Announcement comes as new report from Statistics Canada shows almost two million more Canadians have lost their jobs

Kevin Carmichael: There is little evidence that Canada’s version of Big Oil is ready for the medicine that was force-fed to GM and Chrysler a decade ago

Roughly three million jobs have been lost over the past two months, the steepest consecutive monthly declines in employment ever recorded

The UFC comeback event on Saturday will feature one less match up after middleweight fighter Jacaré Souza tested positive for coronavirus. 

Little Richard, the singer of hits "Tutti Frutti" and "Good Golly Miss Molly" has died, according to a report.

America can take its next steps toward reopening by placing an emphasis on emerging health data and closely examining how early states are performing, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Dr. Ben Carson asserted Saturday.

Though recreation on public lands creates $646bn in economic stimulus and 6.1m jobs, Republicans are setting in motion a giveaway of Americans’ birthright

• Update: Republicans back off bill to sell public land after outcry

In the midst of highly publicized steps to dismantle insurance coverage for 32 million people and defund women’s healthcare facilities, Republican lawmakers have quietly laid the foundation to give away Americans’ birthright: 640m acres of national land. In a single line of changes to the rules for the House of Representatives, Republicans have overwritten the value of federal lands, easing the path to disposing of federal property even if doing so loses money for the government and provides no demonstrable compensation to American citizens.

At stake are areas managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), National Forests and Federal Wildlife Refuges, which contribute to an estimated $646bn each year in economic stimulus from recreation on public lands and 6.1m jobs. Transferring these lands to the states, critics fear, could decimate those numbers by eliminating mixed-use requirements, limiting public access and turning over large portions for energy or property development.

Planet of the Humans film has had 5m views on YouTube and has enraged renewable energy experts who are demanding an apology

Planet of the Humans is an environmental documentary that has enraged renewable energy experts and environmentalists, with some calling for its high-profile executive producer, Michael Moore, to apologise.

It was released for free less than two weeks ago, and at the time of writing had had close to 5m views on YouTube.

El confinamiento y la caída del precio del petróleo ponen en juego el futuro de un enorme yacimiento petrolífero argentino

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En las próximas semanas, se esclarecerá si el mundo vuelve a los combustibles fósiles tras la pandemia o si da un paso adelante hacia una economía limpia, mientras el FMI (Fondo Monetario Internacional) y Argentina deciden si van a continuar ofreciendo su apoyo a los inmensos yacimientos de petróleo y gas de Vaca Muerta, en Patagonia.

El objetivo del proyecto es explotar el segundo depósito más grande de esquisto del planeta (después de la Cuenca Pérmica, en Texas), pero su futuro es incierto debido al confinamiento forzoso provocado por COVID-19, que ha causado el descenso más drástico en el precio del crudo de los últimos treinta años.

The oil industry saw its opening and moved with breathtaking speed to take advantage of this moment

I’m going to tell you the single worst story I’ve heard in these past few horrid months, a story that combines naked greed, political influence peddling, a willingness to endanger innocent human beings, utter blindness to one of the greatest calamities in human history and a complete disregard for the next crisis aiming for our planet. I’m going to try to stay calm enough to tell it properly, but I confess it’s hard.

The background: a decade ago, beginning with indigenous activists in Canada and farmers and ranchers in the American west and midwest, opposition began to something called the Keystone XL pipeline, designed to carry filthy tar sands oil from the Canadian province of Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico. It quickly became a flashpoint for the fast-growing climate movement, especially after Nasa scientist James Hansen explained that draining those tar sands deposits would be “game over” for the climate system. And so thousands went to jail and millions rallied and eventually Barack Obama bent to that pressure and blocked the pipeline. Donald Trump, days after taking office, reversed that decision, but the pipeline has never been built, both because its builder, TC Energy, has had trouble arranging the financing and permits, and because 30,000 people have trained to do nonviolent civil disobedience to block construction. It’s been widely assumed that, should a Democrat win the White House in November, the project would finally be gone for good.

Campaigners welcomed Wednesday’s ruling as a victory for tribal rights and environmental protection

The controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline has been dealt a major setback, after a judge revoked a key permit issued by the US army corps of engineers without properly assessing the impact on endangered species.

In a legal challenge brought by a coalition of environmental groups, a federal judge in Montana ordered the army corps to suspend all filling and dredging activities until it conducts formal consultations compliant with the Endangered Species Act.

Lawsuits are pending from groups who have challenged the constitutionality of shrinking Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante

Plans finalized on Thursday for two national monuments in Utah downsized by Donald Trump would ensure that lands previously off-limits to energy development will be open to mining and drilling.

The move comes despite pending lawsuits from conservation, tribal and paleontology groups, who have challenged the constitutionality of the president’s action. The Trump administration slashed the size of Bears Ears national monument by 85% and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monument by nearly half in December 2017, in what represented the largest elimination of public lands protections in US history.

Conservation groups criticized the Trump administration on Thursday for spending time on management plans they believe will become moot when the court sides with their assertion that Trump misused the Antiquities Act to reverse decisions by previous presidents.

Conservation groups are fighting the creation of 3,500 gas wells in Wyoming that threaten a 170-mile path

The Path of the Pronghorn is a 170-mile migration route that the antelope-like creatures have traveled annually for 6,000 years. It is one of North America’s last remaining long-distance terrestrial migration corridors.

And it is at risk. This week conservation groups filed a legal petition challenging the Trump administration’s plan to allow 3,500 new gas wells in south-western Wyoming that would block the route.

Wildlife conservation efforts are essential to preventing outbreaks, scientists and advocates say

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For more than five years, wildlife conservationists in the US have been clamoring for the government to provide Endangered Species Act protections to pangolins, a group of imperiled ant-eating mammals that are widely, and often illicitly, trafficked for their scales and meat. The Trump administration, however, has refused to act and that refusal has suddenly taken on grave new implications.

Earlier this year, scientists in China identified pangolins, along with bats, as one of the possible animal hosts involved in the transmission of the deadly coronavirus from wildlife to humans.

Hundreds of workers pass through Ajo, Arizona, daily. Residents say they have been partying and visiting stores in large groups

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Unlike the rest of the US, the sleepy border community of Ajo, Arizona, is busier than ever these days, as hundreds of border wall construction workers pass through each day.

“The rest of us are staying at home just the way the governor has ordered,” said Susan Guinn-Lahm, an Ajo resident in her 60s. “We’re taking this seriously. They are not.”

Planned sale of land to fossil fuel, mining and and timber concerns mirrors rollback of Obama-era pollution regulations

The Trump administration has ratcheted up its efforts amid the coronavirus pandemic to overhaul and overturn Obama-era environmental regulations and increase industry access to public lands.

The secretary of the interior, David Bernhardt, has sped efforts to drill, mine and cut timber on fragile western landscapes. Meanwhile, the EPA, headed by the former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, has weakened critical environmental laws and announced in March that it would cease oversight of the nation’s polluters during the Covid-19 crisis.

Crowds are coming to see the light show as beaches begin to reopen after an almost month-long closure due to coronavirus

Mother nature has provided a radical gift to nighttime beach-goers in southern California, in the form of bioluminescent waves that crash and froth with an otherworldly light.

Related: California surf shimmers with bioluminescence – in pictures

Canadian Football League Commissioner Randy Ambrosie said the most likely scenario is to cancel the season because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Mike Storen, a former ABA commissioner and multisport marketing whiz and the father of ESPN broadcaster Hannah Storm, died Thursday. He was 84.

The Washington Capitals announced Friday that forward Brendan Leipsic was placed on unconditional waivers after his private messages were leaked on social media Wednesday.

The UFC comeback event on Saturday will feature one less match up after middleweight fighter Jacaré Souza tested positive for coronavirus. 

Over time, trash that has been floating in the ocean gets covered in algae and other micro-organisms

The newly launched #SmithsonianEdu campaign highlights 1.7 million online tools geared specifically toward students and teachers

In a famous 1970 teach-in demonstration, prosecutors hammered away at the nation’s most powerful defendant

The outbreak, and the travel bans and fears that come with it, have endangered long-running research projects

Past public health crises inspired innovations in infrastructure, education, fundraising and civic debate

One detects an active infection; another signals that the virus has already left the body. Both are critical for tracking the spread of disease

False information about the pandemic is rampant; here’s how experts say you can identify what news to trust and what might be faulty

Fossil teeth uncovered in Peru reveal that an extinct family of primates, thought to have lived only in Africa, made it across the ocean

The Smithsonian's Earth Optimism Summit will now stream online starting this Earth Day; tune in and be inspired

As a biological anthropologist focused on health, diseases are part of Sabrina Sholts' specialty

An American doctor operating out of Philadelphia made clinical observations that where patients lived, not how they lived, was at the root of the problem

The story of what will happen in the coming decades and centuries is written in the geologic past

The two-day virtual event will bring scientists and many other experts to highlight success stories in conservation

Marine biologist Cristina Mittermeier discovered that visual storytelling, rather than data sets, allowed her to be a better advocate for the ocean

Meet the hugely influential polymath, who foretold of climate change and inspired artists, writers and even the founder of the Smithsonian

Researchers analyzed patient data from 10 countries. The team found a correlation between low vitamin D levels and hyperactive immune systems. Vitamin D strengths innate immunity and prevents overactive immune responses. The finding could explain several mysteries, including why children are unlikely to die from COVID-19.

The geologic record is exactly that: a record. The strata of rock tell scientists about past environments, much like pages in an encyclopedia. Except this reference book has more pages missing than it has remaining. So geologists are tasked not only with understanding what is there, but also with figuring out what's not, and where it went.

A new study has found an association between low average levels of vitamin D and high numbers of COVID-19 cases and mortality rates across 20 European countries.

A new method for reliably identifying the presence of beer or other malted foodstuffs in archaeological finds is described in a new study.

Data centres and digital information processors are reaching their capacity limits and producing heat. Foundational work here on optical-acoustic microchips opens door to low-heat, low-energy, fast internet.

New modeling of coronavirus behavior suggests that an intervention strategy based on shield immunity could reduce the risk of allowing the higher levels of human interaction needed to support expanded economic activity.

In physics, thermalization, or the trend of sub-systems within a whole to gain a common temperature, is typically the norm. There are situations, however, where thermalization is slowed down or virtually suppressed; examples are when considering the dynamics of electron and nuclear spins in solids. Understanding why this happens and how it can be controlled is presently at the center of a broad effort, particularly for applications in the emerging field of quantum information technologies.

Olanzapine, a generic drug used to treat nervous, emotional and mental conditions, also may help patients with advanced cancer successfully manage nausea and vomiting unrelated to chemotherapy.

Scientists have developed a method that combines different resolution levels in a computer simulation of biological membranes. Their algorithm backmaps a large-scale model that includes features, such as membrane curvature, to its corresponding coarse-grained molecular model. This has allowed them to zoom in on toxin-induced membrane budding and to simulate a full-sized mitochondrial lipid membrane. Their approach opens the way to whole-cell simulations at a molecular level.

Scientists have successfully developed a new technique to reliably grow crystals of organic soluble molecules from nanoscale droplets, unlocking the potential of accelerated new drug development.

Hematopoietic stem cells from a healthy donor can help patients suffering from acute leukemia. However, the side effects of therapies are often severe. Researchers have now shown how human healthy and cancerous hematopoietic stem cells can be more selectively eliminated using immunotherapy instead of chemotherapy in mice. The aim is to test the new immunotherapy in humans as soon as possible.

A research team has good news for patients with copper-deficiency disorders, especially young children diagnosed with Menkes disease.

Researchers have used a microbiome 'fingerprint' method to report that an individualized mosaic of microbial strains is transmitted to the infant gut microbiome from a mother giving birth through vaginal delivery. They detailed this transmission by analyzing existing metagenomic databases of fecal samples from mother-infant pairs, as well as analyzing mouse dam and pup transmission in a germ-free, or gnotobiotic, mouse model, where the dams were inoculated with human fecal microbes.

What hasn't changed much in the past two month and may not change by the fall is the political fortunes of the NDP and Sask. Party.