so-called sea smoke to slushy ocean waves. As atmospheric scientist Scott Denning explains, these striking events are caused mainly by the behavior of water at very cold temperatures.

There are three phases, or states, of water: solid ice, liquid water and ...Read more

SpaceX padded the record for its most-flown rocket booster late Saturday with its 33rd trip to space.

A Falcon 9 flying 28 Starlink satellites launched from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 at 10:47 p.m.

The first-stage booster first launched in June 2021 and has been the pace setter for SpaceX’s reusability ...Read more

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Wendy Bohon approached a table at the California Geological Survey library in Sacramento and began to give Puck’s closing speech from William Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Only this time, some of the speech was adapted to be about earthquakes. Once again, Bohon was making her worlds converge.

Bohon ...Read more

SAN DIEGO — Hundreds of schools, child cares, parks and other care facilities around San Diego County are located near idle oil wells, which can emit toxic gases, a new study finds.

They’re among the nearly 4,500 wells statewide that an analysis of state data by the Center for Biological Diversity found are within 3,200 feet of such ...Read more

NASA is preparing to remove its massive moon rocket from its launchpad to fix a technical issue, delaying the agency’s much-anticipated mission to send a crew of four around the moon.

On Saturday, NASA announced that it planned to roll back the rocket, the Boeing-built Space Launch System, to its hangar at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to ...Read more

For years, people fishing along the banks of the White River that winds through Indianapolis were met by ominous signs warning about eating the fish they catch.

One of those risks was mercury poisoning.

Mercury is a neurotoxic metal that can cause irreparable harm to human health – especially the brain development of young ...Read more

For anyone who has stood freezing in an endless lift line at a ski resort, or flinched as some out-of-control “rad Brad” whooshes by like a Red Bull-and-vodka-fueled missile, the allure of backcountry skiing needs no explanation.

Out there, far from the madding crowd, it can be just you and your friends, gliding through acres of untracked ...Read more

Maryland officials say they are gathering the data needed to pursue federal disaster aid for the state’s struggling oyster industry, as watermen and Eastern Shore lawmakers press for relief under both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s fishery disaster process and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

For weeks, ...Read more

The four astronauts set to venture farther than any human has ever traveled from Earth are set to enter quarantine Friday with the chance to launch on the Artemis II moonshot mission early next month.

NASA officials announced the new target after completing a redo of a simulated countdown Thursday night at Kennedy Space Center’s Launch Pad 39...Read more

A total lunar eclipse will cross the skies over the contiguous United States on Tuesday, March 3, turning the Moon a deep reddish color in what’s commonly called a “blood moon.”

No special eye protection is required to watch.

This will be the third total lunar eclipse in the past year. It could also be your last chance for a long time to...Read more

Following a large water pipe rupture at the Colgate Power Plant which led to hundreds and possibly thousands of salmon killed in lower Yuba River, Yuba Water Agency on Tuesday announced the $300,000 grant to a local conservation group for its fish restoration project, while turning down a second bid for a separate fish habitat effort.

The ...Read more

A report on the Boeing Starliner mission that left two astronauts behind on the International Space Station in 2024 has pushed NASA to reclassify the incident in the same category as the Space Shuttle Columbia and Challenger disasters.

NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman said the agency now considers the mission a “Type A mishap,” which means...Read more

NASA is putting the botched 2024 test flight of the Starliner capsule in the same category of disaster as the Challenger and Columbia shuttle accidents, underscoring the dramatic failures that kept a pair of astronauts stuck in space for nine months.

The agency labeled the mission a “Type A” mishap in a scathing report, expected to be ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — An Ybor business owner closed her yoga studio repeatedly from worries over moldy, waterlogged walls.

A Pinellas woman’s home flooded in one hurricane, and a tree crushed her car in another.

A Tampa student feared her insulin would become ineffective in extreme, hot temperatures.

On Wednesday night, one after another, Tampa ...Read more