Author: Reporter

Blame geography for the U.S. getting hit by stronger, costlier, more varied and frequent extreme weather than anywhere on the planet, several experts said. Two oceans, the Gulf of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, jutting peninsulas like Florida, clashing storm fronts and the jet stream combine to naturally brew the nastiest of weather. That is only part of it. Nature dealt the United States a bad hand, but people have made it much worse by what, where and how we build. Then add climate change, and “buckle up. More extreme events are expected,” said Rick Spinrad, head of the National...

Offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico are releasing far more climate-changing methane than official estimates show, according to a new study published in April. Climate scientists found the additional methane coming from oil and gas platforms in the Gulf region raises their carbon intensity, the amount of climate-changing gas per unit of energy in the fuel, to twice as much as estimated by U.S. agencies like the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. The study is published in PNAS, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Reductions in both methane and carbon dioxide emissions are...

Congress is moving toward doing something it has not done since the Vietnam War, repealing authorizations for the president’s use of military force. For lawmakers, that is an important gesture toward reclaiming a say over the wars America wages abroad. The Senate voted 66-30 on March 29 to repeal the 2002 resolution giving President George W. Bush the green light to invade Iraq, an authorization that many now see as a mistake. The measure also would repeal the 1991 resolution authorizing the U.S. military’s combat action against Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait. Approval by the House, which...

Nearly 60 years after he was first recommended for the nation’s highest award for bravery during the Vietnam War, retired Col. Paris Davis, one of the first Black officers to lead a Special Forces team in combat, will receive the prestigious Medal of Honor on March 3. The overdue recognition for the 83-year-old Virginia resident comes after his recommendation for the medal was lost, resubmitted — and then lost again. It was not until 2016 — half a century after Davis risked his life to save some of his men by fighting off the North Vietnamese — that a...

Russian athletes who have actively served in the military invasion of Ukraine should be allowed to return to international sports if they did not take part in war crimes, according to a United Nations expert advising the International Olympic Committee. The U.N. special rapporteur for cultural rights, Alexandra Xanthaki, said on March 26 that only Russian military members implicated in “allegations of war crimes, genocide, crimes against humanity or propaganda for war” should be denied neutral status to compete in international sports ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics. Xanthaki angered Ukrainian athletes who took part in an IOC-hosted call...