As it passed above the Niger Delta in 2021, a satellite took an image. It showed acres of land, scraped bare. The site, outside the city of Port Harcourt, was on a cleanup list kept by the United Nations Environment Programme, supposed to be restored to green farmland as the Delta was before thousands of...
World
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Human-Related Activities Continue to Threaten Global Climate and Productivity
The pace at which anthropogenic climate change has altered the terrestrial carbon stores is making our current climate-change mitigation efforts seem fruitless, unless behaviors are quickly changed. Climate change induced by human behaviors, or anthropogenic climate change, has been a hot topic for decades and is not going away. As with any problem, reviewing datasets...
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How a Small Brazilian Town Became an Unlikely Battleground Over Confederate Memory
There were no antebellum hoop skirts at the site of Brazil’s annual “Festa Confederada,” or Confederate Festival, in 2024. Flag poles that once flew the Brazilian flag alongside the red, white and blue rebel banner of the American Confederacy stood barren. Since 1980, the Confederate Festival – a series of cultural performances and culinary experiences...
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3D-Printed Guns, Like the One Allegedly Used to Kill a Health Care CEO, Are a Growing Threat in the U.S. and Around the World
Police investigating the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on Dec. 4, 2024, have announced that the suspected assailant had used a 3D-printed gun. Several high-profile crimes in recent years have involved this kind of homemade, or partially homemade, weapon. Often called “ghost guns” because they can be hard to trace, these firearms can be...
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Marco Rubio Is No Friend of Havana − but Does Trump’s Pick for Secretary of State Mean Cuba Policy Is Set?
The U.S. looks set to have its first-ever Cuban American secretary of state in 2025, after President-elect Donald Trump nominated U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida for the role. But don’t expect that to mean cozier relations between Havana and Washington. Rubio, who if confirmed by the Senate will also be the first Latino to...
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In Nigeria’s Lithium Boom, Many Mines Are Illegal and Children Do Much of the Work
Dressed in a faded pink dress, 6-year-old Juliet Samaniya squats under scorching skies to chip at a jagged white rock with a stone tool. Dust coats her tiny hands and her hair as she works hour after hour for less than a dollar a day. The landscape around her is dotted with active and abandoned...
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How Did Humans and Dogs Become Friends? Connections in the Americas Began 12,000 Years Ago
“Dog is man’s best friend” may be an ancient cliché, but when that friendship began is a longstanding question among scientists. A new study led by a University of Arizona researcher is one step closer to an answer on how Indigenous people in the Americas interacted with early dogs and wolves. The study, published today in the...
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Study Reveals Mammoth as Key Food Source for Ancient Americans
Scientists have uncovered the first direct evidence that ancient Americans relied primarily on mammoth and other large animals for food. Their research sheds new light on both the rapid expansion of humans throughout the Americas and the extinction of large ice age mammals. The study, featured on the Dec. 4 cover of the journal Science Advances,...
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France Returns Prehistoric Artifacts to Ethiopia in Diplomatic ‘Handover’
A French government official recently said the return of three artifacts to Ethiopia was a diplomatic handover rather than a restitution. On November 30, France‘s foreign minister Jean-Noel Barrot handed over two prehistoric stone axes, bifaces, and a stone cutter to Ethiopia’s tourism minister Selamawit Kassa during a symbolic ceremony at the National Museum of Ethiopia in the...
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After a Major Restoration, Notre Dame Cathedral is Reopening. Here’s What to Expect.
Five years after Paris watched Notre Dame Cathedral burn, the 861-year-old structure has been restored. It is slated to reopen its doors to the public on Sunday, December 8, with two Catholic masses will commemorating the event. Following the April 2019 blaze, €846 million ($891 million) was raised in donations from 340,000 donors across 150 countries, with...
