Major U.S. companies including Walmart, Starbucks and Nike vowed Wednesday to move completely to renewable energy in the long term as part of a global effort against climate change.

The non-profit Climate Group announced the latest additions to its campaign during a week of events in New York that aim to build momentum for a global agreement to fight climate change.

Indonesia has revoked the licence of a timber supplier and suspended the operations of three palm oil plantation operators over fires that have blanketed Southeast Asia in haze, an official said Tuesday. 

The illegal blazes in Indonesia have sent smog floating over the region in recent weeks, causing thousands to fall ill, worsening air quality and reducing visibility in the archipelago, as well as in neighboring Singapore and Malaysia. 

On the remote rocky shores of the western United States, low tide brings visitors to wave-splashed tide pools to marvel at ocean wonders usually hidden from view. 

But recently, largely missing from the bounty are the biggest draw: a rainbow-hued array of starfish.

A critically endangered Sumatran elephant who had patrolled Indonesia's jungles to help protect threatened habitats has been killed for his tusks, an official said Monday, sparking a surge of anger online.

Yongki, a tame creature who worked with teams of elephant keepers, was found dead close to the camp where he lived in a national park on the western island of Sumatra, said park official Timbul Batubara. 

China on Sunday launched a new, smaller type of rocket from its "Long March" family which will be primarily used for carrying satellites aloft, state media reported, as the country races ahead with an ambitious space programme.

The Long March-6, a newly developed carrier rocket which uses liquid propellant, took off from a launch base in the northern province of Shanxi on Sunday morning carrying 20 "micro" satellites, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Friday that Volkswagen intentionally skirted clean air laws by using a piece of software that enabled about 500,000 of its diesel cars to emit fewer smog-causing pollutants during testing than in real-world driving conditions.

The agency ordered VW to fix the cars at its own expense. The German automaker also faces billions of dollars in fines, although exact amounts were not determined.

The space technology that saw the Soviet Union propel the first dog, man and woman into orbit has gone on show in London -- most of it being exhibited outside Russia for the first time.

Speaking at the opening of the exhibition at the Science Museum, which runs until March 13, the first woman in space Valentina Tereshkova recalled her affection for the spacecraft that took her into orbit for three days in 1963.

Attention science buffs, are the following statements true or false?

A 17th century Moroccan sultan had 888 children in 30 years.

A study released Thursday is the second this year seeking to debunk a 1998-2013 "pause" in global warming, but other climate scientists insist the slowdown was real, even if not a game-changer.

When evidence of the apparent hiatus first emerged, it was seized upon by sceptics as evidence that climate change was driven more by natural cycles that humans pumping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

A tiny invisibility cloak has been invented by U.S. scientists who are edging ever-closer to a real version of what has until now been a staple of science fiction, researchers said Thursday.

The cloak, described in the journal Science, is microscopic in size but could conceivably be scaled up in the future, according to physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley.