BALTIMORE (AP) - Brutal. Horrific. Tragic.

Choose your description. The April jobs report showed, in harrowing detail, just how terribly the coronavirus outbreak has pummeled the U.S. economy. Most obviously, there's the 14.7% unemployment rate, the highest since the Great Depression. And the shedding of more than 20 million jobs, ...

The Bahamas deployed warships to enforce its port restrictions, one of several new hindrances to a big boat lifestyle.

After stories of people not being allowed to say goodbye to loved ones dying of coronavirus, hospitals around the world are moving to change the rules.

Relationships that suffer as a result of unreconcilable politics may force you to make a decision. To make that less distressing, choose consciously.

Jordan Goudreau once pushed a plan to protect U.S. schools. Then he moved on to a more daring pursuit, which also didn't end well.

The season officially begins June 1, but some meteorologists who have been tracking ocean and atmospheric dynamics over the past few months say conditions are ripe for storms.

There is absolutely no legitimate basis in law or in fact to dismiss Flynn’s guilty plea.

Trying to make sense of calamities that have already caused more destruction to people’s livelihoods than the Great Recession

This will be my 23rd Mother’s Day without my mother and while it gets easier, it is never easy.

Environmental Working Group has launched EWG Verified, a label that will help consumers spot products that meet stringent ingredient and transparency requirements

It may soon be easier for shoppers to find beauty products without toxic chemicals. The Environmental Working Group nonprofit launched a new label this month called EWG Verified, which certifies personal care products as free from chemicals of concern.

The program is an extension of the group’s work with the Skin Deep database, which for more than a decade now has given tens of millions of visitors information on the chemical contents and relative safety of their favorite cosmetics and shampoos.

Too many of America’s workplaces are not representative of our communities. In a divided country, we have a duty to advance diversity and inclusion

We’re living in a country of growing division and tension, and it’s having an impact at work. But it’s often the case that when we walk into the office – where we spend the majority of our time – we don’t address these issues.

And yet there’s so much to talk about – from growing societal inequality and America’s racial divide to single-digit minority representation in corporate America. (Just 1% of the nation’s Fortune 500 CEOs are black, only 4% are women, and even fewer are openly gay).

What ingredients are required to make an ultramarathon runner? In Boulder, Colorado, Scott Jurek has concocted quite the recipe that has kept him going the distance for the past two decades. He runs anywhere between 50 miles to over 150 miles, and in his lifetime has won over 20 ultramarathons, smashing records along the way. His passion for running kickstarted his morning regimen in 1997, when he cut out meat completely. In 1999, he transitioned to a plant-based diet, which has since fueled his long-distance running career. On an average day, Scott runs about 10 miles, and this is typically before the sun rises over the beautiful Boulder Flatirons.

What we do when we wake up in the morning sets the tone for our days and ultimately shapes our lives. In this new series, we take a look at how the hyper-successful among us have leveraged rituals to create the trajectories they want.

It’s one of the only incubators focused on solar companies – but Powerhouse is part of a larger movement to nurture new companies in the low-carbon future

It started with a crowdfunding startup, an investment from Prince, and the idea to help new solar companies tackle business challenges that can be hard to overcome on their own.

Now, four years later, the idea has morphed into a group called Powerhouse, and notably, in a world flush with tech startups, it’s one of the only incubators out there focused on launching and growing solar companies.

The 50th annual call for environmental reform falls at a time when the health of people and nature has never been more urgent

Fifty years ago today, the first Earth Day was marked in the United States as a peaceful call for environmental reform, following a massive oil spill off the coast of California. Half a century later, this annual day unites millions across the globe, drawing attention to the huge challenges facing our planet.

Now more than ever, Earth Day offers an opportunity for us all to reflect upon our relationship with the planet, amid the most powerful possible message that nature can surprise us at any moment, with devastating consequences for pretty much every individual. It is a time when the health of the planet and its people has never been so important.

Taking down the fossil fuel industry requires taking on the institutions that finance it. Even during a pandemic, this movement is gaining steam

1970 was a simpler time. (February was a simpler time too, but for a moment let’s think outside the pandemic bubble.)

Simpler because our environmental troubles could be easily seen. The air above our cities was filthy, and the water in our lakes and streams was gross. There was nothing subtle about it. In New York City, the environmental lawyer Albert Butzel described a permanently yellow horizon: “I not only saw the pollution, I wiped it off my windowsills.” Or consider the testimony of a city medical examiner: “The person who spent his life in the Adirondacks has nice pink lungs. The city dweller’s are black as coal.” You’ve probably heard of Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River catching fire, but here’s how the former New York governor Nelson Rockefeller described the Hudson south of Albany: “One great septic tank that has been rendered nearly useless for water supply, for swimming, or to support the rich fish life that once abounded there.” Everything that people say about the air and water in China and India right now was said of America’s cities then.

Economic reconstruction is a chance to speed up decarbonisation, and the pandemic has shown a different kind of politics is possible

We’re already being swamped with ideas about “reforms” needed to recover from the pandemic crisis. But the word reform is like gift wrap – a handy cover for any offering, thought-through or otherwise.

Perhaps we should ditch the word entirely, and with it the forest of feelpinions about what governments “must” do to advance an author’s previously-held ideological positioning in the post-corona world.

There are all sorts of ways the home cook can help conserve precious energy, this recipe for vegan coconutty ‘cheesecake’ being a case in point

Reducing waste in the kitchen isn’t just about saving food: the time and energy it takes to cook food are also important resources that are easily squandered.

The best way to save energy, besides loving your leftovers, is by cooking less: swap out a cooked element of your meal for a nutritious vegetable salad or raw dish (such as today’s coconut and lemon “cheesecake”); or make one-pot wonders that don’t use multiple cooker rings. And when you do need to cook more, make extra portions for the freezer.

Planet of the Humans film has had 5m views on YouTube and has enraged renewable energy experts who are demanding an apology

Planet of the Humans is an environmental documentary that has enraged renewable energy experts and environmentalists, with some calling for its high-profile executive producer, Michael Moore, to apologise.

It was released for free less than two weeks ago, and at the time of writing had had close to 5m views on YouTube.

The oil industry saw its opening and moved with breathtaking speed to take advantage of this moment

I’m going to tell you the single worst story I’ve heard in these past few horrid months, a story that combines naked greed, political influence peddling, a willingness to endanger innocent human beings, utter blindness to one of the greatest calamities in human history and a complete disregard for the next crisis aiming for our planet. I’m going to try to stay calm enough to tell it properly, but I confess it’s hard.

The background: a decade ago, beginning with indigenous activists in Canada and farmers and ranchers in the American west and midwest, opposition began to something called the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to carry filthy tar sands oil from the Canadian province of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. It quickly became a flashpoint for the fast-growing climate movement, especially after Nasa scientist James Hansen explained that draining those tar sands deposits would be “game over” for the climate system. And so thousands went to jail and millions rallied and eventually Barack Obama bent to that pressure and blocked the pipeline. Donald Trump, days after taking office, reversed that decision, but the pipeline has never been built, both because its builder, TC Energy, has had trouble arranging the financing and permits, and because 30,000 people have trained to do nonviolent civil disobedience to block construction. It’s been widely assumed that, should a Democrat win the White House in November, the project would finally be gone for good.

Energy companies have leased 9.9m acres from the administration – and the fossil fuels extracted could equal half a year of emissions from China

The Trump administration has offered oil companies a chunk of the American west and the Gulf of Mexico that’s four times the size of California – an expansive drilling plan that threatens to entrench the industry at the expense of other outdoor jobs, while locking in enough emissions to undermine global climate policy.

Energy companies have leased 9.9m acres from the unprecedented 461m acres put up for rent by the Trump administration, according to a new analysis from the Wilderness Society.

Conservation groups are fighting the creation of 3,500 gas wells in Wyoming that threaten a 170-mile path

The Path of the Pronghorn is a 170-mile migration route that the antelope-like creatures have traveled annually for 6,000 years. It is one of North America’s last remaining long-distance terrestrial migration corridors.

And it is at risk. This week conservation groups filed a legal petition challenging the Trump administration’s plan to allow 3,500 new gas wells in south-western Wyoming that would block the route.

Warming springs can cause plants to bloom earlier, alter hibernation times and locations for migrating animals, and increase insect populations

Across the south-eastern US, trees are unfurling their clouds of leaves after winter. Yet this picturesque and usually welcome development is this year cause for consternation.

New data from the USA National Phenology Network (USA-NPN) shows that in parts of North Carolina, South Carolina and northern Florida, spring has arrived more than three weeks earlier than average, and earlier than at any point in the last 39 years it has been tracked.

Workers at ‘most toxic place in America’ are terrified to return to a site where there has been very little protection from the outbreak

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For more than a month, coronavirus has brought cleanup of a 586-square-mile decommissioned nuclear production complex in south-eastern Washington state to a near standstill.

Most of the more than 11,000 employees at the Hanford site were sent home in late March, with only essential workers remaining to make sure the “most toxic place in America” stays safe and secure.

Which NFL teams have the easiest schedules in 2020?

Which NFL teams have the most difficult 2020 schedules?

Historically, recessions have hit men harder. This time it's different, economists say.

A woman from Burlington, Ont., says she's had COVID-19 symptoms for nearly two months and hasn't felt entirely supported by health-care workers.

On a ship frozen in the Arctic, scientists have spent all winter to shed light on exactly how the world is changing

Studying how bats behave when they’re feeling ill could help researchers better understand how pathogens move through close-knit populations

The purpose of such an elaborate structure remains a big open question

The newly launched #SmithsonianEdu campaign highlights 1.7 million online tools geared specifically toward students and teachers

In a famous 1970 teach-in demonstration, prosecutors hammered away at the nation’s most powerful defendant

These scientists and inventors set out to change the planet with these out-of-the-box ideas

As the pachyderms increasingly clash with farmers and villagers over disappearing land, scientists study the way the animals' minds work

Fed up with invasive species and sterile landscapes, Douglas Tallamy urges Americans to go native and go natural

The renewable energy source has never quite lived up to its potential, but a new experiment in Nova Scotia could flip the script

The outbreak, and the travel bans and fears that come with it, have endangered long-running research projects

The green-and-white banner from an Illinois high school recalls the first Earth Day 50 years ago

You’ve got questions, we’ve got experts

Yes, most infectious diseases are seasonal. But waiting for COVID-19 to wane on its own is a bad idea

With the COVID-19 coronavirus causing a global pandemic, a look back at the scientists who figured out viruses and their relationship to disease

The curious set of numbers shows up in nature and also in human activities.

Tasked with curbing a 1907 outbreak, Esther Pohl emphasized the importance of clean, vermin-free environments

It’s been 180 years since Charles Wilkes voyaged to the Antarctic continent and his journey has never been more relevant

Dineobellator was a formidable predator and boasts the battle scars to prove it.

Though COVID-19 likely makes recovered patients immune, experts aren't sure how long protection lasts

Past public health crises inspired innovations in infrastructure, education, fundraising and civic debate

So-called gynandromorphs are rare, but they can teach us a lot about development and evolution

The different hominid species, possibly including the oldest-known Homo erectus, existed in the region's hills and caves

Researchers suggest that the Humboldt squid uses bioluminescent backlighting for visual cues in the dark deep sea