The lifting of a mandatory evacuation order for South Lake Tahoe's 22,000 residents is a confident milestone in the fight against the Caldor Fire, but it remains only 48% contained and still threatens areas south of the resort town.

Firefighters are confronting aggressive winds and flames in some southeast sections of the Caldor Fire, which could still reach Meyers, a community more than a mile high known as the gateway to Lake Tahoe, and other areas including the Kirkwood ski resort.

How much is a tree worth when its roots are in the ground and its leaves are helping suck carbon from the air? Answer: in most places, far less than the dollar value of its wood. 

The value we put on nature is the subject of a motion at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille.

The North Platte River in southern Wyoming has been so low in places lately that a toddler could easily wade across and thick mats of olive-green algae grow in the lazy current.

Just over two years ago, workers stacked sandbags to protect homes and fishing cabins from raging brown floodwaters, the highest on record.

Tens of thousands of people who fled South Lake Tahoe in the teeth of a wildfire were returning home as crews finally managed to stall the advance of flames scant miles from the resort.

But authorities warned that residents of the scenic forest area on the California-Nevada state line weren't out of the woods yet, with risks ranging from smoky, foul air to belligerent bears.

Allison Smith wasn't thinking about where she'd go next. She'd kept the boxes from when she moved into her 2-bedroom apartment at the Chateau Creole complex a year ago and was planning to fill them with her clothes and other belongings, load them into a U-Haul along with her bed and sofa, and drive it to the closest storage unit she'd found — two hours away. Then she'd think about where to live.

"I haven't even thought that far," said Smith, as she and her boyfriend packed.

Just off the northern coast of Iceland, scientists are collecting data from whales' breath to find out if they get stressed by whale-watching boats, an industry that has boomed in recent years.

President Joe Biden on Thursday pledged robust federal help for the Northeastern and Gulf states battered by Hurricane Ida and for Western states beset by wildfires — with the catastrophes serving as deadly reminders that the "climate crisis" has arrived.

"These extreme storms, and the climate crisis, are here," Biden said in a White House speech. "We must be better prepared. We need to act."

As fearful Lake Tahoe residents packed up belongings and fled a raging wildfire burning toward the California-Nevada border, some encountered an unexpected obstacle: price gouging.

A rideshare company quoted a fee of more than $1,500 to be transported from the smoke-choked ski resort at Heavenly Valley to the safety of Reno-Tahoe International Airport, about eight times the going rate. A Nevada hotel-casino outside the evacuation order zone advertised a two-night stay for $1,090.72, almost four times the midweek rate offered a day earlier.

The cleanup — and mourning — continued Friday as the Northeast U.S. recovered from record-breaking rainfall from the remnants of Hurricane Ida.

At least 48 people in five states died as storm water cascaded into people's homes and engulfed automobiles, overwhelming urban drainage systems never meant to handle so much rain in such a short time.

The U.N. weather agency says the world — and especially urban areas — experienced a brief, sharp drop in emissions of air pollutants last year amid lockdown measures and related travel restrictions put in place over the coronavirus pandemic.

The World Meteorological Organization, releasing its first ever Air Quality and Climate Bulletin on Friday, cautioned that the reductions in pollution were patchy — and many parts of the world showed levels that outpaced air quality guidelines. Some types of pollutants continued to emerge at regular or even higher levels.