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By Dan Levine and Noel Randewich SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A judge blocked one of California's signature attempts to lower greenhouse gas emissions, a victory for out-of-state ethanol producers and refiners that has California's air quality board vowing to appeal.

SAN FRANCISCO -- Sixteen thousand years ago, woolly mammoths , Beringian lions and short-faced bears roamed a grassy steppe that stretched across North America into Alaska. [More]

SAN FRANCISCO -- The United States was battered this year by at least 12 natural disasters that each caused at least $1 billion in damages , the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday. [More]

SAN FRANCISCO The public at times questions scientific results produced by government agencies, thinking that the findings may be meant to support particular political policies or positions or to deflect criticism of those policies. Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) released a formal scientific integrity policy yesterday that is intended to combat that cynicism

SAN FRANCISCO A mantra that has driven global negotiations on carbon dioxide emissions for years has been that policy-makers must prevent warming of more than two degrees Celsius to prevent apocalyptic climate outcomes. And, two degrees has been a point of no return, a limit directly or indirectly agreed to by negotiators at international climate talks. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, whose data since the 1980s has been central to setting that benchmark, said today that two degrees is too much.

SAN FRANCISCO - To get a glimpse of the future , look to East Africa today. [More]

SAN FRANCISCO How will ubiquitous connectivity and social media change everything? That, in short, was what a number of luminaries in the tech world addressed yesterday at the GigaOM roadmap conference

By Jim Forsyth SAN ANTONIO (Reuters) - Trees falling on power lines caused a massive, record-breaking wildfire that destroyed nearly 1,600 homes in Central Texas, the Texas Forest Service reported on Tuesday. [More]

By Emmett Berg SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Rising seas forecast from climate change will likely wash away some of California's most iconic beaches by century's end, along with hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate, roads and tax revenues, a new study found on Wednesday. [More]

By Darya Korsunskaya and Braden Reddall SOCHI, Russia/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp and Rosneft signed an agreement to extract oil and gas from the Russian Arctic, in the most significant U.S.-Russian corporate deal since President Barack Obama began a push to improve ties. [More]

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Reuters) - Hurricane Irene buffeted Puerto Rico with winds and torrential rain on Monday, knocking out power and downing trees as it churned westward on a track that will threaten Florida by the end of the week. Local media in the U.S. Caribbean territory reported that about 600 people took refuge in shelters, and electricity was knocked out across half of the island, including the capital, San Juan, affecting some 800,000 people.

SAN FRANCISCO -- A giant tidal barrier stretched across the Golden Gate is among the adaptation remedies proposed by a Bay area nonprofit to cope with anticipated sea level rise caused by climate change over the coming century.