Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco have developed a cheap, potent aerosol antiviral against SARS-CoV-2 inspired by “nanobodies,” antibody-like immune proteins that occur naturally in llamas. 

The EPA authorizes nootkatone, a nontoxic oil found in cedar trees and grapefruit, as a repellent against mosquitoes, ticks, bedbugs, and fleas. 

The number of COVID-19 cases in the United States passes 5 million. Officially, 166,600 people have died, although the real number may be more than 200,000. 

A federal judge overturns the Trump administration’s radical reinterpretation of the Migratory Bird Act, once again making industry liable for the “incidental” killing of birds from oil spills, electrocutions, and other industrial activity. 

Trump’s EPA rolls back Obama-era regulations on methane, a powerful climate-changing gas.  

Trump’s Energy Department proposes weakening water-efficiency standards for showerheads after the president complains that low-flow nozzles make it hard for him to wash his hair. 

Trump denies that his aides inquired about how his face might be added to Mt. Rushmore, but nevertheless calls it “a good idea.”  

Every Senate Democrat signs a letter opposing Trump’s nomination of anti–public lands activist William Perry Pendley as director of the Bureau of Land Management.  

Denmark builds a 43-mile fence on its border with Germany to keep out wild boars.  

A Japanese oil tanker hits a reef off the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius, spilling a large amount of oil into its pristine waters. 

The past decade was the hottest in human history. 

In the United States, electric power generation from coal in the first half of 2020 was down 30 percent over the first half of 2019. Renewable power was up 5 percent.  

The Indian government of Narendra Modi puts up for auction 40 new coalfields, many of them in ecologically sensitive native forests. 

Over the course of two days, the Milne Ice Shelf, an area larger than Manhattan on the north coast of Ellesmere Island in the Canadian Arctic, collapses. Satellite photos here.  

Residents of Italy’s Val d’Aosta are evacuated because of the threatened collapse of the Planpincieux Glacier on Mont Blanc. 

Japan’s population of 124 million declines for the 11th consecutive year. 

Three people in southern Mexico attempting to smuggle two howler monkeys in a suitcase are apprehended when the monkeys start to howl.