World

Philadelphia tested a simple way to protect older, low-income residents from summer heat by putting reflective white roof coatings on hundreds of homes between 2001 and 2003. The Cool Homes Programme targeted elderly households living in the city’s older housing stock, where dark roofs could absorb intense sunlight and transfer heat into upper-floor rooms. Around…

The capture of Mokha gives the Houthis a stronger position along Yemen’s western coast. (AP Photo) Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi militants have seized the key Red Sea port of Mokha and advanced towards the Hanish islands, bringing them closer to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and raising the prospect of a major new threat to one of…

Mateo Castillo-Bonde, an 11-year-old from Minneapolis, left thousands at the State Fair Grandstand speechless, doing something most pre-teens his age do not. He played a guitar solo with the kind of precision that only comes from years of intensive practice. He did it in front of legendary producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Just like…

Two beavers appeared unexpectedly at Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Helman Tor nature reserve after six months. Trail cameras have confirmed that the pair has settled into a territory, with their activity becoming more noticeable as water levels dropped in July. They have built their first dam and begun feeding on leaves and woody vegetation, leaving some…

US resumes immigrant visa processing for Hungary and Poland. The US has resumed immigrant visa processing for applicants in Hungary and Poland, even as immigrant visa processing remains disrupted at US embassies and consulates in much of the world.The selective restart comes after the Trump administration earlier halted immigrant visa processing on a much broader…

At the North Sea Summit in Hamburg today, Germany and Denmark reached an agreement on the Bornholm Energy Island project . Image Credit: European Commission Denmark and Germany are developing Bornholm Energy Island as a major offshore wind hub in the Baltic Sea, designed to collect 3GW of electricity and send it to both countries….

US built nearly 2,000 km of Mississippi River levees to control floods Nearly 2,000 kilometres of levees built along the Mississippi River over the past century helped protect cities and farmland from major floods. But the barriers also caused one of North America’s most serious ecological losses. By cutting coastal estuaries off from vital river…

New Jersey built a massive seawall A massive concrete seawall constructed along the northern New Jersey coastline to shield a public highway and beachfront properties achieved its goal of protecting landward structures, but caused the complete loss of the sandy shoreline it sat upon. According to a coastal hazard report published by the United States…

US had just two 500-foot smokestacks An effort by American power companies to reduce local air pollution in the 1970s ended up creating a much wider environmental crisis, turning a local health problem into a continent-wide acid rain emergency. By building huge smokestacks to send coal emissions away from nearby towns, power companies pushed sulfur…