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Japan to Start Building Underground Ice Wall at Fukushima

Japan will on Monday start constructing an underground ice wall at the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant, freezing the soil under broken reactors to slow the build-up of radioactive water, officials said.

The wall is intended to block groundwater from nearby hillsides that has been flowing under the plant and mixing with polluted water already there.

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U.S. to seek 30-percent emissions cut

The U.S. government will propose a rule Monday requiring power plants to cut by 30 percent carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 based on 2005 levels, U.S. media reported Sunday.

The Wall Street Journal cited people briefed on the rule as saying the Environmental Protection Agency's draft measure was due to be completed within a year.

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Amazon Ruins await Adventurous World Cup Visitors

If Hollywood were to set a psychological thriller in the Amazon rainforest, the haunting Paricatuba Ruins would be the perfect backdrop.

Massive root structures poke through the foundations of the once-stately neo-classical edifice, across the Rio Negro from the jungle metropolis of Manaus, one of the cities set to host World Cup matches.

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Decades-Old Photos Emerge of Apollo Training

Before Apollo astronauts went to the moon, they went to Hawaii to train on the Big Island's lunar landscapes.

Now, decades-old photos are surfacing of astronauts scooping up Hawaii's soil and riding across volcanic fields in a "moon buggy" vehicle.

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Norway Removes Greenpeace Ship from Contested Arctic Drill Site

Norwegian coastguards on Friday removed a Greenpeace ship from a controversial Arctic drilling site where it was trying to prevent oil explorations, the environmentalist group said.

"We are appalled by Norway’s decision to end a peaceful and legal protest," Greenpeace activist Sune Scheller said in a statement.

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Be Prepared for Hurricanes, Despite Calm Forecast, NOAA Warns

Despite the quiet forecast for this year's hurricane season, the director of the Miami-based National Hurricane Center warned Thursday not to let guards down completely.

Rick Knabb, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's NHC, emphasized that even a single storm that hits land can have a huge impact.

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Virgin Space Flights Cleared for U.S. Take-Off

Richard Branson's dream of commercial space flights took a step nearer reality after Virgin Galactic signed a deal with U.S. aviation authorities to let it blast paying customers into space, the company said Thursday.

The agreement with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) sets out how routine space missions from the Spaceport America base in the U.S. state of New Mexico will be coordinated with the normal air traffic control system.

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Paris Mayor: Major Cities Must Unite against Climate Change

Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo urged the world's major cities Thursday to unite in the fight against climate change.

Stressing that half the world's population is now urbanized, she noted that cities are already responsible for 80 percent of greenhouse gas emissions and the consumption of three quarters of Earth's energy resources.

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SpaceX Unveils Capsule to Ferry Astronauts to Space

A sleek, white gumdrop-shaped space capsule that aims to carry up to seven astronauts to the International Space Station and return to land anywhere on Earth was unveiled Thursday by SpaceX.

The Dragon V2, short for version two, is the first attempt by a private company to restore Americans' ability to send people to the orbiting space station in the wake of the space shuttle program's retirement in 2011.

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Russian, German and U.S. Astronauts Dock with ISS

A crew of Russian, German and U.S. astronauts docked with the International Space Station Thursday as space cooperation between Moscow and the West continues despite their worst standoff since the Cold War.

"At 5:44 am Moscow time (01:44 GMT), the manned Soyuz TMA-13M spacecraft docked successfully with the ISS," the Russian space agency Roskosmos said in a statement.

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