A “rogue slug” in a transformer brings the train system of the Japanese island of Kyushu to a halt. 

Two large pyrotechnic companies seeking to avoid 25 percent tariffs from the Trump administration are donating fireworks to the National Park Service’s Fourth of July celebration in Washington, DC.

Vice President Mike Pence refuses to say whether climate change is a threat to the United States.

Republican members of Oregon’s state senate flee the state, protected by right-wing militias, in order to forestall a vote on an ambitious cap-and-trade climate plan. The plan works and Oregon Democrats drop the bill. 

Wildlife authorities on the French island of Corsica identify what may be a new species of feline, known locally as chat-renard, or cat-fox.

Narwhals can interbreed with belugas. 

At California’s Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, an “avian incident” involving a bird flying into two wires and creating an electrical arc leads to a fire that knocks out 84 percent of the plant’s generating capacity, costing up to $9 million and burning more than 1,100 acres. 

Leaked vetting documents from the Trump administration’s transition team show that Scott Pruitt, Trump’s first administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, was flagged for "allegations of coziness with big energy companies."

Bill Wehrum, the top EPA official who oversaw the coal-friendly replacement for the Obama-era Clean Power Plan, resigns after agency documents obtained by the Sierra Club (through the Freedom of Information Act) showed that while at the EPA he had continued to meet privately with electric utilities represented by his former law firm. 

The EPA expands the power of political appointees to limit or deny FOIA requests. The Sierra Club vows to challenge the new regulations.  

Thirty-six train cars full of coal derail and spill into Virginia’s Great Dismal Swamp. 

Waste piles of coal from abandoned coal mines in Utah, ignited by wildfire a year ago, are still burning. 

A thousand German climate activists occupy the Garzweiler coal mine.

A Kenyan court blocks construction of a coal-fired power plant at Lamu, a World Heritage Site. 

A new report finds that African Americans in California are exposed to 43 percent more air pollution from vehicles than European Americans, and Latinos 39 percent more.  

The House of Representatives blocks funding for new oil drilling off the California coast that the Trump administration wanted to pursue. 

General Electric will demolish a large, 750-megawatt gas-fired power plant in Southern California 20 years early because it cannot economically compete with wind and solar.  

Hawaii okays the controversial Thirty Meter Telescope atop Mauna Kea, a mountain considered sacred by some Native Hawaiians.  

Giraffes hum, but only at night. 

Residents of the far-northern Norwegian island of Sommaroy, where the sun doesn’t set for 69 days during the summer, want to abolish time.