After Amazon protests, Pentagon reconsiders $10 billion Microsoft contract
The Pentagon is reconsidering its awarding of a major cloud computing contract to Microsoft after rival tech giant Amazon protested what it called a flawed bidding process. U.S. government lawyers said in a court filing this past week that the Defense Department "wishes to reconsider ...
Close to tipping point, Amazon forest could collapse within 50 years
The Amazon rainforest is nearing a threshold that, once crossed, would see one of the world's largest and richest ecosystems morph into arid savanna within half a century, scientists said Tuesday. Another major ecosystem, Caribbean coral reefs, could die off in only 15 years if ...
Tech firms can track your COVID-19 searches
Facebook, Google, Amazon and others have their fingers on the pulse of public sentiment about the coronavirus.
Deforestation in the Amazon rainforest in Brazil more than doubled in January compared with the previous year, according to official data published Friday. More than 280 square kilometers (110 square miles) were cleared, an increase of 108 percent. It was the largest area cleared in ...
The Amazon river dolphin is an intelligent and friendly mammal that appears to grin and flush like a human blushing when it gets excited. But some are concerned about the world's largest freshwater dolphin coming under threat again in Brazil, where fishermen hunt and kill ...
Indigenous Peruvians win suit to block oil exploration in their Amazon region
A Peruvian judge ruled that the government exclude an indigenous region of the Amazon near the border with Brazil from any oil exploration and exploitation, a legal group said on Wednesday, in a win for native communities that have long fought against oil and ...
Comcast's Peacock streaming service to offer free and $5- or $10-a-month options
Comcast Corp.-owned NBCUniversal's new Peacock service, its belated entry into the streaming video wars, will offer free and $5-per-month options with advertising, the company announced on Thursday. Customers who want to avoid all advertising can pay $10 per month, NBCUniversal said in a statement released ...
In climate push, Microsoft to erase its carbon footprint from atmosphere
Microsoft Corp. said on Thursday it aims to remove more carbon from the atmosphere than it emits by 2030 and that by 2050, it hopes to have taken out enough to account for all the direct emissions the company has ever made. The focus on ...
Ex-Pope Benedict rejects opening up priesthood to married men
Former Pope Benedict XVI has publicly urged his successor, Pope Francis, not to open the Catholic priesthood up to married men, in a plea that Sunday stunned Vatican experts. The ex-pontiff, who retired in 2013, issued the defense of clerical celibacy in a book written ...
Brazilian government may open up indigenous lands for oil and gas exploration
The Brazilian government will propose legalizing oil and gas exploration as well as hydroelectric dam construction on indigenous land, a report said Saturday, citing a draft of a bill to be sent to Congress. Opening up protected native territory was a key campaign pledge for ...
The number of fires in the Amazon rainforest grew 30.5 percent in 2019 from the previous year, according to data released by space research agency INPE on Wednesday. According to INPE, the number of fires detected in the Amazon region was 89,178 in 2019, compared ...
Paris and Washington have set a two-week deadline to end a row over a French proposal to tax multinational tech giants, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said Tuesday. President Donald Trump last month unveiled sky-high retaliatory duties on $2.4 billion of French products from ...
