The rising cost of purchasing or leasing a vessel that can hold more than 1 million barrels of crude oil now in a rusting old tanker off the coast of war-torn Yemen is the latest obstacle to resolving the grave threat of massive environmental damage from a possible oil spill or explosion, the U.N. said Tuesday.

U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said the availability of very large crude oil tankers "has decreased in the past six months, basically due to events having to do with the war in Ukraine."

Eating one freshwater fish caught in a river or lake in the United States is the equivalent of drinking a month's worth of water contaminated with toxic "forever chemicals", new research said on Tuesday.

Despite joining industry groups committed to reaching carbon neutrality the world's top banks are continuing to finance new oil and gas projects incompatible with that objective, environmental activist groups warned Tuesday.

U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to flood-hit areas of California on Thursday, the White House said, as the country's most populous state cleans up from a devastating and lethal series of storms.

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen took China to task over clean-technology industries on Tuesday, threatening investigations over Beijing's subsidies in the sector.

The ninth atmospheric river in a three-week series of major winter storms was churning through California on Monday, leaving mountain driving dangerous and the flooding risk high near swollen rivers even as the sun came out in some areas.

Heavy snow fell across the Sierra Nevada and the National Weather Service discouraged travel. Interstate 80, a key highway from the San Francisco Bay Area to Lake Tahoe ski resorts, reopened with chain requirements after periodic weekend closures because of whiteout conditions.

Ukraine's first lady will give a rare international address as the World Economic Forum's annual gathering in the snowy Swiss town of Davos gets into full swing on Tuesday, part of a push by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government to acquire more foreign weapons to defend against Russia's invasion.

Security teams fanned out and snowplows cleared streets as Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska and hundreds of government officials, corporate titans, academics and activists from around the world descended on the town billed as Europe's highest for the traditional winter gathering in Davos. The COVID-19 pandemic torpedoed the snow-covered event each of the last two years, but a springtime iteration was held eight months ago.

Mount Lebanon Environmental Prosecutor Judge Fadi Malkoun has filed charges against the state-run Council for Development and Reconstruction and its chief Nabil al-Jisr as well as against the contractor Jihad al-Arab and his company, LBCI television reported on Monday.

Malkoun accused the aforementioned parties of “executing the Costa Brava landfill project without obtaining an environmental impact approval from the Environment Ministry,” LBCI said.

Climate activists have occupied a giant digger at a coal mine in western Germany to protest the destruction of a nearby village for the expansion of a separate mine.

Energy company RWE told German news agency dpa that four people climbed onto the digger early Monday and operations at the Hambach lignite mine have been paused. Police have been informed of the incident, the company said.

More rain and snow fell during the weekend in storm-battered California, making travel dangerous and prompting evacuation warnings over flooding concerns along a swollen river near Sacramento.

Bands of gusty thunderstorms started Saturday in the north and spread south, with yet another atmospheric river storm following close behind Sunday, the National Weather Service said.