A man snowboards using a kite on the National Mall as storm hit the nation's capital Sunday. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP / Getty Images
A massive winter storm dumped snow on the midwest Friday, killing at least nine, before moving east to bring snow and freezing rain to the Mid-Atlantic and the Carolinas Saturday and Sunday, AccuWeather reported.
"We have a strong snowstorm that's stretching 1,400 miles from Kansas to the East Coast," CNN meteorologist Haley Brink said. "St. Louis is seeing its worst snowstorm in five years. We're going to see a significant snow event for the mid-Atlantic to start the year for 2019."
Aerial view of Florence, Nichols, Conway and Waccamaw, South Carolina, impacted by floodwaters on Sept. 21. South Carolina Air National Guard
By Sharon Kelly
2018 is set to rank as the fourth warmest year on record—and the fourth year in a row reflecting a full degree Celsius (1.8° Fahrenheit) temperature rise from the late 1800s, climate scientists say.
This was the year that introduced us to fire tornadoes, bomb cyclones and in Death Valley, a five-day streak of 125°F temperatures, part of the hottest month ever documented at a U.S. weather station.
Seismic airgun blasting has been proposed within the same main range of imperiled North Atlantic right whales. NOAA
A coalition of attorneys general from nine states added their clout to a South Carolina-based lawsuit against the Trump administration to block seismic airgun blasting off the Atlantic coast.
Democratic attorneys general from Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Massachusetts, Delaware, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York filed a motion on Thursday to intervene in a lawsuit filed earlier this month by several conservation groups and South Carolina coastal communities.
The Asian longhorned tick has been found in nine states. CDC
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned of a "multistate infestation" with the Asian longhorned tick—the
first new tick species to enter the U.S. in 50 years.
New Jersey was the first state to report the
Haemaphysalis longicornis on a sheep in August 2017. Since then, it has been found in Arkansas, Connecticut, Maryland, North Carolina, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia, according to Friday's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Rangers tranquilized a bear cub to free him from a plastic jar. Maryland Department of Natural Resources - Wildlife & Heritage Service
A Maryland bear cub got himself into a sticky situation over the weekend.
The 100-pound male bear earned himself the nickname "Buckethead" when he got his head stuck in a plastic jar in search of a tasty snack, BBC News reported.
An eastern box turtle rolling around in his LEGO wheelchair. The Maryland Zoo
An injured wild
turtle is rolling through recovery at the Maryland Zoo with the aid of a LEGO wheelchair.
The grapefruit-sized, approximately 18-year-old eastern box turtle was found by a zoo employee at Druid Hill Park in July. The reptile had multiple fractures on the bottom part of his shell and was taken to the zoo's hospital for treatment.
In response to a legal victory by the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today gave Endangered Species Act protection to a freshwater mussel that lives in Maryland, North Carolina and Virginia.
The Public Service Commission (PSC) granted Skipjack Offshore Energy and U.S. Wind offshore wind renewable energy credits Thursday enabling them to move forward with their proposals to build 368 megawatts of offshore wind, located off the coast of Ocean City and Delaware, and creating 9,700 jobs in the process. The approval of these projects puts Maryland in the running for the nation's largest offshore wind farms.
Maryland's fracking ban is the latest milestone in a strong and growing movement to resist fossil fuels throughout the country. This is a huge victory for public health, common-sense environmental protection, climate stability and, not least, the power of grassroots organizing. This bold turn will reverberate nationally at a time when the Trump administration seeks to decimate environmental protections for the sake of corporate polluter profits.
A quick overview of the Trump administration's pro-fossil fuel agenda and its roster of climate-denying oil and gas cronies in cabinet seats could lead anyone to believe that matters of energy policy are more partisan than ever. And indeed, it's clear that at the national level, the Republican Party as a whole is still largely committed to an antiquated and thoroughly dangerous plan to keep the country hooked on fossil fuels indefinitely.
Maryland is on track to become the third state to ban hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for oil and natural gas, after the Senate voted 35-10 on Monday for a measure already approved by the House.
The bill is now headed to Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, who is in favor of a statewide fracking ban.
