AHMEDABAD, India (Reuters) – Widespread flooding in India’s western industrial state of Gujarat has killed more than 120 people and paralyzed infrastructure, officials said on Friday, with tens of thousands of cotton farmers also suffering heavy damage. Torrential monsoon rain and flooding in recent weeks have killed at least 300 people in western and eastern

FARGO, N.D. (Reuters) – Hot and dry weather during the growing season slashed yield prospects for U.S. hard red spring wheat to the lowest in nearly a decade, scouts on an annual crop tour said on Thursday. The Wheat Quality Council tour pegged the 2017 U.S. hard red spring wheat yield at 38.1 bushels per

GAZA (Reuters) – As Middle East summer temperatures soar above 35 degrees Celsius (95 Fahrenheit), Gazans are struggling to stay cool amid a power crisis, with less than four hours of electricity a day and little chance to run fans and air-conditioners. The power crisis is affecting health and sanitation – because sewage treatment plants

(Reuters) – Power development company Invenergy LLC and General Electric Co on Wednesday announced plans to build the largest wind farm in the United States in Oklahoma, part of a $4.5 billion project to provide electricity to 1.1 million utility customers in the region. The 2-gigawatt Wind Catcher wind farm is under construction in the

OTTAWA (Reuters) – Canada’s top court on Wednesday handed aboriginals a partial victory on the need to be consulted on resource projects, throwing out permits to conduct seismic testing for oil and gas in the north but dismissing a separate attempt to quash changes to an Enbridge Inc pipeline. In the two separate but related

MARSEILLE (Reuters) – Firefighters evacuated thousands of campers and local residents after a wildfire broke out on France’s tourist-thronged Riviera coast overnight. The blaze was the latest of several wind-whipped fires that are ravaging forest and scrubland on the hills and slopes that spill into the Mediterranean sea between the Marseilles and the city of

OSLO (Reuters) – Scientists are sucking carbon dioxide from the air with giant fans and preparing to release chemicals from a balloon to dim the sun’s rays as part of a climate engineering push to cool the planet. Backers say the risky, often expensive projects are urgently needed to find ways of meeting the goals

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – California Governor Jerry Brown signed into law on Tuesday a package of bills intended to use market forces to cut greenhouse gas emissions, extending by a decade the state’s signature plan to combat climate change. The legislation puts California at the forefront of plans by mostly Democratic governors to reduce carbon

(Reuters) – The U.S. electric industry knew as far back as 1968 that burning fossil fuels might cause global warming, but cast doubt on the science of climate change and ramped up coal use for decades afterward, an environmental watchdog group said on Tuesday. The California-based Energy and Policy Institute, which opposes fossil fuels, cited

JAKARTA (Reuters) – Indonesia’s disaster mitigation agency (BNPB) has warned of an escalating threat of forest fires with the dry season expected to peak in coming months, while hot spots detected in the province of Aceh have already been causing choking smoke. Fires had spread to around 64 hectares (158 acres) of fields and forests

NEW YORK/SAO PAULO (Reuters) – Coffee growers in parts of Brazil are grappling with the worst beetle infestation in recent memory as a ban on a pesticide used for 40 years has helped the destructive insect flourish, threatening bean quality and yields. The damage from the beetle – until 2013 controlled by the pesticide endosulfan

MANILA (Reuters) – Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte on Monday said he wanted to stop exporting mineral resources and might close the mining sector completely and tax miners “to death” if damage to the environment persisted. “The protection of the environment must be made a priority ahead of mining and all other activities that adversely affect

(Reuters) – California authorities battling a massive wildfire near Yosemite National Park lifted evacuation orders on Sunday for more residents but said firefighters may need almost two more weeks to fully contain the blaze. The Detwiler Fire was 45 percent contained, a slight improvement from Saturday, after burning 76,250 acres (30,857 hectares) and more than

TOKYO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of people in northeast Japan were told to evacuate their homes on Sunday as heavy rain caused major flooding and cut some rail links, authorities said. The storm follows freak rains in southwestern Japan earlier this month that left at least 25 people dead. Almost 25,000 people in Akita

HONG KONG (Reuters) – Hong Kong was bracing on Sunday for Typhoon Roke with winds reaching 73 kmh (45 mph), forcing authorities to shut some services and events in the Asian financial hub, though the city’s international airport continued operating as usual. The Hong Kong Observatory on Sunday morning raised its typhoon signal to 8,

(Reuters) – Residents in the two largest cities on New Zealand’s south island began returning to their homes on Sunday, despite state of emergencies still in place, after a severe storm caused flooding and forced hundreds of homes to be evacuated. MetService meteorologist Angus Hines said the weather system which lashed New Zealand over the

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – A wildfire in central California was contained enough on Saturday for authorities to consider allowing more people back to their houses, a day after evacuation orders were lifted for a gold rush era town that was previously threatened. The Detwiler Fire just outside Yosemite National Park has scorched 75,200 acres (30,432

(Reuters) – Residents of a historic gold-mining town in central California began returning home on Friday as evacuation orders prompted by a massive wildfire were lifted, but some 1,500 structures remained threatened by the flames. Around 2,000 residents of the town of Mariposa, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains, fled their homes on

DENVER (Reuters) – U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said on Friday that Colorado’s Canyons of the Ancients archeological site is no longer on a list of more than two dozen national monuments under review by the Trump administration for possible reduction or elimination. Zinke’s recommendation to keep the Canyons of the Ancients National Monument intact,

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) – British Columbia may ask for more help if its wildfires worsen, the western Canadian province said on Friday after the federal government sent 225 additional soldiers to battle blazes that have been spreading rapidly in hot, dry weather. While rain is expected over the weekend, many parts that are burning are

PARIS (Reuters) – French wine production may fall 17 percent this year to a record low after spring frosts damaged vineyards, notably in the Bordeaux region, which might lose half its output, the farm ministry said on Friday. In its first estimates of this year’s output, the ministry estimated this year’s wine production in France,

ATHENS/ANKARA (Reuters) – A powerful earthquake of magnitude 6.7 killed two people and injured scores more when it struck near major Turkish and Greek tourist destinations in the Aegean Sea early on Friday, Turkish and Greek officials said. Local officials said at least two people died and 100 were injured on the Greek holiday island

BERLIN (Reuters) – The European Commission is examining whether German automakers colluded in systems they used to clean exhaust emissions as part of investigations triggered by the Volkswagen scandal, the Handelsblatt daily reported on Thursday. Without citing its sources, the newspaper said the EU competition authorities are looking into the suspicion of collusion due to

(Reuters) – More than 3,000 firefighters on Thursday battled a raging wildfire in central California that has destroyed 29 structures and forced thousands to flee their homes as it threatened a picturesque gold rush town outside Yosemite National Park. Just seven percent of the Detwiler Fire has been contained as it threatens the town of

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump’s administration on Wednesday touted its effort to roll back federal regulations by targeting a range of government rules ranging from a “paperwork burden on outdoor enthusiasts” to plans to regulate oil and gas development on Indian reservations. The White House Office of Management and Budget plans to release a

SPLIT, Croatia (Reuters) – Montenegro has asked the European Union civil protection force to help it battle several forest fires, while a blaze in neighboring Croatia that had been threatening the city of Split has “normalized”, authorities said on Tuesday. The fire in Croatia had reached the eastern suburbs of its second-largest city Split, having

MARIPOSA, Calif. (Reuters) – A 25,000-acre wildfire in central California, one of three dozen major blazes burning across the U.S. West, threatened hundreds of homes and businesses on Wednesday after forcing the evacuation of about 5,000 residents. There were 46 active large fires spread across 12 states, with 11 new blazes reported on Tuesday alone,

VANCOUVER (Reuters) – Residents of one British Columbia town would be allowed to return home on Tuesday as wildfires that forced them to flee 11 days ago receded in parts of the Western Canadian province, emergency officials said. Although fires are still burning in the area of Cache Creek, a ranching community of 1,000 residents

NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday denied a petition by environmental groups to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to ban the agricultural pesticide chlorpyrifos, ending one of three parallel attempts to bring about the ban, court filings show. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which

(Reuters) – More than 800,000 residents in the U.S. West were told to be ready to evacuate on Tuesday as windy, dry conditions threatened to stoke wildfires, forecasters said. A red flag warning was issued for southern Oregon, northern California and northern Nevada as 35 mph (55 kph) wind gusts and humidity hovering around 10