Earth

BANTARGEBANG, Indonesia (AP) — Well before sunrise touches Indonesia’s largest landfill, Nur Wencih is already scaling heaps of refuse with thousands of other waste pickers, searching for items that can be sold. The 35-year-old widow has spent nearly 20 years working at the sprawling dump on Jakarta’s eastern fringe, following in the footsteps of her parents, who still depend on it for income. Earnings from Bantargebang have covered her rent and daily meals and helped support her two teenage

More than 20,000 local residents and vacationers have been evacuated from southwest France as fast-moving wildfires continue to spread across the region. Roughly 800 firefighters were working to contain the blaze about 50 kilometres (30 miles) west of Bordeaux on Thursday. They were supported by hundreds of gendarmes and members of the armed forces assisting with emergency operations. Recommended Stories • list 1 of 3Spain and France confront intense wildfires amid heightened risk • list 2 of

Wildfire smoke — increasingly common across the Northern Hemisphere as the planet heats up — affects nearly every organ in the human body and is responsible for tens of thousands of deaths each year, according to a growing body of medical research. Its impact can be swift. Within hours, asthma attacks rise and ambulance calls increase. Within a day or two, emergency departments fill with patients suffering from heart attacks, breathing difficulties, cardiovascular complications and even mental

Long before his name was attached to one of the most formidable predators ever to walk the Earth — or appeared in the pages of an auction catalog — the late Gary “Gus” Licking, a cattle rancher in South Dakota, had a strong feeling that something extraordinary lay beneath his land. The Licking ranch sits within the Hell Creek Formation, a renowned fossil-rich region spanning Montana, Wyoming and the Dakotas. It is considered the most significant site in the world for Tyrannosaurus rex. One of

KUBUQI DESERT, China (AP) — For five decades, millions of workers have carried out the same careful routine across the windswept deserts of northern China: pressing forearm-length sticks into loose sand in straight rows, then crossing them with another set to create a tight grid. In the middle of each small square, young saplings are planted. This approach, known as “straw checkerboards,” is a straightforward but effective way to anchor shifting dunes. The grids reduce wind speed at ground

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest has dropped to its lowest level in ten years during the first half of 2026, according to newly released government data. The figures, published on Friday, represent a significant achievement for President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has made reducing destruction in the world’s largest rainforest a central goal of his administration. Between January and June, approximately 1,295 square kilometres (500 square miles) of forest were cleared in the

Last month became the warmest June ever observed in Western Europe, with temperatures exceeding the 1991–2020 average by more than three degrees Celsius (5.4 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service. In a statement released Thursday, the climate monitoring agency reported that the region’s average temperature climbed to 20.74C (69.33F). The surge was largely driven by a powerful heatwave in the latter half of the month that shattered records in

A bold new effort to prevent one of NASA’s renowned space observatories from falling back to Earth is now underway. If it succeeds, the mission will become the first commercial robotic operation to capture and service an uncrewed NASA spacecraft that was never designed for in-orbit maintenance, according to the agency. Without action, the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory would slip below a critical orbital altitude this month due to atmospheric drag intensified by recent solar activity. For

A modest fossil that sat unnoticed in a drawer for four decades has now been identified as the first dinosaur bone ever discovered in Antarctica. The fossil was originally uncovered in 1985, but the researchers who collected it were uncertain about its identity. As a result, it was placed in storage within the geology collections of the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in Cambridge, where it remained largely overlooked. Recently, palaeontologists re-examined the specimen and confirmed it is a

Humans tend to experience sunrises and sunsets as natural “bookends” to the day. But beyond their beauty, these glowing moments may have powerful effects on our memory, sleep and emotional wellbeing. On the evening before my wedding, my parents, my soon-to-be husband and I stood on the deck of a house in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, watching a sunset none of us will ever forget. Cape Cod is renowned for its golden-hour light. Because the narrow peninsula is almost completely surrounded by water,

FORMOSO DO ARAGUAIA, Brazil (AP) — On a vast river island in northern Brazil, a complex debate is unfolding over cattle ranching and environmental protection. Last year, federal authorities ordered the removal of livestock from protected Indigenous territory on Bananal Island, the largest river island on the planet. Officials argued that the land is designated for Indigenous communities and conservation, and that herds owned by non-Indigenous ranchers were illegal and damaging local ecosystems.

• Researchers investigating the southeastern Indian Ocean have uncovered one of the largest and deepest whale graveyards ever recorded, stretching roughly 746 miles. • Fossils at the site have accumulated for at least 5 million years. • Recently deceased whales at the location are sustaining deep-sea ecosystems, including species that may be previously unknown to science. A team of scientists piloting a deep-sea submersible in a remote part of the southeastern Indian Ocean has identified an

SEATTLE (AP) — Part of one of the most far-reaching ocean monitoring systems ever constructed will be taken offline this month as researchers sail off the coast of Oregon to retrieve a scientific buoy anchored deep in the Pacific Ocean. The buoy, positioned about 80 meters (260 feet) beneath the surface, is scheduled for removal on June 16 from the Ocean Observatories Initiative. This vast network, made up of more than 900 ocean sensors and built at a cost of $386 million, has delivered

The countdown has begun for Q-Day — the uncertain but inevitable moment when quantum computers become powerful enough to swiftly crack the encryption that protects most of today’s online communications. Researchers have understood this theoretical danger since the 1990s. Recently, however, Google cautioned that some encrypted systems could be vulnerable as early as 2029 — a projection that sharply shortens the preparation window many cybersecurity experts once assumed they had. If accurate,

Homo erectus, a prehistoric human species, was the first of our ancestors known to leave Africa. It spread across multiple continents and survived for nearly 2 million years. Despite its long history and wide reach, the species remains one of the most puzzling chapters in human evolution, largely because usable genetic material has been extremely difficult to recover. Researchers have now extracted ancient proteins from six teeth discovered in China, uncovering for the first time a molecular

A record-setting and deadly heatwave sweeping across South Asia has driven temperatures to perilous levels, disrupting everyday life for hundreds of millions of people and intensifying concerns about the fragility of one of the world’s most densely populated regions. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the countries experiencing temperatures far above seasonal norms, with some areas nearing or surpassing 45-50 degrees Celsius (113-122 degrees Fahrenheit). Recommended Stories • list 1 of

NASA’s Curiosity rover has identified the widest variety of organic molecules ever detected on Mars, including seven compounds never before observed on the planet. These carbon-based substances are the fundamental ingredients that allowed life to arise on Earth. The findings, reported Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications, stem from a groundbreaking experiment conducted directly on Mars. For the first time, the rover collected a rock sample and dissolved it in a chemical solution to

SAN DIEGO (AP) — A persistent odor of rotten eggs hangs over Steve Egger’s home in Southern California, especially after dark when the nearby Tijuana River churns with sewage flowing north from Mexico before reaching the Pacific Ocean. Egger, 72, says he and his wife frequently suffer from headaches and often wake up congested, coughing up mucus. Their house is equipped with a hospital-grade air filtration system that circulates indoor air every 15 minutes. Even with those precautions, “most

Super Typhoon Sinlaku is advancing toward the remote Mariana Islands in the northern Pacific Ocean, where the powerful system is expected to unleash destructive winds and torrential rainfall. Sinlaku developed on April 9 and has become the most intense storm recorded so far in 2026. On Monday, it produced sustained winds reaching 278 km/hour (173 mph), according to reports from The Associated Press. Storm Position and Strength By midday Tuesday local time (02:00 GMT), the storm’s center was

EDITOR’S NOTE: Call to Earth is a CNN editorial initiative focused on highlighting the environmental pressures facing the planet and the solutions aimed at addressing them. Rolex’s Perpetual Planet Initiative collaborates with CNN to raise awareness and encourage meaningful action around critical sustainability challenges. Camera traps have captured images of a jaguar deep within Honduras’ Sierra del Merendón mountain range — the first confirmed sighting of the species in the area in ten