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Category: Fringe News Feed

  • El Nino is here and scientists fear it’ll be big, bad and costly with heat, floods, droughts, fires


    WASHINGTON (AP) — El Nino, Nature’s chaotic climate agent, has formed in a warmed-up Pacific Ocean and is expected to grow to historic strength, meteorologists announced Thursday.

    Experts said the El Nino, a natural warming cycle, should further heat a globe already warming from fossil fuel pollution and will likely turbocharge extreme weather across the planet. Meteorologists forecast it will rival — or exceed — a record El Nino that began in 1997 and helped trigger billions of dollars in damage from heat waves, floods, droughts, tornadoes and wildfires.

    The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration officially confirmed the existence of the El Nino, which is a warming of the Pacific near the equator that affects weather patterns across the globe. NOAA’s announcement said there’s a 63% chance that the El Nino will get so intense this late fall and early winter that it “would rank among the largest El Nino events in the historical record going back to 1950.”

    The warm, deep waters of an El Nino affect weather patterns by bringing “a lot of extra heat to the surface, fueling a lot of extreme events for a lot of places around the world,” said Clark University climate scientist Abby Frazier.

    She said, especially in the Pacific, “it can get dire very quickly.”

    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres described El Nino as an “urgent climate warning.”

    “El Nino conditions will pour fuel on the fire of a warming world,” Guterres said in a video message.

    El Nino’s impacts spawn winners and losers

    The weather pattern’s effects vary by region. El Nino often dampens — but doesn’t eliminate — Atlantic hurricane season activity, but increases it in the Pacific. So while the U.S. East and Gulf coasts may get a break, Hawaii and other islands are more in danger, Frazier said.

    The drought-stricken Middle East could benefit, climate scientists said. Other places are looking at more danger. Parts of western South America — where the first El Ninos were noticed decades ago — often get heavy rain and floods, along with an extra warm summer. India faces more intense heat waves, while drought, wildfires and heat threaten Australia.

    Northeastern Africa is likely going to get weather whiplash from intense drought to dangerously heavy rains, said Columbia University climate scientist and El Nino expert Muhammad Azhar Ehsan.

    In the U.S., El Ninos can cause more intense storms with heavier rainfall in the South, but they also tend to generally benefit the U.S. agriculture industry, said Jon Gottschalck, operational branch chief at NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center.

    Michael Ferrari, meteorologist and head of research at the investment research firm Moby, said conditions for grains and seed, especially soybeans, look favorable in 18 major growing states, but are more mixed when it comes to dairy and cattle.

    The northern Rockies and Southwest — where there’s an “off the charts” snow drought — could get some strong summer rains, Gottschalck said. The biggest effect in the U.S. is often in the winter, when the south can get wetter and the Pacific Northwest warmer and drier.

    But overall, temperatures raised by the weather pattern can dampen American economic growth, said Stanford climate economist Marshall Burke. Several climate scientists forecast that 2027 will be the hottest year on record because of lagging effects of this El Nino, which is expected to peak in the fall or winter.

    “We have pretty clear evidence that the U.S. economy grows more slowly when temps are above normal,” Burke said.

    Strong early signs

    The weather extremes caused by an El Nino also depend on when it develops.

    Usually El Ninos form in the summer, peak in the late fall or early winter, and peter out the next spring, scientists said.

    However, Ehsan’s team forecasts that this El Nino will peak a month or two earlier based on strong early signs from recent weeks. Princeton University climate scientist Gabriel Vecchi said large El Ninos like these also tend to last longer.

    The early indications — including warmer water pushing toward the surface of the Pacific — have been so strong and noticeable that forecasters have all been predicting the same ultra strong El Nino, Vecchi said, adding that El Nino forecasts often are all over the place at this time of year.

    Scientists predict stronger El Ninos as the world warms from the burning of coal, oil and gas, Frazier and others said. But she said it is too early to say if this El Nino is part of that.

    Even before it officially formed, this El Nino has gotten nicknames ranging from “super” to “Godzilla.”

    “Instead of scared, we can ask people to be prepared,” Columbia’s Ehsan said

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


  • Reactor reboot at world’s largest nuclear plant highlights flaws in Japan’s radioactive waste plans


    KASHIWAZAKI, Japan (AP) — Japan has resumed operations at the world’s largest nuclear power plant to help the country meet huge electricity demands during a global oil crisis, but the reboot highlights a big problem: Japan is running out of space for spent nuclear fuel and has no viable plans for permanent disposal of the radioactive waste.

    The restart of No. 6 reactor at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Station earlier this year was meant to spur a movement to bring more nuclear reactors online. Kashiwazaki-Kariwa is one of three plants whose cooling pools will be full in five years, according to the Federation of Electric Power Companies of Japan.

    “Without solid (fuel management) plans, our power generation will stall sooner or later,” Kashiwazaki-Kariwa General Manager Takeyuki Inagaki said.

    After decades of seeking permanent storage for highly radioactive spent fuel, the government is considering Minamitorishima, a remote Pacific island south of Tokyo. But the selection has faced skepticism and criticism stemming from Japan’s arbitrary actions on spent fuel and radioactive waste management.

    Only 15 of Japan’s 54 reactors have restarted since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, when a 9.0 earthquake off Japan’s northeastern coast and a subsequent tsunami caused meltdowns at three reactors operated by Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, or TEPCO. About 160,000 people fled from Fukushima and some areas remain unlivable.

    Kashiazaki-Kariwa, also run by TEPCO, was shut down after the Fukushima disaster as part of a nationwide nuclear power stoppage.

    The spent fuel in a cooling pool at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa No. 6 reactor, which is 88% filled, can be seen from a top-floor observation area. TEPCO has installed filtered venting systems and devices to prevent hydrogen explosions among additional safety measures based on lessons from Fukushima.

    Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi is pushing to bring more nuclear plants online, resulting in more spent fuel. Without a viable permanent storage plan, there are worries that reactors will have to close when storage space runs out.

    Fuel recycling plan has stalled

    There are two options for dealing with spent nuclear fuel: direct disposal as waste or recycling to extract plutonium and uranium for reuse.

    Japan insists on recycling, saying it will help the resource-poor nation’s energy needs while reducing the toxicity and volume of radioactive waste. But a reactor designed for plutonium reuse, a key part of the recycling, has failed. Reprocessing also won’t be able to handle all the spent fuel, adding to a plutonium stockpile that already is large enough to arm thousands of atomic bombs.

    Experts say Japan should also consider the direct disposal option.

    As of December 2025, cooling pools at 17 Japanese nuclear power plants held more than 17,000 tons (15,422 metric tons) of spent fuel, using nearly 80% of total storage capacity, according to the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry.

    Beyond the large amount of radioactive waste from normal reactors, Japan also “has to deal with massive and largely unknown high-level nuclear waste from the Fukushima disaster,” said Lila Okamura, a Senshu University professor and expert on environmental politics and nuclear waste management.

    Choosing a final disposal site for spent fuel and building a facility would require 100 years and tens of thousands of years to monitor the storage deep underground. For a generations-long project, Japan should plan carefully and not rush the current plan that is full of uncertainties, Okamura said.

    A remote island is a possibility

    Weeks after Kashiwazaki-Kariwa’s No. 6 reactor came back online for the first time in 14 years since the Fukushima disaster, Industry Minister Ryosei Akazawa approached Ogasawara village to request a feasibility study for a high-level radioactive waste site on Minamitorishima, an island administered by Ogasawara, which is part of Tokyo.

    “With a lot of spent fuel accumulating at nuclear power plants across the country, a final disposal of radioactive waste is a crucial challenge that must be resolved,” Akazawa said in a letter to Ogasawara Mayor Masaaki Shibuya.

    The government-owned Minamitorishima, about 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) south of Tokyo, has no permanent residents. The Japanese army is constructing a firing range for long-range, surface-to-ship missiles as a deterrent to China. The island also has deep sea deposits rich with rare earth minerals.

    “The move seems political,” said Satoshi Takano, a member of a government panel looking at final disposal of spent fuel. “There will be little opposition from a government-owned remote island.”

    Some experts say the island, which sits on a geologically stable tectonic plate, could be suitable. Many residents on Ogasawara and two nearby islands raised concerns about safety and tourism.

    “I was baffled when I heard about the plan,” Ogasawara assembly member Yusuke Hirano told an assembly meeting. “I think nuclear waste is incompatible with islands that are a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site.”

    Struggling to find a final disposal site

    Finding a community willing to host a highly radioactive dump site has been difficult, even with a raft of financial enticements. Minamitorishima is the fourth location to have a feasibility study since the government started looking in the early 2000s.

    The whole review process will take about two decades. Municipalities participating in the first stage can receive up to 2 billion yen ($12.8 million) in government subsidies. The next stage would bring up to 7 billion yen ($44.7 million). Funding details for a final study haven’t been disclosed.

    The world’s first final disposal site for spent nuclear fuel is set to open in Finland later this year. Britain, Germany and the United States have abandoned reprocessing largely because of high costs and technical challenges, while several other countries are discussing plans for direct disposal sites.

    Inagaki, the Kashiwazaki-Kariwa general manager, said TEPCO is transferring spent fuel from No. 6 reactor to other reactors at the plant with more space, but the utility hopes to resume shipments to a dry cask storage in northern Japan as a near-term solution. Other utilities with nearly full pools have announced plans to build dry-cask storage at their plants.

    Many residents worry about Japan’s growing stockpile because high-density storage of spent fuel could also increase overheating risks.

    Mie Kuwabara, a civil activist in Niigata, wondered “where will it go next?”

    “It’s irresponsible to accelerate restarts and produce more spent fuel without deciding its final destination,” said Kuwabara, who also is skeptical about using Minamitorishima.

    “It’s like saying that it’s OK to put a facility there because nobody is around to complain if there is a problem,” Kuwabara said. “It’s scary.”


  • Climate change makes once-rare coastal floods more likely, study says


    Extreme floods that once swamped coastal communities only rarely are becoming far more common as climate change caused by humans pushes sea levels higher, according to new research published Wednesday. Experts say the findings are crucial for making plans about floods and coastal infrastructure as the planet warms.

    These big coastal floods happen when high tides and storm surges — the amount above normal tide level — combine with seas that are already rising. Those pile on top of natural climate patterns and other human influence.

    Climate change has strengthened storms like Hurricane Ian, which caused significant flooding in 2022, scientists say. Flooding threatens hundreds of millions of people each year in low-lying coastal areas across the globe. It also causes billions of dollars in damage and can be deadly.

    Floods that historically had a 1% chance of striking a coastline in a year are now about 12 times more likely, on average, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Climate Change on Wednesday. Those events have become about four times more likely due to human-driven climate change, the research shows.

    Researchers looked at how often extreme sea level events — which cause coastal flooding — happen by considering long-term records from tide gauges at more than 100 sites, as well as using climate modeling. The study looked at the increase from 1900 to 2005. It was limited through 2005 because after that, there weren’t enough models that could point to instances of human-driven climate change. The researchers said their findings likely understate today’s risk, because human contributions to changes in coastal extremes have only increased since then.

    Researchers looked at which changes were caused by human activity, natural forces or shifts in the landscape. Although sea level changes earlier in the 20th century could mostly be chalked up to natural forces, the scientists found that since the 1960s, human-caused warming was the main reason sea levels are going up.

    A separate study published in the journal Science Advances on Wednesday also supports the idea that extreme ocean heights come from climate change, specifically around 58% of the days with big floods from 2000 to 2018. Climate change has also, on average, nearly tripled the number of days where the sea tops extreme flood levels since the 1970s, according to that study.

    “Essentially every coastal flood today has human fingerprints on it through climate change,” said Ben Strauss, chief scientist at Climate Central and a co-author of the Science Advances study. “Without the extra bit of sea level rise caused by global heating, most of these events would not have reached the status of flood.”

    The research in Nature Climate Change didn’t fully examine individual human factors, said Sönke Dangendorf, the lead author, but he noted greenhouse gases — the result of burning fossil fuels such as oil, gas and coal — are the most significant.

    “Since the 1970s, it’s by far the dominating factor, and this is of course not good news,” said Dangendorf, also an associate professor at Tulane University. He said the threat is growing, and communities need to do more to prepare.

    Jeff Williams, a retired United States Geological Survey oceanographer who wasn’t part of either study, said the research shows that planners need to take the growing threats into account. They should also think about how much money they’ll need to increase coastal protection, he said, and figure out who pays for it.

    The current protections for New Orleans, for instance, “will likely not be adequate beyond the next couple decades,” Williams said.

    Nations across the globe are increasingly using renewable energies like solar and wind. Last year, clean power generation exceeded overall global electricity demand growth, and the share of renewables hit more than one-third of the world’s electricity mix for the first time.

    Even in the United States, where the Trump administration has boosted fossil fuels, solar is growing as coal power declines. As such, scientists have recently said the world is no longer on track for the worst case scenario for warming — but it’s also not on track to the best case, either.

    “The impacts, even of a relatively little sea level rise, can be pretty impactful on our coasts,” Dangendorf, the Tulane author, said.

    “There is a silver lining because we have control about how much we emit, right?” he said. “So we can stop that development, at least to some degree.”

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    Alexa St. John is an Associated Press climate reporter. Follow her on X: @alexa_stjohn. Reach her at ast.john@ap.org.

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    Read more of AP’s climate coverage.

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


  • An ancient whale graveyard in the Indian Ocean teems with life


    NEW YORK (AP) — Scientists have unearthed communities of marine life — including jellyfish, tubeworms and brittle stars — thriving on a millions-year-old whale graveyard.

    These graveyards form when whale carcasses fall to the sea floor, becoming a sustaining snack for nearby critters. This one, located up to 23,000 feet (7 kilometers) below the surface of the southeastern Indian Ocean, spans the largest area and is so far the deepest and oldest found.

    A whale’s sheer size and the unique chemistry of its bones are the keys to forming these unique underwater neighborhoods, said Xikun Song, a biologist with the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering.

    “At the same time, the very nature of the deep ocean makes these sites exceptionally difficult for scientists to locate,” Song, who was involved with the latest find, wrote in an email.

    Researchers explored the remains during multiple deep-sea submersible trips in 2023, collecting samples and mapping the extent of the necropolis. They found five carcass sites and fossils, including skulls belonging to beaked and baleen whales. The oldest bones date back 5.3 million years.

    Feeding and living on the carcasses were myriad creatures, large and small, including sea cucumbers, squat lobsters and saltwater clams. Many of them are likely species that have never been documented, according to findings published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

    “The potential number of specimens is just astounding,” said paleontologist Stephen Godfrey with the Calvert Marine Museum in Maryland, who wasn’t involved in the research.

    Many factors likely conspired to preserve the bones for millions of years, according to the study authors. They’re dense enough to outlast attacks from bone-eating worms, and located deep enough in the ocean to avoid getting buried by dust and loose particles. The bones also were coated with a light layer of minerals from the surrounding seawater, which may have prevented them from degrading.

    Why did so many whales die here? Maybe they were already living in the area and died of natural causes. A few could have perished from exhaustion or illness caused by deep-sea diving. The area’s shape, akin to the letter V, could also have funneled the remains to their resting spot, the authors wrote.

    Such discoveries are important because they clue scientists into the vibrant communities that find a way even in remote, hard-to-reach environments.

    Studying the whale graveyards “is important for understanding how life can adapt to such extreme conditions, not only due to the lack of light and oxygen but also to the incredibly high pressure,” said study co-author and paleontologist Giovanni Bianucci with the University of Pisa in Italy in an email.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • An underground detector in China unveils its first major findings about mysterious ghost particles


    NEW YORK (AP) — A massive underground detector aimed at understanding the mysterious ghost particles in our universe released its first major results on Wednesday.

    The Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory in China started collecting data in August with the goal of understanding neutrinos: tiny cosmic particles that date back to the Big Bang and whiz harmlessly through our bodies by the trillions every second. Yet they weigh almost nothing, making them difficult to sniff out.

    In a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature, the JUNO team unveiled its initial findings from two months of data collection — including some of the most precise measurements to date of how neutrinos switch between three varieties, or flavors, as they zip through space.

    “It really makes me look forward to more exciting results in the future,” said physicist Kate Scholberg with Duke University, who had no role in the new research.

    The spherical JUNO detector is located 2,297 feet (700 meters) underground. It examines antineutrinos that come from collisions inside two nearby nuclear power plants. Antineutrinos are equally mysterious, opposite versions of neutrinos that scientists can study to understand their behavior and how neutrinos work.

    When the antineutrinos meet particles within the detector, they produce a flash of light.

    Scientists are hoping the detector will help resolve the longstanding mystery of how heavy each neutrino flavor is. They think two are similar in weight and that the third is an oddball, but they aren’t sure whether two are heavy and the other is light or vice versa.

    The initial results haven’t answered that question just yet, but they show what the detector is capable of — and that it “will be able to test the finer ripples” that separate the neutrino flavors and their masses, said study co-author Liangjian Wen, a member of the JUNO collaboration.

    Two similar neutrino detectors — Japan’s Hyper-Kamiokande and the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment based in the United States — are set to begin data collection within the next decade, cross-checking the China detector’s results using different approaches.

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    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • SpaceX wants regular investors to help its stock launch. Here’s what to know before clicking ‘buy’


    NEW YORK (AP) — When SpaceX makes its debut on the U.S. stock market, it wants smaller-pocketed, mom-and-pop investors to play a big role in what may be the biggest IPO ever.

    Elon Musk’s rocket company, formally known as Space Exploration Technologies Corp., is steering some of its initial public offering of stock directly to what are called “retail” investors. These are people who buy stocks in a brokerage account on their phone, not pension funds or other big “institutional” investors routing orders to their professional trading desks.

    Here are some things to keep in mind as the IPO approaches:

    A chunk of SpaceX stock will go to regular investors

    Most IPOs offer only 5% to 10% of the total offering to retail investors, according to Fidelity. In this case, though, it could be up to 30%. SpaceX expects retail investors to participate in its IPO through Charles Schwab, Fidelity, Robinhood, SoFi and E-Trade by Morgan Stanley.

    At Fidelity, investors with as little as $2,000 in their accounts could potentially snag SpaceX shares in the IPO. That’s down from account minimums of $100,000 or even $500,000 that Fidelity has for other equity offerings.

    Demand from investors may be so high in this IPO that not everyone indicating interest will actually get a share.

    Trying for a short-term flip has risks

    Given all the hype around SpaceX, temptation could be high to grab shares in the IPO and sell them quickly if a frenzy sends its price spiking. But brokerages have policies to block investors from future offerings if they dump shares bought in an IPO quickly, like within a couple weeks.

    Big swings in price may be possible

    Potentially high interest from retail investors following the IPO is one reason SpaceX is warning that its stock price could be volatile. These investors aren’t known for moving as meticulously as a pension fund, which is trying to build money for payments it must make years or decades in the future.

    It’s retail investors, after all, who helped drive GameStop and other “meme stocks” to market-bending heights in 2021 that professional investors called irrational.

    IPOs can see a big first-day bounce, but that may not last

    The typical IPO has seen a 7% jump in its first day of trading, from 1980 through 2025, according to Jay Ritter, an IPO expert and a professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business.

    But IPOs tend to lag similar-sized peers in the ensuing five years, not including their first day of trading. They do so by an average of 3.6% per year, according to Ritter.

    SpaceX has debt and has been losing money

    It’s very expensive to launch things out of the earth’s atmosphere and to construct huge AI data centers, and SpaceX has built up $29.1 billion in debt, as of the end of March.

    The company also lost $4.9 billion last year and another $4.3 billion through the first three months of 2026. It acknowledges that it “may not achieve profitability in the future.”

    Over the long term, a stock’s price tends to track with how much profit the company is making.

    You don’t have to buy SpaceX to own it

    You could end up owning some of SpaceX even if you never intended to. Consider the many people who own shares of the popular QQQ exchange-traded fund, which tracks the Nasdaq 100 index and has roughly $460 billion in total assets.

    Historically, the Nasdaq 100 index would wait until each December to add new members in an annual reconstitution to make sure it includes the 100 largest non-financial companies on the Nasdaq. But Nasdaq recently made changes to allow some big companies to enter the Nasdaq 100 index after just 15 trading days.

    That means if SpaceX’s IPO is as successful as expected, it could quickly join both the Nasdaq 100 and QQQ fund, all while QQQ holders do nothing on their own.

    The company behind the more popular S&P 500 index, though, is not making changes that would allow SpaceX faster entry.

    Any shares bought would take a back seat to Musk’s in influence

    In its IPO, SpaceX is offering 555.6 million shares of its “Class A” stock. Each of these shares gives an investor one vote on matters that shareholders decide. That includes such weighty things as who is on the board of directors overseeing the CEO.

    This IPO is not offering what are called “Class B” shares, each of which give its holder 10 votes. Musk, meanwhile, owns so many of those shares that he by himself could control more than 82% of all the stock’s voting power following the IPO.

    In filings with U.S. securities regulators, SpaceX acknowledges the potential for conflicts of interest between it and Musk, along with other companies he owns, such as Tesla.

    Some big investors really disagree with the ownership structure

    Officials from pension funds for firefighters, teachers and other workers in California and New York sent a letter to SpaceX last month decrying some of the provisions in its IPO, including “super voting shares,” mandatory arbitration of shareholder claims instead of the possibility of lawsuits and how much power Musk will hold over the company.

    They said they could become owners of SpaceX stock because they hold index funds, which automatically buy stocks after they get included in certain indexes.

    If Musk is able to control so much of the voting power on the board of directors, it would make him tremendously powerful atop SpaceX, “essentially making him unfireable without his own consent,” the CEO of California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the New York state comptroller and the New York City comptroller wrote in their letter.

    “This level of insulation from accountability is virtually unheard of among any other large U.S. issuer whose governing documents foreclose accountability to public owners on these terms.”

    Don’t confuse SpaceX with other companies with similar names

    SpaceX plans to trade under the ticker symbol “SPCX.” That’s very close to “SPCE,” which is the symbol for Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holdings.


  • Solar power hits new milestones in the US even as Trump boosts coal over clean energy


    Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power.

    Data released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember, along with a report by the Solar Energy Industries Association and analytics firm Wood Mackenzie, show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. In May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%, Ember said. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever.

    “For years solar power has risen in the U.S. electricity mix,” said Nicolas Fulghum, senior energy and data analyst at Ember. “At the same time, coal power has lost its status, first as the largest source in the U.S. mix, and then gradually over the years has fallen even further.”

    Solar also became the third-largest source of electricity in the U.S. in May, behind natural gas and nuclear, Fulghum said. Coal generation hit an all-time monthly low in April and rebounded only modestly in May, allowing increasing solar generation to overtake coal, he added.

    Electricity is produced by converting sources of energy — fossil fuels, renewable resources and nuclear — into electrical power. Burning coal, oil and natural gas for electricity emits carbon dioxide, trapping heat in the atmosphere and warming the planet. By contrast, solar, wind, geothermal, hydropower and nuclear are carbon-free.

    After about two decades of essentially flat electricity consumption in the U.S., electricity demand is increasing to power artificial intelligence, grow domestic manufacturing and electrify transportation and heating. Fulghum said he expects to see more months when solar exceeds coal generation, before overtaking it on an annual basis in a few years.

    These milestones signify that solar “has staying power” at a time when there’s less support for renewable energy at the federal level, he added.

    Wind and solar combined have overtaken coal in the past, and wind power alone has outpaced coal during spring months when wind speeds pick up. Ember gets its hourly and monthly data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

    Globally, electricity generation from renewables is growing rapidly. Renewables will become the largest global energy source, used for almost 45% of electricity generation by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

    Trump helps the struggling US coal industry while curtailing solar and wind

    Last week, Trump, a Republican, announced a plan to boost the struggling U.S. coal industry by spending nearly $700 million to support coal-fired power plants and coal exports. Trump said at a White House event that “coal’s a great business” and that “in terms of power, there’s really nothing like it.”

    Martin Pochtaruk, CEO and founder of Canadian-based solar panel manufacturer Heliene, said Trump can say that coal is coming back but investors will invest their money in whatever brings the best return. And for power generation that is solar, making it the fastest-growing fuel, he added.

    A White House spokeswoman defended the Trump administration’s overall energy policies, saying they were geared toward strengthening the country’s security.

    “The President has reversed the Left’s devastating policies, saved the American coal industry, prevented the retirement of more than 17 gigawatts of power, and saved lives during heightened demand periods,” Taylor Rogers said in a statement.

    While Trump is trying to reverse the coal industry’s decline, solar has been the top source for new power for five years, SEIA said. SEIA and Wood Mackenzie said solar and battery storage were practically the only energy resources being built in the first quarter, making up 91% of all new generating capacity.

    The Trump administration has canceled solar and wind projects, implemented policies that slowed clean energy permitting and development and terminated $7 billion in funding intended for affordable solar energy projects across the U.S.

    “As power demand skyrockets, political and regulatory attacks are slowing down the exact resources we rely on,” Darren Van’t Hof, interim president and CEO of SEIA, said in a statement. “Impeding the only sector that is actively building new power is a reckless gamble that will only drive electricity bills higher.”

    Several groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency over canceling the Solar for All program. A district court dismissed the case last week citing lack of jurisdiction. The plaintiffs have another filing pending in the Court of Federal Claims.

    In a ruling Saturday, a federal judge struck down guidance from the Internal Revenue Service restricting tax credits for wind and solar projects.

    Trump has blamed renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power for skyrocketing energy costs. But energy analysts say recent price hikes are based on growing demand, aging infrastructure and increasingly extreme weather events that are exacerbated by climate change. Most recently, the war in Iran that Trump launched has also led to a spike in energy costs.

    Blaming clean energy is “nonsensical,” said U.S. Rep. Jared Huffman. The California Democrat said that “not even lighting $700 million of taxpayer money on fire” can save the dying coal industry.

    “The rest of the world will move ahead toward a clean energy future with countries other than the United States leading the charge, unfortunately,” he said Wednesday. “Trump will fail in this agenda. But, he will do enormous damage to our global leadership on clean energy and to the cost of living for struggling Americans.”

    Top states for solar voted for Trump

    States won by Trump in the 2024 election accounted for 74% of all solar capacity installed in the first quarter of 2026, with Texas, Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Arizona and Mississippi ranking among the top 10 states for new solar additions, SEIA said. The U.S. now exceeds a total of 6 million installations nationwide across all solar sectors, which includes large-scale solar arrays, commercial, community solar and residential or rooftop solar.

    Johanna Neumann, at the Environment America Research and Policy Center, said it’s “good news for our health and our planet that solar continues to grow,” and also, not surprising.

    “Today we can harness solar more affordably than any other energy source. It’s scalable. And it’s also our most abundant renewable energy source,” said Neumann, senior director of the center’s campaign for 100% renewable energy. “So I think it’s hard to keep the lid on a good idea, especially if the economics are tilting in your favor as well, which they are in the case of solar.”

    Environment America’s renewable energy dashboard shows that 32 U.S. states generated at least 10% of their retail electricity sales from solar, wind and geothermal energy last year, compared to 18 states in 2016. Clean energy in the South is booming, particularly in Florida, Arkansas and Mississippi, Neumann said.

    “I think there is a misconception in the United States that clean energy is something for the coasts and liberal cities,” she said. “The true story of renewable energy is a 50-state story.”

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    The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.


  • ‘Hey, this box stinks’: the weird work of intercepting trafficked wildlife in Alaska


    Chris Andrews was working the belt at the Anchorage airport last fall, watching international cargo arrive.

    “An employee said, ‘Hey, this box stinks, Chris,’” Andrews recalled.

    The box was labeled “car parts.”

    Other stinky boxes came down the belt. When opened, Andrews found they were filled with thousands of shark fins headed to Hong Kong, likely intended for shark fin soup. Eventually, officers confiscated 1,600 pounds of shark fins — from nearly 17,000 sharks — around the country. It was a major case, all linked to those first boxes Andrews found in Anchorage.

    “We wouldn’t have gotten that shipment if it didn’t stink,” he said.

    Andrews is a wildlife inspector for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He and his team are in charge of intercepting trafficked wildlife. They enforce international conservation treaties that protect more than 40,000 species and national laws like the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

    It’s weird work, and he loves it.

    They find things every day at airports and docks around Alaska. They’ve intercepted commercial shipments of designer bags made of crocodile or python leather and also ill-advised international souvenirs. Once, Andrews stopped a passenger carrying two taxidermied lizards, each as long as a skateboard. The passenger had walked off a plane carrying a big garbage bag over his shoulder. Andrews said the tails sticking out made him suspicious.

    “I walked up to him. I was like, ‘Sir, what’s in that bag?’” he said.

    The man didn’t have permits for the protected reptiles, so he had to give them up.

    Live animals are less common, Andrews said. They find those maybe a dozen times a year.

    “We had some monitor lizards that were smuggled inside speakers,” he said. “They put them in socks and, like, tried to conceal them inside speakers.”

    Some of this traffic is driven by people trying to acquire specimens to complete unusual collections, Andrews said.

    “I mean, we’re seeing cockroaches, we’re seeing pill bugs, we’re seeing ants,” he said.

    The work is important for the preservation of ecosystems and protected animals, Andrews said. But the day-to-day work is fun for him, too. He never knows what’s going to be in the next box.

    That also makes it terrifying.

    “There’s these spiders out of India that are the size of dinner plates that are really aggressive,” Andrews said. “I hesitate every time I open a box, like, ‘Please don’t be the one!’”

    Finding a live animal, Andrews said, creates a challenging, time-sensitive problem: “How do we keep this thing alive? Is it poisonous? Where does it come from?”

    Like the day they found 400 baby turtles smuggled inside of a pair of snow boots, Andrews said. There were 12 different species.

    “I didn’t know what they ate,” Andrews said. “I didn’t know if they liked heat. I didn’t know if they liked water. I was in here with a terrarium book, just trying to figure out what they were.”

    It’s not what he expected when he took a job with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. He studied forestry in college.

    “It was a wildlife position in Alaska,” Andrews said. “I thought I’d be dealing with, you know, bears and moose. I’ve never dealt with a moose.”

    Three decades later, the job still excites him. But his teenagers are bored of the work stories he brings home.

    “Sometimes I think, ‘Oh yeah, they’ll love this one!’” he said. “And then they’re just, you know, ‘OK, yeah Dad, another dead monkey or whatever you found.’”

    Andrews said his team can sometimes put confiscated goods to use. A few years ago, the department intercepted 10 electric guitars made of protected Brazilian rosewood. Now those guitars are in the possession of Anchorage School District jazz bands. But it’s often not that easy.

    “What do you do with 50,000 shark fins?” he wondered.

    ___

    This story was originally published by Alaska Public Media and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.


  • NASA unveils Artemis III astronauts to test technology for a future moon landing


    NEW YORK (AP) — NASA on Tuesday revealed the crew for its Artemis III mission, the next step in the space agency’s plan to eventually land astronauts on the moon.

    The announcement came two months after Artemis II’s record-breaking trip around the moon that surpassed the distance record of Apollo 13.

    NASA’s Randy Bresnik, Frank Rubio, Andre Douglas and the European Space Agency’s Luca Parmitano won’t fly to the moon or land on the surface. Instead, they’ll orbit Earth while practicing docking their Orion capsule with two lunar landers.

    “To the Artemis III crew, we wish you Godspeed on the journey ahead,” said NASA administrator Jared Isaacman.

    Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin are racing to deliver the lunar landers. The two-week demo is targeted for 2027. Blue Origin suffered a recent setback when its massive rocket exploded during an engine-firing test on the launch pad in Florida, shaking nearby homes and illuminating the sky with an orange fireball.

    NASA’s Jeremy Parsons said the setback is a learning opportunity and that the space agency is confident Blue Origin’s rocket will be ready in time.

    NASA’s Artemis program aims to return astronauts to the moon’s surface for the first time since the 1970s. A recent revamp of the program announced by Isaacman aims to fast-track it similarly to the Apollo era, adding the upcoming spaceflight around Earth before eyeing a lunar landing in 2028.

    “We are certainly humbled as a crew to be able to be your crew that executes this Artemis III mission in space,” said Bresnik, Artemis III commander.

    Added Douglas, mission specialist: “My brain — it is going a mile a minute right now. But my heart, it is so warm. It is so full.”

    In May, NASA awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to four companies, including Blue Origin, to build landers, rovers and drones for a future moon base. Isaacman said the goal of the moon base is to lay the foundation for a Mars expedition.

    —-

    The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.


  • A 7.8 magnitude quake in the Philippines kills at least 35, collapses buildings and sparks tsunami


    DAVAO, Philippines (AP) — An offshore earthquake with a magnitude of 7.8 hit the southern Philippines on Monday, killing at least 35 people, injuring more than 200 others mostly in ruined buildings and sending a 1-meter (3-foot) tsunami into nearby coasts.

    Several mostly low-rise buildings collapsed or sustained heavy damages in the hard-hit city of General Santos. Tsunami damage was reported in at least one southern coastal village. Smaller waves were measured in Indonesia and Palau and as far away as southern Japan.

    The quake also triggered a landslide in Glan, a municipality in the province of Sarangani, that killed 13 villagers, Rene Punzalan, a provincial disaster-mitigation official, told the DZBB radio network. Four other villagers died in Sarangani, he said.

    The major earthquake was the strongest to hit the Philippines this year, Teresito Bacolcol, the director of the Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, said. He warned people to seek advice before returning to damaged buildings and houses, which could collapse due to aftershocks.

    The United States, a treaty ally of the Philippines, said it was coordinating with Manila and was ready to support Philippine response efforts. France, Japan and New Zealand also expressed support.

    “Our pickup truck suddenly jerked and I thought we had a flat tire,” Rod Sosmeña, a regional director of the Office of Civil Defense, told The Associated Press from General Santos, where he was traveling when the quake struck at 7:37 a.m.

    “The shaking was very strong and people dashed out of houses into the streets,” Sosmeña said.

    Epicenter in sea off Mindanao

    More than 100 students in uniforms and a dozen teachers had gathered for a flag-raising ceremony in a coconut tree-ringed grade school compound in the rural town of Malita in Davao Occidental province when the ground shook, turning the first day of school after a two-month summer break into chaos.

    “Their excitement on the first day of school turned to trauma,” school principal Rosavel Cachuela told the AP.

    Some of the young students screamed in panic and wept but most remained seated and still, preventing any injuries, Cachuela said, adding that a motorcycle was damaged when a shed crumbled to the ground.

    At least four people remained missing in General Santos, a port city of more than 700,000 people and a regional hub for the tuna export industry. Search and rescue teams worked to find people who may have been trapped in a supermarket, a warehouse, a grade school, and other small buildings that either collapsed or were severely damaged, officials said.

    The international airport in General Santos was temporarily shut due to the earthquake and 17 domestic flights were canceled, the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines said.

    The quake was centered at sea off Mindanao, the second most populous island in the Philippine archipelago. According to Bacolcol, the quake occurred at a depth of 33 kilometers (20 miles), about 32 kilometers (20 miles) southwest of Maasim town in Sarangani province.

    Assessing damage and casualties

    President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. ordered the cancellation of classes and directed disaster-response agencies to immediately get to work in quake-hit provinces, saying “the national government is moving and we will not leave Mindanao behind.”

    The Pacific Tsunami Warning Center said the threat of a tsunami largely passed about five hours after the quake. Philippine officials also lifted a tsunami warning by mid-afternoon. Six shanties on stilts were damaged in a coastal village in Zamboanga del Sur province due to the quake and taller waves, officials said.

    Aside from the landslide in Sarangani, most of the other deaths were caused by collapsing buildings and falling debris, including in a damaged mosque, in the southern provinces of South Cotabato and Davao Occidental, and on Balut Island, according to Sosmeña and another disaster-mitigation official, Ednar Dayanghirang.

    The DZRH radio network in Manila reported that a four-story commercial building where its provincial station was located partly collapsed and staffers dashed to the ground floor without injuries.

    Tsunami waves near 3 feet measured

    Waves of 1 meter (3 feet) were monitored in the provinces of Sultan Kudarat and Sarangani. A 1.4-meter (4.6-foot) wave hit at one time in Kiamba town, Bacolcol said.

    The quake was also felt in Malaysia’s Sabah state on Borneo island. Sabah is just a boat ride away from southern Philippines. An 83-centimeter (2.7-feet) tsunami was measured by a gauge off Indonesia’s Sulawesi island, and the PTWC said 30-centimeter (1-foot) waves were measured in Palau.

    Waves up to 20 centimeters (7.8 inches) were detected on the remote Japanese island of Chichijima and the central Japanese town of Kushimoto, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

    The Philippines is often hit by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions due to its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” an arc of seismic faults around the ocean.

    The archipelago is also battered by about 20 typhoons and tropical storms each year, making it one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.

    ___

    Gomez reported from Manila, Philippines. Associated Press writers Edna Tarigan in Jakarta, Indonesia, Eileen Ng in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Mari Yamaguchi in Tokyo and global executive producer Kiko Rosario in Bangkok contributed to this report.