Environment

Environment

The GFS model shows a more aggressive scenario, suggesting a longer-lasting storm with the potential for 12 to 16 of snow in parts of the region. The NAM (North American Model) also brings snow Sunday night into Monday, but keeps the heaviest bands more limited, with less impact north into the Hudson Valley and parts of northern New Jersey. Other guidance, including the Baron model, keeps the storm farther offshore, which would significantly reduce snowfall totals in the New York City area.

It takes an immense amount of energy to power venues and make snow for the Winter Olympics and, for the 2026 Milan Cortina Games, organizers pledged that virtually all of the electricity would be clean. The organizing committee said that energy use is where they can make the most meaningful impact, since it has been one of the main drivers of planet-warming emissions at major events. And Italy's largest electricity company, Enel, guaranteed the supply of entirely certified renewable electricity for event venues.

As a child, Marcel Mazur had to hold his breath in parts of Krakow thick with so much smoke you could see and smell it. Now, as an allergy specialist at Jagiellonian University Medical College who treats patients struggling to breathe, he knows all too well the damage those toxic gases do inside the human body. It's not that we have this feeling that nothing can be done. But it's difficult, Mazur said.

Changes in the Antarctic do not stay in the Antarctic. Though Antarctica is far away, changes here will impact the rest of the world through changes in sea level, oceanic and atmospheric connections and circulation changes.

There are a lot of unanswered possibly unanswerable questions in the air at the moment. Questions such as what prompts a husband to drug his wife and, for a decade, invite strange men over to his house to rape her while she lies unconscious in the marital bed? Or: what kind of a person do you have to be to hang around with a convicted child sexual offender and billionaire who is exercising his perversions in plain sight,

Yosemite National Park is closed through Friday because of impacts from the winter storm, including heavy snowfall and heavy trees. The National Park Service announced Thursday that the park is closed and that visitors with lodging reservations may still enter the park through Highway 140 at the Arch Rock entrance. Since Monday, Yosemite Valley and the park has received about 4 feet of snow and up to 52 inches in some areas, according to the National Weather Service in Hanford.

A tiny critically endangered moth, named after the Avatar films because of the proposed mining activity threatening its primary habitat, has been crowned New Zealand's bug of the year. The Avatar moth won by a wide margin, earning 5,192 of the more than 11,000 total votes cast. It won 2,269 more votes than the runner-up, the mahoenui giant weta, one of the world's largest insects. Other contenders included the wonderfully spiky hellraiser mite, the country's heaviest spider the black tunnelweb and a giant earthworm

Meteorologists say a powerful coastal system fueled by a so-called "bomb cyclone" could move toward the Northeast this weekend, bringing anything from a light dusting to a full-on sequel to January's snow chaos . The system is expected to travel across the country before strengthening off the Carolina coast on Sunday, potentially delivering snow and gusty winds to the tri-state area into Monday.

It was Jeff Bezos, the Amazon billionaire, who came up with the tagline "Democracy Dies in Darkness" for The Washington Post. According to a memoir by the paper's former editor, Martin Baron, Bezos greenlighted the "democracy" line after an internal staff favorite was rejected by his then-wife, MacKenzie Scott. In his book Baron admits to initially being impressed by the new owner, now the world's third-richest man.

A moratorium that has protected vital rainforest since 2009 is on shaky ground as several players from Brazil's soy industry say they are pulling out. Specifically, the Brazilian industry association ABIOVE, whose members include global companies such as Cofco International, Bunge, Amaggi and JBS, have said they will no longer refrain from growing soy on deforested land. Environmentalists fear this could fuel a new wave of Amazon logging.

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

In the Rockies and Southwest, several states are projected to see over a foot of accumulation through Friday. Eastern California is expected to be the hardest hit, with the Sierra Nevada Mountains set to receive more than five feet of snow. Parts of Oregon, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, and Utah are predicted to see over ten inches, but totals could reach two to three feet at higher elevations throughout those states.

The Bay Area is about to get frigid enough to potentially break more than a century-old low temperature records in some cities. That's after a series of cold storms encompassed the region this week, dusting the highest peaks in snow. National Weather Service forecasters said they are evaluating whether to issue public alerts for extreme cold over the next 48 hours, with the possibility that the frigid temperatures extend deeper into Friday and linger into Saturday.

Carquinez Strait and Delta and Northern San Joaquin Valley are under a freeze warning which was released by the National Weather Service on Thursday at 12:16 p.m. The warning is valid for Friday, Feb. 20 between midnight and 9 a.m. The NWS Sacramento CA said, Sub-freezing temperatures of 28 to 32 degrees expected. Frost and freeze conditions could kill crops and other sensitive vegetation, the NWS said. Take steps now to protect tender plants from the cold.

A storm sweeping through the San Francisco Bay Area knocked out power to more than 7,000 customers across the Peninsula and South Bay on Thursday morning, according to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. The company issued a power outage alert in San Mateo County at 8:23 a.m., initially reporting 4,107 customers affected in neighborhoods including Brentwood Park, Avalon Park and Crestmoor 2. At 9:03 a.m., the utility updated the alert to say 2,929 customers were impacted in that outage area.

LIVE RADAR: Track storms as they move through the Bay Area with Live Doppler 7 Take a look at the chart above -- we will give each storm a number with 1 being the lightest type of storm and 5 being the most severe. This way you'll know what to expect. Number 1 means a light storm with 1/2 an inch of rain or less and likely lasting a few hours or less. Number 2 is a moderate storm with 1/2 an inch to one inch of rain forecast and could include scattered power outages.

Each piece begins with used coffee pods collected from my community, materials that were never meant to last beyond a single use. Before any design work begins, the pods must be cleaned, sanitized, flattened, cut, folded, and shaped entirely by hand. They arrive dented, stained, and inconsistent, carrying the marks of their previous life. Learning how to work with those imperfections, rather than erasing them, was one of my first challenges.