The Associated Press

Across the world, groups of activists, teachers and psychologists are tackling one of the world’s most daunting problems — human-caused climate change — with laughter, dancing, hugs and most especially joy.

Watch a cow enjoy a dip in the River Thames in an English town on the edge of the Cotswolds.

Wildfires burning across the southeastern U.S. were intensifying today. Some of the biggest blazes are along Georgia’s coast and around Jacksonville, Florida, a state that is facing one of its worst fire seasons in decades. In South Florida, a large fire was burning in the Everglades west of Broward County on Wednesday. It was not yet clear how the wildfires started, but a long drought, low humidity and strong winds were fueling them.

Asian elephant calf Linh Mai made her public debut Wednesday at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute in Washington, D.C. She is the first elephant calf born at the zoo in 25 years.

Virginia voters approved a mid-decade redistricting plan on Tuesday that could boost Democrats’ chances of winning four additional U.S. House seats in November’s midterm elections that will decide control of the closely divided Congress.

Large chunks of ice have rammed into homes along Michigan's Black Lake in the northeastern Lower Peninsula as constant spring rainfall and winter melt have flooded homes and threatened to overflow stressed dam systems.

Did you know the war in Iran could raise the prices of some of your favourite everyday items? Spiking oil prices have been the biggest impact on those outside the conflict zone so far. But oil isn’t just for fuel, it also goes into making lots of other consumer products.

It might be hard to imagine the Iran war weighing on stuffed toys with names like Snuggle Glove, Bizzikins and Wobblies, but even plush playthings are not immune when oil shipments from the Middle East are constrained. Like many soft toys, the creatures developed by a manufacturer in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are made with polyester and acrylic, synthetic fibers derived from petroleum. Three weeks after the war started, suppliers in China notified Aleni Brands that getting the materials already was costing them 10% to 15% more, CEO Ricardo Venegas said. “I think this situation demonstrates how much oil permeates throughout our system, and we can’t get away from it,” said Venegas, who founded Aleni Brands last year and is in the process of adding product lines. “Who would have thought that the price of a toy would have a direct relationship with oil?” It’s not just toys. Petrochemicals derived from oil and natural gas go into making more than 6,000 consumer products, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. Computer keyboards, lipstick, tennis rackets, pajamas, soft contact lenses, detergent, chewing gum, shoes, crayons, shaving cream, pillows, aspirin, dentures, tape, umbrellas and nylon guitar strings are just a few of them. My story. The Associated Press

Here's a story for The Associated Press on a robot that plays table tennis so well that it is sometimes defeating elite human players. I talked with the AI researchers at Japanese electronics giant Sony who built the robotic arm, pitted it against professional athletes and authored a study published today in the journal Nature. I also checked in with John Billingsley who authored the pioneering "Robot Ping-Pong" paper in Practical Computing in 1983. https://lnkd.in/eNpVUazv h/t colleagues Javier Arciga and Yuri Kageyama

End of an era for Apple CEO Tim Cook, who said this week he's going to step down and anointed his successor, hardware guy John Ternus. Here's my story for The Associated Press on Ternus, who has kept a low profile -- until now. Thanks to Ben Wood for his trenchant insights as always. https://lnkd.in/eDqJbaeT (And always a nice surprise to see it in the @theglobeandmail, where I used to work a million years ago: https://lnkd.in/en7m5Rks