Pollution

UK court blocks Heathrow expansion over climate concerns

LONDON (AP) — Campaigners won a court ruling Thursday to block the plan for a third runway at Heathrow Airport on enviro...
9:15 27 February 2022

Scientists gather to study risk from microplastic pollution

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Tiny bits of broken-down plastic smaller than a fraction of a grain of rice are turning up everywh...
18:03 24 February 2022

South Sudan ignores reports on oil pollution, birth defects

PALOCH, South Sudan — The oil industry in South Sudan has left a landscape pocked with hundreds of open waste pits, the water and soil contaminated wi...
16:27 13 February 2022

Getting the story of South Sudan’s devastating oil pollution

PALOCH, South Sudan — Air so foul it is hard to take a deep breath. Toxic chemicals seeping into the earth. Mothers giving birth to disabled children.
13:55 13 February 2022

Asian demand for face masks soars on fears of Chinese virus

TOKYO — Panic and pollution drive the market for protective face masks, so business is booming in Asia, where fear of the virus from China is strainin...
9:31 28 January 2022

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s fusillade of misfires on fateful week

WASHINGTON — Abroad, at home and in Twitter's ether, President Donald Trump unleashed a fusillade of statements over the past week as the Senate impea...
20:20 25 January 2022

Spain declares climate emergency, gets climate plan ready

MADRID — Spain’s new government declared a national climate emergency on Tuesday, taking a formal first step toward enacting ambitious measures to fig...
13:00 21 January 2022

Michael Bloomberg outlines plans for cleaner buildings, cars

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg would push for all new cars to be electric by 2035 and new buildings to produ...
14:00 17 January 2022

German prosecutors charge 6 more in VW emissions scandal

FRANKFURT, Germany — Prosecutors in Germany have filed charges against six more individuals in connection with Volkswagen's diesel emissions scandal, ...
15:43 14 January 2022

Notre Dame fire wakes the world up to dangers of lead dust

PARIS — It took a blaze that nearly destroyed Paris’ most famous cathedral to reveal a gap in global safety regulations for lead, a toxic building mat...
16:37 22 December 2021

Scientists struggle to save seagrass from coastal pollution

DURHAM, N.H. — Peering over the side of his skiff anchored in the middle of New Hampshire’s Great Bay, Fred Short liked what he saw.
15:29 22 December 2021

Feds: Seattle barrel company used hidden drain to pollute

SEATTLE — A century-old Seattle barrel company has been indicted along with its third-generation owner in what prosecutors describe as a long-running ...
23:19 18 December 2021

Twin Metals Minnesota files formal mine plan with regulators

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Twin Metals Minnesota formally submitted a plan to regulators Wednesday for an underground copper-nickel mine near Ely in northeaste...
16:17 18 December 2021

Global carbon pollution continues to rise, but more slowly

WASHINGTON — The world continues to increase the amount of heat-trapping carbon dioxide it pumps into the air, but it’s not rising as fast as in the p...
0:41 4 December 2021

Schools closed in New Delhi as air quality dips for 3rd day

NEW DELHI — Schools in India’s capital are shut Thursday and Friday after a thick gray haze of noxious air enveloped the city for the third consecutiv...
10:03 14 November 2021

Doctors: Warmer world is unhealthier place for children

WASHINGTON — Children are growing up in a warmer world that will hit them with more and different health problems than their parents experienced, an i...
23:37 13 November 2021

Pacific bird refuge struggles as ocean garbage patch grows

MIDWAY ATOLL, Northwestern Hawaiian Islands — Flying into the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Midway Atoll appears out of the vast blue Pac...
20:26 7 November 2021

Swedish princess urges Bosnia’s leaders to address pollution

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina — Swedish Crown Princess Victoria has urged Bosnian leaders to tackle their country's environmental problems, saying it's...
13:53 6 November 2021

Schools reopen in New Delhi with air pollution falling

NEW DELHI — Schools have reopened in the Indian capital with toxic air level coming down by more than half since authorities declared a health emergen...
9:44 6 November 2021

‘This city is not livable’: New Delhi people decry dirty air

NEW DELHI — Sakshi Chauhan has not left her house in a quiet inner-city slum in the Indian capital for the past six days on her doctor's orders.
2:10 6 November 2021

Trump administration eases Obama-era rules on coal pollution

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration accelerated the pace of its environmental rollbacks for the country's coal-fired power plants Monday, proposing ...
19:36 4 November 2021

India’s capital restricts cars as people choke in dirty air

NEW DELHI — Authorities in New Delhi are restricting private vehicles from the roads on alternating days to control vehicular pollution as people in t...
6:13 4 November 2021