SEATTLE — Among the jagged peaks of the North Cascades, lush alpine meadows rich with berries and wildflowers blanket valleys carved by glaciers, some threaded with trickling creeks.

But these idyllic landscapes are missing one big thing that had helped sustain them over the millennia: grizzly bears.

That will soon change after federal ...Read more

Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner will have to wait at least another day for its first human spaceflight as teams scrubbed a Monday night launch attempt.

With just over two hours on the countdown clock before a planned 10:34 p.m. Eastern time liftoff, an issue with an oxygen relief valve led to the call while NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni ...Read more

A member of President Joe Biden's administration stopped in the city of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, on Monday to talk PFAS with local officials, visiting an area that's been at the forefront of contamination just three weeks after the Biden administration released the first-ever drinking water standards for the so-called "forever" chemical.

Brenda ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — For several years now, one question has held the key to understanding just how much we should worry about the hundreds of tons of DDT that had been dumped off the coast of Los Angeles:

How, exactly, has this decades-old pesticide — a toxic chemical spread across the seafloor 3,000 feet underwater — continued to reenter the ...Read more

The stage is set for some space history to be made tonight as two veteran NASA astronauts aim to launch in a spacecraft that has never flown with humans before.

Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will climb aboard Boeing’s CST-100 Starliner capsule and lift off atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station�...Read more

It’s become common to read that microplastics – little bits of plastic, smaller than a pencil eraser – are turning up everywhere and in everything, including the ocean, farmland, food and human bodies. Now a new term is gaining attention: nanoplastics. These particles are even tinier than microplastics – so small that they’re ...Read more

Scenes from the Houston area looked like the aftermath of a hurricane in early May after a series of powerful storms flooded highways and neighborhoods and sent rivers over their banks north of the city.

More than 400 people had to be rescued from homes, rooftops and cars, according to The Associated Press. Huntsville registered ...Read more

A coordinated, multiagency effort is essential to save Southern California's coastal rail corridor from sea-level rise and erosion, state Sen. Catherine Blakespear warned last week.

"The data is clear and the message more urgent than ever that our coastline near the rail line is at critical risk of failure," said Blakespear, D-Encinitas, at a ...Read more

MIAMI — Two teen boaters are facing felony charges for pollution after they were caught on video dumping trash into the Atlantic Ocean during a South Florida boating party.

The 16-year-old and 15-year-old boys from Palm Beach County were arrested Friday about a week after a drone video of the illegal dumping went viral online, according to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Ferrying astronauts to the International Space Station has almost become routine — but not for Boeing and not on Monday, when after years of delay it's finally set to launch two crew members to the orbiting platform on a critical test flight.

The Arlington, Virginia-based aerospace giant was awarded a $4.2 billion contract in ...Read more

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — Boeing has spent more than $1.5 billion to develop its CST-100 Starliner amid years of delays, but the payoff on its deal with NASA is on the horizon with the first human test flight set for launch Monday night.

Veteran NASA astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams will climb aboard the capsule for the Crew Flight ...Read more

Cooking with gas poses a health risk, but new research shows that risk isn’t evenly distributed.

Poorer Americans and racial and ethnic minority groups are disproportionately exposed to harmful gas stove pollutants, scientists at Stanford University, Harvard University and the Central California Asthma Collaborative found.

Previous studies ...Read more

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A bill sitting on Gov. Ron DeSantis’ desk would end the state’s support of renewable and clean energy and keep Florida reliant on fossil fuels, critics say.

If signed, the law would reverse 16 years of state policy, finishing the work started by former Gov. Rick Scott and undoing Gov. Charlie Crist’s signature piece ...Read more

If you were standing on the edge of a canyon in the San Juan Basin of the Colorado Plateau about 1,200 years ago, you may have heard a loud, distant sound reverberating off the rock faces and ricocheting across the desert.

Like the gong of a bell or the deep tone of a ship’s horn, the sound would be a rich single note cutting through the dry ...Read more

CHICAGO — Annette Prince peered between glossy downtown buildings: ”There’s a bird in that grate.”

Sure enough, sitting very still in the rain was a tiny white-throated sparrow, so drenched you could barely make out its canary-yellow face markings. The bird was too dazed to move — an easy target for the hungry seagulls that were ...Read more

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — For many years, Rose Sims had no idea what was going on inside a nondescript brick building on Florida Street a couple of miles from her modest one-story home on the southwestern side of town.

Like other residents, she got an unwelcome surprise in October 2022 at a public forum held by the Environmental Protection Agency at ...Read more

State Sen. Norm Needleman championed the 2021 legislation designed to lure major data centers to Connecticut.

The Democratic lawmaker hoped to better compete with nearby states, bring in a growing industry, and provide paychecks for workers tasked with building the sprawling server farms.

But this legislative session, he’s wondering if those...Read more

It didn't take long for Harshraj Ghai to respond to the impact of California's new $20 an hour minimum wage for his 3,700 fast-food employees.

Ghai and his family operate 180 Burger Kings, Taco Bells and Popeyes chicken restaurants across the state, and one of the first things they did after the law took effect April 1 was to start capping ...Read more

Electric power generation in the U.S. is shifting rapidly away from fossil fuels toward cleaner and lower-carbon sources. State clean energy targets and dramatic declines in the cost of renewable electricity are the most important reasons.

But fossil fuel plants still generate 60% of the U.S. electricity supply, producing air, water ...Read more