California has some of the nation’s highest electricity rates, and power bills are rising fast. That’s a problem because it makes it harder for people to afford switching from fossil fuels to clean electric cars and appliances that are essential to combating climate change.

Who wants to invest thousands of dollars in a heat pump or ...Read more

Beavers are turning up dead in Utah, and the disease killing them can spread to humans, officials said.

So it’s important not to touch any dead animals — especially rodents — while wildlife officials learn more about the “unusual” event that killed nine beavers so far since the end of March, Utah’s Division of Wildlife Resources ...Read more

After months of turmoil over the future of a vaunted mission to bring samples of the Red Planet back to Earth, NASA has its verdict on Mars Sample Return.

The space agency is "committed" to bringing those rocks back from Mars, administrator Bill Nelson said Monday, but will have to do it with way less money and in far less time than currently ...Read more

The world’s largest seller of cybersecurity products has a problem with its own cybersecurity.

In recent years, Microsoft Corp. has been hit with a series of embarrassing hacks that have exposed corporate and government customers. Earlier this month, the U.S. Cyber Safety Review Board issued a scathing report documenting the company’s ...Read more

If you call 911 in rural Georgia, the nearest emergency responders might come from the local prison.

In 1963, the Georgia Department of Corrections began a program to train incarcerated people as firefighters to support not only their prisons, but also the surrounding communities. Over time, the program has grown dramatically. Today, ...Read more

For Nelly Vaquera-Boggs, the plastic tarps that cover strawberry fields in Monterey County, California, when they are being fumigated with toxic chemicals offer little comfort — especially when those fields are close to schools.

The tarps, she said, sometimes come loose in the wind. They can get holes.

And in the small farm towns of the ...Read more

In a glimmer of progress for the daunting task of reducing air travel’s climate impact, a newly built plant in rural Georgia is expected to begin pumping out the world’s first commercial quantities of a new type of cleaner jet fuel this month.

The $200 million plant from LanzaJet Inc. will be the first to turn ethanol into a fuel compatible...Read more

A nesting bald eagle, a beloved local winery and over 30 neighbors may jeopardize a proposal to open a 260-acre surface mine along the Boise River.

Emmett developer Evan Buchert of Premier LLC wants to build the mine at 25706 Boise River Road off U.S. 95 in Parma in eastern Canyon County, Idaho. The Pintail Long Term Mineral Extraction Mine ...Read more

The summers in Hampton Roads, Va., are hot, but for some residents, swelling temperatures and their impacts can be disproportionately worse.

In Portsmouth, Va., for example, a lack of green space and increase of development over time has created urban heat islands, said Elizabeth Malcolm, professor of ocean and atmospheric sciences and director...Read more

Plans by SpaceX and other companies to boost the number of rocket launches sometimes seen streaking across San Diego County's skies have prompted the California Coastal Commission to question the environmental effects.

Residents near Vandenberg Space Force Base, on the state's Central Coast, say the launches shake their homes and rattle their ...Read more

If SpaceX manages a Starlink launch from Cape Canaveral tonight, it will come less than three days since the last rocket blasted off from the same launch pad, setting a new turnaround record while using a first-stage booster for a record-setting 20th flight.

A Falcon 9 carrying 23 more of SpaceX’s Starlink internet satellites is set to lift ...Read more

BALTIMORE — When Alice Volpitta watched the video of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, and the trucks tumbling into the Patapsco River in the darkness, she thought first for the people who had fallen.

And as her mind raced, the Baltimore Harbor Waterkeeper thought of the river.

“What’s on that ship?” thought Volpitta, of ...Read more

The U.S. power grid is the largest and most complex machine ever built. It’s also aging and under increasing stress from climate-driven disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes and heat waves.

Over the past decade, power grids have played roles in wildfires in multiple states, including California, Hawaii, Oregon and Minnesota. When ...Read more

Climate change is threatening America’s water infrastructure as intensifying storms deluge communities and droughts dry up freshwater supplies in regions that aren’t prepared.

The severe storms that swept through the South April 10-11, 2024, illustrated some of the risks: In New Orleans, rain fell much faster as the city’s pumps...Read more

Toothpaste tubes and other squeezable plastic containers are getting closer to being more sustainable in the U.S. Some 90% of toothpaste tubes on the market are now made in a way that makes them compatible for recycling with HDPE, the same plastic used for products like shampoo bottles, according to research firm Stina Inc.

Overall, 75% of all...Read more

WASHINGTON — The U.S. set aside 23 million acres of Alaska’s North Slope to serve as an emergency oil supply a century ago. Now, President Joe Biden is moving to block oil and gas development across roughly half of it.

The initiative, set to be finalized within days, marks one of the most sweeping efforts yet by Biden to limit oil and gas ...Read more

In his annual letter to shareholders, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy went back to 2003.

Quoting from a “Vision document” that year for Amazon Web Services — the company’s cloud computing division — Jassy said Amazon has always been focused on designing and offering “primitives,” or the building blocks that other innovators need to make the...Read more

LOS ANGELES — SpaceX has significantly increased the frequency of its rocket launches from a Santa Barbara County military base, and its plans to add even more have raised concerns by the California Coastal Commission over the impacts on the environment and nearby communities.

The company, officially Space Exploration Technologies Corp., ...Read more

ORLANDO, Fla. — The Space Coast set a new launch record in 2023 with 72 orbital missions from either Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. The pace of launches could ramp up by the end of 2024 to a near twice-weekly rate with as many as 111 missions possible.

Check back for the latest information on upcoming launches.

...Read more

Apple Inc., aiming to boost sluggish computer sales, is preparing to overhaul its entire Mac line with a new family of in-house processors designed to highlight artificial intelligence.

The company, which released its first Macs with M3 chips five months ago, is already nearing production of the next generation — the M4 processor — ...Read more