Environmental groups on Tuesday asked a federal court in Alaska to stop the Trump administration's plans to sell oil drilling leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge next month.

Many of the world's biggest lenders to shipping companies fell short of carbon-cutting targets last year in the first analysis of CO2 goals for the sector by financiers, a report showed on Wednesday.

A ban on new oil and gas drilling leases on federal lands would cost eight Western states $8.1 billion in tax revenue and $34.1 billion in investment in the next five years, according to a study released on Tuesday by the state of Wyoming.

President-elect Joe Biden is expected as soon as this week to name members of his core team to overhaul U.S. energy and environment policy to fight climate change, with a goal of bringing the economy to net-zero emissions by 2050.

(Reuters) -Up to two feet (60 cm) of snow, blustery winds and freezing rain are expected to make travel treacherous and cause power outages on the U.S. East Coast this week when the first winter storm of the season sweeps through, forecasters said on Tuesday.

About 110 million years ago along the shores of an ancient lagoon in what is now northeastern Brazil, a two-legged chicken-sized Cretaceous Period dinosaur made a living hunting insects and perhaps small vertebrates like frogs and lizards.

Monarch butterflies deserve federal protection under the Endangered Species Act, President Donald Trump's administration said on Tuesday, but the black-and-orange insects must wait in line behind 161 other species facing more imminent threats.

Setting 2020 as a cut-off date to ban new deforestation and land conversion for soybean areas in Brazil's Cerrado savanna is not feasible, André Nassar, head of the country's oilseeds crushers' group, Abiove, said on Tuesday.

Companies including Tesco, Walmart, Unilever and McDonald's on Tuesday said they had urged major commodities traders to stop dealing in soy linked to deforestation in Brazil’s Cerrado, a vast savanna region and vital carbon storehouse.

A scientific expedition high in the Bolivian Andes revealed 20 species new to science, including "lilliputian frog" plus four rediscovered species including the "devil-eyed frog" previously thought to be extinct, Conservation International said.