In the scorching heat, Felipe Elvira inspects the branches of his olive trees, planted as far as the eye can see on a dusty hillside in southern Spain.. - Olive dependence - Olive oil has been an essential part of the Mediterranean diet for thousands of years and olive trees cover many hillsides in southern Spain, which are often unsuitable for other crops.
Local authorities hunting for a gang of monkeys who attacked and wounded nearly 50 people in western Japan have caught and killed one of the marauding primates, an official said Wednesday.. On Tuesday evening, specially commissioned hunters shot the monkey with a tranquiliser gun and eventually caught it near a lake on the school premises, an official at the local agricultural department told AFP. After identifying it as the same animal responsible for one of the attacks, the monkey was put down, he said.
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake hit the northern Philippines Wednesday, the US Geological Survey said, shattering windows of buildings at the epicentre and shaking high-rise towers more than 300 kilometres (185 miles) away in the capital Manila. . In 1990, a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the northern Philippines created a ground rupture stretching over a hundred kilometres.
The jacket worn by US astronaut Buzz Aldrin during his 1969 flight to the Moon aboard Apollo 11 was sold at auction for $2.7 million in New York Tuesday, Sotheby's announced.. In total, the New York auction garnered $8.2 million for 68 items sold out of the 69 offered, including $819,000 for a flight plan. arb/caw/jh
An animal market in China's Wuhan really was the epicenter of the Covid pandemic, according to a pair of new studies in the journal Science published Tuesday that claimed to have tipped the balance in the debate about the virus' origins.. This required neighborhood-level study within Wuhan to be more certain the virus was "zoonotic" -- that it jumped from animals to people.
More human remains have been found at a lake near Las Vegas, officials said, months after the rapidly receding waters of drought-hit Lake Mead revealed the corpse of a long-submerged mob victim.. A historic drought that is gripping much of the western United States is putting a strain on water sources, with reservoirs and lakes falling to unprecedently low levels.
Firefighters made progress battling California's largest wildfire of the summer on Tuesday, with more than one-quarter of the blaze near Yosemite National Park contained.. By Tuesday, nearly 3,000 firefighters and 24 helicopters at the scene had achieved some success containing the blaze, aided by slightly higher humidity levels, which are forecasted to increase further in the coming days.
From farmers to fishermen, boat owners to ordinary households, communities across France are struggling with a severe drought that has seen an unprecedented number of regions affected by water restrictions this summer.. "We have a record number of departments with restrictions," the environment ministry said in a statement, saying that 90 of the 96 administrative regions known as departments were affected.
Russia said on Tuesday it was leaving the International Space Station "after 2024", amid tensions with the West, in a move analysts warned could lead to a halt to manned flights.. Space experts said the departure from the International Space Station would seriously affect the country's space sector and deal a major blow to the programme of manned flights, a major source of Russian pride.
Chemicals leaking from plastic waste make bacteria grow faster in European lakes, according to research published Tuesday that authors said could provide a natural way to remove plastic pollution from freshwater ecosystems.. It showed that bacteria were better at removing plastic pollution in lakes with fewer unique natural carbon compounds because there were fewer natural food sources.
