The Interior Department is eyeing staff layoffs, although its plan is being partially hampered by a recent court order. The department said in a Friday court filing that it would have carried out at least some layoffs “imminently” if not for a recent court order blocking agencies from laying off union workers during the shutdown. ...

President Trump is ratcheting up pressure against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, targeting his financial lifeline by seizing a massive tanker carrying crude oil off the coast of Venezuela and ramping up sanctions on the regime. The capture of a sanctioned ship has fueled fears of a wider conflict with Venezuela while also raising the prospect...

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — One year after Hurricane Helene, it is hard to come up with a simple answer when asked, “How’s Asheville?” There is recovery, with some infrastructure rebuilt, businesses open and many trails cleared. But there are scars, with sunshine where shade used to be, wider creeks and patches of empty ground where...

{beacon} Energy & Environment Energy & Environment   The Big Story Hundreds let go from NOAA The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration began the process of firing hundreds of probationary workers Thursday, the latest mass job cuts within federal agencies, multiple sources with knowledge of internal operations told The Hill. © AP Photo/Patrick Semansky The...

The House on Thursday passed a bill that aims to speed up infrastructure and energy projects — with a new anti-wind amendment in order to get GOP hard-liners on board. The vote was 221-196. The SPEED Act aims to bolster infrastructure projects by decreasing the amount of scrutiny their environmental impacts face. It would create...

A subset of North American iguanas likely landed on an isolated group of South Pacific islands about 34 million years ago — having rafted some 5,000 miles from the West Coast of the faraway continent, a new study has found. Their epic journey to what is now Fiji marks the longest known transoceanic expansion of...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday was pursuing another sanctioned oil tanker in the Caribbean Sea as the Trump administration appeared to be intensifying its targeting of such vessels connected to the Venezuelan government. The pursuit of the tanker, which was confirmed by a U.S. official briefed on the...

Chronic exposure to pollution from wildfires has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually in the United States, according to a new study. The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, found that from 2006 to 2020, long-term exposure to tiny particulates from wildfire smoke contributed to an average of 24,100 deaths...