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Handout/SpaceX/TNS

SpaceX scrubs Friday night Cape Canaveral launch attempt

SpaceX has two Space Coast launches booked for the weekend, but will have to wait at least one day after scrubbing the first launch attempt on Friday night.

A Falcon 9 rocket on the RRT-1 mission carrying an undisclosed payload is now targeting liftoff at 7:59 p.m. Eastern time Saturday from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch ...Read more

K.M. Cannon/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

EPA awards Nevada tribe $20 million for water, cooling center

LAS VEGAS — Access to clean water and renewable energy on Nevada’s tribal lands has not historically been a given.

With a $20 million Environmental Protection Agency grant, the Walker River Paiute Tribe in west-central Nevada, south of Fallon, is a step closer to strengthening its water delivery system and making homes on the reservation ...Read more

Handout/SpaceX/TNS

SpaceX aims for Friday night Cape Canaveral launch

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — SpaceX has two Space Coast launches booked for the weekend with the first lined up for Friday night.

A Falcon 9 rocket on the RRT-1 mission carrying an undisclosed payload is targeting liftoff at 8:04 p.m. from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station’s Space Launch Complex 40 in the middle of a launch window that runs from...Read more

Department of Defense/TNS

Army and Navy team up for hypersonic missile launch from Cape Canaveral

KENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Cape Canaveral Space Force Station had a different kind of launch on its plate Thursday when the Army and Navy teamed up to complete a test of a hypersonic missile.

The launch of what is known as the Dark Eagle Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon system was an end-to-end test using Space Launch Complex 46, which hosted a pair ...Read more

Ferns’ ability to evolve ‘backward’ offers insights into the meandering path of evolution

Imagine a photograph of your great-grandparents, grandparents and parents side by side. You’d see a resemblance, but each generation would look distinct from its predecessors. This is the process of evolution in its simplest form: descent with modification.

Over many generations, a staggering amount of modification is possible. This...Read more

Win McNamee/Getty Images North America/TNS

With deadlines looming, Chesapeake Bay environmental agreement will be revised

The Chesapeake Bay Executive Council, a group of governors and other environmental leaders, announced plans to revise the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement.

With the 2014 agreement, the council committed to increasing the watershed’s resiliency and withstanding the effects of a changing climate. Many of the objectives in the agreement have a...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Thousands of wild birds are dying of bird flu in Boise area, Idaho Fish and Game says

BOISE, Idaho — Wild birds are dying by the thousands in the Treasure Valley because of avian flu outbreaks, according to a news release from the Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

The agency said Wednesday that it received reports of large numbers of dead birds — many of them geese — at Fort Boise, Lake Lowell and in Parma recently. Fish ...Read more

Vern Fisher/Monterey Herald/TNS

King tides are back and what they're telling us

MONTEREY, Calif. — King tides return this weekend and with them a reminder of rising sea levels.

“As sea level rises, the king tides will get higher and the potential damage that extreme high tides cause will be greater,” said Annie Kohut Frankel, grants and education manager at the California Coastal Commission. “Soon the places we ...Read more

Mario Tama/Getty Images North America/TNS

California researchers find sea otter population helps stop invasion of green crabs

ELKHORN SLOUGH, Calif. – Though sea otters are an unofficial mascot of Monterey County and popular amongst tourists and locals alike, they are also described as voracious predators that help keep problematic invaders out of coastal waters.

A recent study was published in the scientific journal Biological Invasions, detailing that otters at ...Read more

Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

OpenAI says ChatGPT back online following global outage

OpenAI said it has identified and fixed an issue that left millions of global users unable to access ChatGPT and the recently released AI video generator Sora.

“We’re experiencing an outage right now. We have identified the issue and are working to roll out a fix,” the AI giant posted on X shortly after 6 p.m. ET. “Sorry and we’ll ...Read more

Leila Navidi/The Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

Commission approves Minnesota's first carbon-capture pipeline. Its future hinges on the Dakotas

Minnesota utility regulators on Thursday unanimously approved what would be the state’s first carbon dioxide pipeline, stretching 28 rural miles from an ethanol plant near Fergus Falls to the North Dakota border.

The decision is the latest victory for Summit Carbon Solutions for its plan to capture planet-warming gases from 57 ethanol plants,...Read more

Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Coyotes live 'pretty much anywhere' in Missouri. Here's why you may see more in winter

Winter is the time to look for coyotes in Missouri, from the city to the country.

These dog relatives are native to North America, and they spread as far as Alaska and the Panama Canal during the 20th century.

Meriwether Lewis described the coyotes as “little prairie wolves” in 1806, when the Lewis and Clark expedition noticed a group of ...Read more

Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Northern California earthquake prompts an endangered Death Valley fish species to get busy

Powerful earthquakes like the one felt last week across Northern California are stark reminders for people to plan — perhaps to fortify their home or business or, at minimum, finally build that earthquake kit.

But for the Devils Hole pupfish, a critically endangered species found only in a deep limestone cave in Death Valley, an earthquake ...Read more

Critics say Colorado regulators are looking out for Suncor's interests, not the community: “This is bewildering”

DENVER — The Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment is once again revising one of the permits that allow the Suncor Energy oil refinery in Commerce City to pollute, and once again environmentalists and nearby residents are accusing state regulators of doing more to protect Suncor’s finances than the health of the community.

...Read more

15% of global population lives within a few miles of a coast − and the number is growing rapidly

Coastal populations are expanding quickly around the world. The rise is evident in burgeoning waterfront cities and in the increasing damage from powerful storms and rising sea levels. Yet, reliable, detailed data on the scale of that population change has been hard to pin down, until now.

We study human geography as a sociologist at ...Read more

Aaron Lavinsky/Minnesota Star Tribune/TNS

How a piece of plastic shut down DNA testing at this crime lab

MINNEAPOLIS -- It was technically a successful scientific discovery when analysts at the Hennepin County, Minnesota, forensic science lab recognized there was a contaminant somewhere in its DNA process. That did not lessen the sense of dread.

Allison King, the DNA supervisor and technical leader, summed up the general feeling inside the lab ...Read more

Bizuayehu Tesfaye/Las Vegas Review-Journal/TNS

After record year of heat, Nevada climate groups plan for new year under Trump

LAS VEGAS — In Southern Nevada, extreme heat that is supercharged by climate change had a measurable impact this year.

Records show that at least 491 people have died in the desert heat, heat sent more than 4,000 people to the hospital, and about 460 workers filed heat-related complaints to Nevada regulators. Las Vegas broke its all-time heat...Read more

Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Monarch butterflies a big step closer to protection under Endangered Species Act

It’s a big day for insects.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Tuesday that it is proposing the monarch butterfly for threatened species status under the Endangered Species Act, a big step forward in a process set in motion in 2014 with a petition from conservationists.

After a 90-day public comment period, the agency will make a ...Read more

Anker/Anker/TNS

Tech review: Three big batteries to keep your gear powered up

We all just want our stuff to work, right?

Since most of us have abandoned landlines, our cell phones are our lifelines and the main way we communicate with each other and stay informed.

One of my bigger fears is my phone or laptop running out of power just when I need it most, so I’m an “overcharger.”

My phone transitions from one ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Huawei's new Mate 70 phone shows its chip advances are stalling

Huawei Technologies Co.’s latest flagship smartphone is powered by a chip little different from the one that set off alarm bells in Washington a year ago, signaling a slowdown in the Chinese company’s tech advances.

The newly introduced Mate 70 Pro Plus phone runs on a processor built with the same 7-nanometer technology used in its Mate 60...Read more