Beginning in July 2026, Detroiters will be paying higher water and sewer bills.

That’s because The Great Lakes Water Authority, or GLWA, voted unanimously on Feb. 25, 2026, to increase water rates by 5.8% and sewer rates by 4.26% for its customers. GLWA raised rates by similar amounts in 2025.

Residents at GLWA’s last rate...Read more

This week I received a question about spam emails, “For some time, I am getting emails showing an invoice for services about to be charged to my credit card. Other than ignoring them, do you have any suggestions on how to handle these messages? I’ve not had any charges to a credit/debit card or withdrawal from bank accounts. So far, I’ve...Read more

How annoying is it to get in your vehicle and your check engine light or other alerts suddenly flash in your face? The BlueDriver Pro Scan tool will tell you almost instantly what the problem is, and potentially keep you ahead of a breakdown.

This pocket-sized diagnostic tool does big things. Just plug it into your car’s OBDII port to get ...Read more

We are in the midst of graduation season, and I’ve been testing some gadgets that would make for great graduation gifts.

Cash is a traditional gift for graduates, but I know a lot of people who like their gift to be a bit more personal.

Fender Elie 6 Portable Bluetooth Speaker ($299.00, fender.com)

Fender is well-known for their guitars and...Read more

From the Rockies to the Cascades to the Sierra Nevada, mountainsides across the West are sparsely covered by the snow that usually blankets the high country well into the summer.

That snowpack is like a savings account that the West draws on when the hot, dry months arrive. It moistens the landscape as it melts, lessening the risk of severe ...Read more

Poor weather conditions forced a scrub of a Tuesday night launch attempt by SpaceX on its latest resupply run for NASA to International Space Station, with a Wednesday backup attempt on tap that could bring a sonic boom to parts of Central Florida.

A Falcon 9 on the CRS-34 mission looks to send a cargo Dragon spacecraft filled with 6,500 pounds...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Marta Segura, the first chief heat officer for the city of Los Angeles, was quietly fired from her position last month, the Los Angeles Times has confirmed.

Segura stepped into the new role in 2022 amid a marked increase in climate-fueled heat events. Her appointment by then-Mayor Eric Garcetti came with much fanfare, as it made...Read more

California Gov. Gavin Newsom won’t admit it, but a move by President Donald Trump is especially helpful to drivers in California — and Nevada.

Gasoline prices are pressuring consumers around the country. On Friday, the average U.S. price was $4.55 a gallon. In California, that would be a bargain. The average there was $6.16 a gallon. Nevada...Read more

Despite a dodgy weather forecast, SpaceX has lined up its latest resupply run for NASA to the International Space Station on Tuesday night that could bring a sonic boom to parts of Central Florida.

A Falcon 9 on the CRS-34 mission looks to send a cargo Dragon spacecraft filled with 6,500 pounds of supplies to the space station launching from ...Read more

Innovators who are working on ways to pull carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere to fight climate change are having a tough time lately.

Their biggest supporter, Microsoft, recently began telling partners that it is pausing its carbon removal purchases. To get a sense of how big of a deal this is, look at the numbers: The tech company ...Read more

Living by the sea in the tropics means being exposed to some of nature’s most powerful forces. Hurricanes can bring storm surges, flooding and destructive waves that threaten homes, infrastructure and livelihoods.

For many communities, coral reefs are a natural first line of defense against these storms. The reefs’ rugged ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — University of Pennsylvania scientists are using AI to mine Reddit threads to evaluate the safety and side effects of prescription drugs.

Their approach takes advantage of recent advances in large language models (LLMs), a subset of artificial intelligence, to rapidly analyze self-reported information on side effects. This ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The deadly fires that devastated homes in Pacific Palisades and Altadena also laid waste to a lush canopy of leaves and pine needles that had cooled and shaded residents here for generations.

Now, more than a year later, trees that had survived the flames are disappearing at a troubling rate.

Since the January 2025 fire siege, ...Read more

Daniel Felix, 10, looks out from atop a gargantuan stump of an old-growth redwood on his tribe’s ancestral land. Once, this forest on California’s North Coast was replete with the ancient behemoths that can live beyond 2,000 years.

Only a fraction are left now, depleted by a logging company before the state acquired the forest in the 1940s....Read more

LAS VEGAS — Two Nevada agencies are in court over a water rights decision that could have major implications for a state-run fish hatchery in rural Lyon County during times of drought.

The Nevada Department of Wildlife has maintained a permit to pump 861.5 acre-feet of groundwater for its Mason Valley Fish Hatchery for decades, representing ...Read more

Economist Milton Friedman is often credited with noting, “If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in five years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

State governments haven’t done much better managing the Colorado River.

On Thursday, the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, which is part of the National Weather ...Read more

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. — The Big Sur coastline is ever-changing.

Waves strike the base of the cliffs, taking sediment with them. Meanwhile, rain also loosens sediment across the rocky coastline, making it more vulnerable to landslides. The highway — a long scar cut across the cliffs — is periodically blocked by landslides and washouts.

...Read more

As the Trump administration moves to weaken America’s air pollution rules, it is deploying new legal interpretations that are intended to tie the hands of future administrations for years to come.

In practice, the changes limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority under the Clean Air Act. The result allows EPA officials...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Within days of California’s long-anticipated single-use plastic law going into effect, environmentalists, anti-waste activists and the packaging industry reacted with anger and frustration.

Anti-plastic activists say Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration and CalRecycle inserted exemptions favoring the plastic industry into the ...Read more

TAMPA, Fla. — It’s hard to spot the least terns skittering around Fort De Soto Park.

But there are dozens of them.

The itty-bitty shorebirds look like little vigilantes, with black masking their eyes, scurrying around grass and sand mounds, largely behind a sign that says “DO NOT ENTER.”

The roped-off areas of the park are nesting ...Read more