[a]In early 2018, residents of Boise, Idaho were told by city officials that a breakthrough technology could transform their hard-to-recycle plastic waste into low-polluting fuel. The program, backed by Dow Inc, one of the world’s biggest plastics producers, was hailed locally as a greener alternative to burying it in the county landfill.A few months later,…

CRANE, Texas: Rusted pipes litter the sandy fields of Ashley Williams Watt’s cattle ranch in windswept West Texas. Corroded skeletons are all that remain of hundreds of abandoned oil wells. Unable to produce any useful amounts of oil or gas, the wells were plugged with cement decades ago.But something eerie is going on beneath the land,…

Poison ivy is a fixture of the landscape in eastern North America and parts of Asia. The noxious, rash-causing weed grows in rocky outcroppings, open fields, and at the edge of forests — it generally loves to take over disturbed areas. It can grow in partial shade and doesn’t give a damn about soil moisture…

The Amazon acts as a vital organ for our entire planet. The largest rainforest in the world, it provides an important function to both the Earth’s water and carbon cycles. The region, home to abundant and highly diverse species and ecosystems, houses more than 390bn trees. These have an exceptional capacity to recycle water by…

Author of the article: Kurt Leavins Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland talks to the Lindsay family during the public visitation of Ted Lindsay at Little Caesars Arena on March 8, 2019 in Detroit. Photo by Dave Reginek-Pool /Getty Images The NHL off-season action has ramped up significantly over the past couple days. The rosters…

On the morning of July 5, 2021, three days after the Cybersecurity Administration of China probed into newly listed ride-hailing giant Didi over its data collection practice that resulted in the removal of its app from local app stores, the regulator launched another investigation concerning three more companies, online recruiter Boss Zhipin and Yunmanman and…

In June, Matthew Hawn, a high school teacher and baseball coach in Blountville, Tennessee, was fired by the county board of education. The process had escalated in steps: Earlier in the year, Hawn assigned an essay by Ta-Nehisi Coates—“The First White President”—in his Contemporary Issues class, and a student’s father objected. In a complaint filed…

Photo: City of Burnsville, MinnesotaIt’s a common story: A family gets a goldfish, but then their kid tires of it—maybe soccer, guitar lessons, or schoolwork start taking priority. The family wants to get rid of the fish but doesn’t want to hurt it, so they release it into a local waterway or flush it down…