The Taliban have requested representation at this week’s United Nations General Assembly, a move that is expected to kick off a diplomatic battle with the preexisting Afghan envoy. Afghanistan is currently represented at the UN by Ghulam Isaczai, an appointee of the country’s former democratic government, which crumbled under the Taliban’s advance last month. Rival…… MORE
In a rare address to the UN General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday made a major new climate commitment on behalf of the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. China will not build any new coal-fired power projects abroad, Xi said in a pre-recorded speech. The vow marks a shift in policy around…… MORE
The amount of carbon emitted from severe wildfires that tore across many parts of the Northern Hemisphere this summer broke records, according to data from the European Union’s Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service published Tuesday. Intense blazes, including fires in hotspots in the Mediterranean, North America and Siberia, let off more than 2.7 billion metric tons…… MORE
Defined by their disappearance dinosaurs might appear to be evolutionary failures. Not so. Dinosaurs survived and thrived for 165 million years — far longer than the roughly 300,000 years modern humans have so far roamed the planet. They lived on every continent, munched on plants, snapped their jaws at insects, itched from fleas, suffered from…… MORE
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Monday the world would have to wait to hear from US President Joe Biden about whether the country would pay its fair share in climate finance — funds for undeveloped nations to face the climate crisis. Johnson and the UN Secretary-General António Guterres held a closed-door meeting of world…… MORE
As the fall season approaches and colder temperatures set in, there’s a silver lining to look up to — literally — as the harvest moon makes its debut on September 20, bringing plenty of bright moonlight. The full moon known as the harvest moon, as it traditionally gave farmers more time to harvest their summer-grown…… MORE
Dinosaurs must have had sex to reproduce but how they did it — with their neck frills, armored plates and tails tipped with spikes — isn’t exactly clear. No fossil has revealed two dinosaurs caught in the act — the only known vertebrates to be unequivocally preserved mating are a pair of 47 million-year-old turtles…… MORE
In the wake of Hurricane Ida, the pummeling rain that hit cities up and down the East Coast at the start of September overwhelmed storm drains, poured into subway stations and filled basements like bathtubs. The devastating human toll is well known. Less clear is what happened to the denizens of those cities’ subterranean depths:…… MORE
We live in a time bookended by extremes. Many believe our future is in space, where one day humans will live across the solar system. Looking back, we see evidence of a wild planet where giant creatures once roamed, only to fall in the face of natural disasters that shaped the Earth we know today.…… MORE
Coronavirus be damned, the world’s diplomats are back. New Yorkers who enjoyed the peace and quiet of the United Nations’ all-virtual General Assembly last year will once again face the gridlock of diplomatic motorcades next week, as world leaders and their entourages descend on the international body’s headquarters in Manhattan. The 76th session of the…… MORE