News

Warning for other Arctic communities as residents told not to use water in Longyearbyen in Svalbard, one of the world’s fastest-warming places Residents of a remote village in Norway that is in one of the fastest-warming places in the world have been told they must no longer drink tap water due to heavy metal contamination that scientists have linked to the thawing permafrost. Longyearbyen, in the archipelago of Svalbard, gets its main drinking water supply from a 1.5 mile-long (2.5km) dammed lake called Isdammen, or “ice pond”. Higher temperatures as a result of the climate crisis have thawed permafrost, leading to newly exposed bedrock leaching metals into the pond. Continue reading...

More than 100,000 species are traded globally, whether illegally smuggled, sold as ornaments or in fisheries, timber and fashion industries, study finds The number of plant and animal species in use or sold in the wildlife trade is more than twice as high as previously thought, researchers have discovered. A study, published in Science Advances, warns that there are huge gaps in global assessments of how wildlife is traded, and that past estimates have failed to keep up with changes such as the boom in the online exotic pet trade, where sellers offering to post spider eggs across the world or sneak reptiles on to planes are just a click away. Continue reading...

Kim Aris says ‘hearing her voice again means more than words can express’ amid loosening of detention restrictions The son of Myanmar’s Aung San Suu Kyi has been allowed to speak to the detained former democratic leader for the first time in more than five years. “Today, I was finally able to speak with my mother, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, after more than five years. Hearing her voice again means more than words can express,” Kim Aris said in a post on Facebook on Thursday. Continue reading...

British prime minister has now agreed to structured dialogue on reparatory justice but issue remains off formal Chogm agenda British officials reportedly insisted that discussions of reparations for slavery should not be on the agenda of the Commonwealth leaders’ summit in Antigua and Barbuda – and even warned that Andy Burnham would not attend the meeting if the subject was formally included, according to a leading Caribbean political figure. Ralph Gonsalves, a former prime minister of St Vincent and the Grenadines and a senior figure in the reparatory justice movement Repair Campaign, welcomed Britain’s decision to enter structured dialogue on reparations, but said the UK had come “kicking and screaming” to the conversation. Continue reading...

If you’re an ordinary resident of Pennsylvania and you want to dispose of potentially toxic waste, the Department of Environmental Protection will direct you to specialized dropoff locations: recycling programs or local events where officials collect things like propane tanks and pharmaceuticals. If you’re in the oil and gas business, your options may become much […]

Unusual patterns in federal student aid data led the Justice Department to charge five people and seize more than $750,000 in cryptocurrency tied to a network associated with Kenyan nationals. The charges are the first results of a broader federal effort, which the department calls Operation Ghostbusters, to crack down... Read Entire Article

No matter what happens on Election Day, the midterms will have sweeping implications for American health care. More than two dozen experts on what could come next.

As glaciers melt and permafrost thaws, Longyearbyen, on the remote Arctic islands of Svalbard, faces climate-induced problems from tap water to housebuilding to landslides • Heavy metals make Norwegian village’s tap water toxic On a rugged mountain plateau of snow-dusted rocks, in the remote archipelago of Svalbard, a glaciologist, Andy Hodson, points out the “ears” of ice, white against the rock, that gave Foxfonna glacier its name, after the arctic fox. The small glacier, on a mountain 8 miles (15km) outside the Norwegian village of Longyearbyen, is a popular summer hike for tourists who come here seeking the Arctic experience. Continue reading...

A mile beneath the Black Hills, scientists are building giant detectors to analyse neutrino particles – and possibly find the answer to existence For more than a century, the mining town of Lead, in the Black Hills of South Dakota, attracted workers with a taste for gold. Now, a flagship experiment being built in the old mine is drawing scientists in search of more intriguing riches: answers to the deepest mysteries of the universe. Construction of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (Dune) in the former Homestake mine is due to start on Monday. Engineers will begin assembling four giant detectors inside caverns blasted from rock a mile underground. Continue reading...

While anglers cannot take endangered sand tiger sharks, a loophole lets private firms catch the fish to sell abroad, profiting from Delaware Bay’s conservation success Shortly after 12.45pm, what remains of a 300-metre line goes taut. Somewhere beneath the murky green surface of Delaware Bay, on the eastern US coast, a sand tiger shark has taken the bait of a mackerel chunk. Marine researchers at the University of Delaware haul the line towards a small boat as the shark’s grey-brown outline emerges. It is a large animal: 225cm (7ft) long with a 90cm girth. Its mouth hangs open, revealing rows of jagged teeth. The researchers work quickly, measuring the shark, recording its sex, and taking blood and muscle samples. A tag is then fastened beneath its dorsal fin, through its thick sandpapery skin. Continue reading...

SARAYAKU, Ecuador—The canoe motor rattled against the current as Guisel Marworno and Wagner Karipuna traveled down the Bobonaza River. The Brazilian Indigenous leaders had come seeking help. Last year, state-owned Petrobras began exploring for offshore oil near their coastal territories. The prospect of an oil boom is already reshaping the nearby city of Oiapoque, where […]

From our collaborating partner “Living on Earth,” public radio’s environmental news magazine, an interview by producer Aynsley O’Neill with Plastics have been widely adopted in all sorts of products from food packaging to toys to medical devices, in part because they were believed to be chemically inert—meaning they don’t easily undergo chemical reactions when in […]

There is no end in sight for the drivers of illegal mining, while police action appears ineffective Cora Bailey has been encountering illegal miners ever since she first started treating injured animals in the townships around Roodepoort, west of Johannesburg, in 1991. But as the price of gold has soared, so too has activity in the abandoned mine shafts that mark the area. In late September, dozens of zama zamas – the name given to illegal miners in South Africa, meaning roughly “to take a chance” in Zulu – arrived to dig for gold across the dirt road from her charity, Claw (Community Led Animal Welfare). Continue reading...

TAYLOR, Texas—A red thresher cuts across the countryside off County Road 401 in Taylor, leaving behind tufts of discarded stalks as farmers prepare to plant seeds for the next year’s harvest. Less than five miles away, mom-and-pop antique shops open their doors on North Main Street, welcoming residents and tourists alike to glance into the […]