BISMARCK, N.D. — A federal judge on Wednesday found the state of North Dakota entitled to nearly $28 million for responding to protests of the Dakota Access oil pipeline in 2016 and 2017 — a win for the state in its multiyear effort to recoup the costs from the federal government.

The state filed the lawsuit in 2019, seeking $38 million for policing the protests. The sometimes-chaotic demonstrations drew international attention for the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s opposition to the pipeline’s Missouri River crossing upstream of the tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline, fearing an oil spill polluting its water supply.

A trial played out over several weeks in early 2024 in federal court in Bismarck, the state capital. People who testified included former North Dakota governors Doug Burgum, who took office in December 2016 during the protests’ height, and Jack Dalrymple, whose administration responded to the protests’ early months.

U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor found the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers liable to the state on all claims and for more than $27.8 million in damages.

The judge wrote: “The bottom line: United States had a mandatory procedure, it did not follow that procedure, and harm occurred to the state of North Dakota. The law allows reimbursement for this harm. More than that, the rule of law requires this Court to hold the United States liable to remind it of its role in the larger picture of ensuring peace, not chaos.”

Thousands of people camped and demonstrated against the pipeline near the crossing for months. Hundreds of arrests resulted. Sometimes-violent clashes occurred between protesters and law enforcement officers. Law enforcement officers from around the state and region responded to the protests.

“It was a violent, unlawful protest. And ‘protest’ is a gentle word,” North Dakota Attorney Drew Wrigley said last year before trial.

The protest camps were cleared in February 2017. An attorney for the state said the protests ended in a response of more than seven months involving 178 agencies, resulting in 761 arrests and requiring four days of cleanup of the camp to remove millions of pounds of trash.

“Although the unlawful protest was burgeoning before everyone’s eyes and the damages and dangers were so apparent, the federal government refused to offer assistance and enforce the legal obligations on the people who were encamped,” Wrigley said.

Attorneys for the government said at trial that U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials “acted reasonably given limited options at their disposal” during the protests, and that the state’s claim is “greatly overstated.” The government asked the judge to find a lack of legal jurisdiction for the state’s claims, that the state hasn’t proven its claims and is not entitled to damages.

The pipeline has been transporting oil since June 2017. Many state government officials and industry leaders support the pipeline as crucial infrastructure in the country’s No. 3 oil-producing state. The pipeline carries roughly 5% of the United States’ daily oil production.

In 2017, the pipeline company, Energy Transfer, donated $15 million to help cover the response costs. That same year, the U.S. Justice Department gave a $10 million grant to the state for reimbursing the response. It wasn’t immediately clear how that amount affected the damages.

Then-President Donald Trump denied a 2017 request from the state for the federal government to cover the costs through a disaster declaration.

The pipeline is operating while a court-ordered environmental review of the river crossing is carried out.

A North Dakota jury recently found Greenpeace liable for defamation and other claims brought by the pipeline’s builder in connection with protest activities, with damages surpassing $660 million for three Greenpeace organizations.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers on Monday urged the Trump administration to scrap plans to kill more than 450,000 invasive barred owls in West Coast forests as part of efforts to stop the birds from crowding out a smaller type of owl that’s facing potential extinction.

The 19 lawmakers — led by Republican Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas conservative, and Democrat Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, a California liberal — claimed the killings would be “grossly expensive” and cost $3,000 per bird.

They questioned if the shootings would help native populations of northern spotted owls, which have long been controversial because of logging restrictions in the birds’ forest habitat beginning in the 1990s, and the closely related California spotted owl.

Barred owls are native to eastern North America and started appearing in the Pacific Northwest in the 1970s. They’ve quickly displaced many spotted owls, which are smaller birds that need larger territories to breed.

An estimated 100,000 barred owls now live within a range that contains only about 7,100 spotted owls, according to federal officials.

Under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plan approved last year, trained shooters would target barred owls over 30 years across a maximum of about 23,000 square miles (60,000 square kilometers) in California, Oregon and Washington.

The plan did not include a cost estimate. But the lawmakers said in a letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum that it could top $1.3 billion based on extrapolating costs from a grant awarded to the the Hoopa Valley Native American Tribe in California to kill up to 1,500 barred owls.

“This is an inappropriate and inefficient use of U.S. taxpayer dollars,” the lawmakers wrote. “This latest plan is an example of our federal government attempting to supersede nature and control environmental outcomes at great cost.”

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service spokesperson did not immediately respond to questions about the cost estimate and the owl removal program. The agency’s plan called for more than 2,400 barred owls to be removed this year and for that number to ramp up to more than 15,500 birds annually beginning in 2027.

Scientists for years have been shooting barred owls on an experimental basis and officials say the results show the strategy could halt spotted owl declines. As of last year, about 4,500 barred owls were killed on the West Coast by researchers since 2009.

Killing one bird species to save others has divided wildlife advocates and is reminiscent of past government efforts to save West Coast salmon by killing sea lions and cormorants. Or when, to preserve warblers, cowbirds that lay eggs in warbler nests were killed. The barred owl removals would be among the largest such effort to date involving birds of prey, researchers and wildlife advocates said.

Barred owls arrived in the Pacific Northwest via the Great Plains, where trees planted by settlers gave them a foothold, or via Canada’s boreal forests, which have become warmer and more hospitable as the climate changes, researchers said.

Their spread has undermined decades of spotted owl restoration efforts that previously focused on protecting forests where they live. That included logging restrictions under former President Bill Clinton that ignited bitter political fights and temporarily helped slow the spotted owl’s decline.

WASHINGTON — WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a lawsuit from Republican attorneys general in 19 states aimed at blocking climate change suits against the oil and gas industry from Democratic-led states.

The justices acted on an unusual Republican effort to file suit in the Supreme Court over the Democratic states’ use of their own state courts to sue fossil fuel companies for deceiving the public about the risks of their products contributing to climate change.

The Supreme Court typically hears only appeals, but the Constitution gives the court authority to hear original lawsuits states file against each other.

Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito said they would have allowed the lawsuit to proceed for now. The justices don’t have the discretion to reject the complaint at this stage, Thomas wrote in a dissent that did not deal with the merits of the claim.

The Republicans’ complaint, led by Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall, asserts that the Democratic states are trying to dictate national energy policy and will drive up the cost of energy across the country.

The Supreme Court also has so far turned away appeals by the energy companies seeking to get the justices involved in the issue.

The lawsuits filed by dozens of state and local governments allege that fossil fuel companies misled the public about how their products could contribute to the climate crisis. The lawsuits claim billions of dollars of damage from such things as severe storms, wildfires and rising sea levels.

The Republican action specifically sought to stop lawsuits brought by California, Connecticut, Minnesota, New Jersey and Rhode Island.

Only the federal government can regulate interstate gas emissions, and states have no power to apply their own laws to a global atmosphere that reaches well beyond their borders.

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RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina state Senate Republicans advanced a disaster recovery measure Tuesday to direct $533 million in additional spending to meet still-pressing needs from Hurricane Helene’s historic flooding and destruction last fall, but it also locates more relief funding for earlier storms.

The legislation that cleared the Senate’s budget-writing committee is wider in scope than a $500 million relief package approved unanimously last week by the House that focused on Helene’s destruction in western North Carolina.

Spending provisions within the Senate proposal locates an additional $217 million to complete lingering home construction projects for victims of Hurricanes Matthew in 2016 and Florence in 2018 in eastern North Carolina. The package also lays the groundwork to assist farmers who suffered agricultural losses last year — not just from Helene but also from drought and tornadoes.

“We feel that we need to move with urgency to get this bill across the finish line,” said Sen. Brent Jackson, a Senate Appropriations Committee chairman. “Citizens across all our 100 counties faced disasters in 2024.”

A Senate floor vote on the chamber’s bill was expected Wednesday. While House Republicans also are advancing agricultural assistance and Matthew and Florence relief in other measures, top House and Senate leaders later Tuesday said they believed they could agree upon a final supplemental disaster relief bill quickly — possibly by the end of the week — then send it to Democratic Gov. Josh Stein’s desk.

“Everybody wants the same thing — to get people help,” said state Rep. John Bell, who has been shepherding the House’s $500 million measure.

Last month, Stein offered his own $1.07 billion proposal for additional Helene relief. The amount would double the money already appropriated or made available by the General Assembly for Helene recovery activities since late last year. But GOP legislators seek to spend less now, saying they want to be careful about maximizing federal matching funds and avoiding mistakes after previous storms.

North Carolina state officials reported over 100 deaths from Helene, which caused a record $59.6 billion in damages and recovery needs. More than five months later, over 5,700 households in western counties are still receiving temporary housing assistance and more than 200 public roads in the region remain closed or just partially opened, according to state data.

Legislative leaders and Stein agree that more money will be allocated for Helene relief later this year in the state budget because the needs are so great, even with billions arriving from Washington.

“The underlying message I want to leave with people is we’re making progress but it’s just a start,” Stein said of Helene recovery at the monthly meeting of statewide elected officials earlier Tuesday. “This work is long term and it’s going to be hard, and we all have to be there together.”

Like the House legislation, the Senate proposal emphasizes repairs for damaged homes, private bridges and roads, assistance to farmers and rebuilding infrastructure adjacent to small businesses. The Senate plan omits a House provision that would allow $15 million to go to nonprofit organizations that could then offer grants to small businesses. Stein and fellow Democrats have pleaded for direct grants to help businesses already weighed down with loans.

The Senate plan does provide money — although not as much as Stein sought — for local school districts that closed for many weeks due to Helene to offer summer school instruction. The House plan left out the program.

Republican lawmakers have been angry with delays in the Florence and Matthew housing reconstruction program, which was created by then-Gov. Roy Cooper’s administration and funded with federal dollars.

While about 3,300 home construction projects have been completed through the state Office of Recovery and Resiliency, state funds are now needed to complete another 1,000 that remain in various stages of construction. Office leaders blamed the delays on the COVID-19 pandemic, rising construction costs, labor shortages and ultimately management mistakes. The agency’s chief operating officer left her job in November.

Both the Senate measure and a separate House bill also approved Tuesday in another committee provides the $217 million, but each bill requires significant monitoring and oversight requirements in how it’s spent. Language in both bills would ultimately shut down the Office of Recovery and Resiliency. Stein’s administration is handling Helene-related home reconstruction through a new agency.

Three tropical cyclones are spinning in the South Pacific, an occurrence that scientists say is unusual.

Tropical cyclones Rae, Seru and Alfred are all churning as the region is in the peak of a season that starts in November and ends in April.

The storms are called cyclones when they happen in the Southwest Pacific and hurricanes when they form in the North Atlantic, but are essentially the same phenomenon.

“It’s not incredibly unusual to have three hurricanes simultaneously in the month of September in the North Atlantic,” said Brian Tang, an atmospheric science professor at University at Albany. “Certainly it is a very busy period for the South Pacific and three tropical cyclones is a lot to happen at once, but not unprecedented.”

The last time three such storms occurred in the South Pacific was January 2021 when Lucas, Ana and Bina were churning simultaneously, though it’s not clear if Bina officially reached Category 1 status, Tang said.

Rae formed Friday north of Fiji and brought whipping winds and heavy rain that damaged fruit trees, according to local reports.

Alfred developed in the Coral Sea on Monday and is expected to bring flooding rains to the northeast Australia state of Queensland this weekend.

Seru became a cyclone on Tuesday and is expected to track near the island nation of Vanuatu but remain offshore.

Scientists say that’s hard to say, but any explanation starts with the high activity that’s usual this time of year.

Gabriel Vecchi, a climate scientist at Princeton University, noted evidence of what’s called a Madden–Julian Oscillation — a fluctuation in the atmosphere that results in a blob of rising air and rainfall that circles the globe and lasts for 30 days or longer. He said it seems to be tracking over the southwest Pacific in a way that could enhance cyclone activity.

“The atmosphere is chaotic. There’s a lot of natural fluctuation in it … we need to be open to the possibility that factors that are beyond our ability to predict might have led to these three cyclones at the same time,” said Vecchi.

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom has asked Congress to approve nearly $40 billion in aid to help the Los Angeles area recover from January’s devastating wildfires, which he said could become the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

Newsom sent a letter Friday asking for support from lawmakers including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the House Appropriations Committee chair.

“Los Angeles is one of the most economically productive places on the globe, but it can only rebound and flourish with support from the federal government as it recovers from this unprecedented disaster,” Newsom wrote.

Estimates of the total economic loss from the firestorm have been estimated to surpass $250 billion — with real estate losses from the Palisades and Eaton fires predicted to potentially top $30 billion, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis. More than 16,200 structures were destroyed as flames ripped through Pacific Palisades, Malibu, Pasadena and Altadena.

Newsom vowed that the funding would be used to rebuild homes, infrastructure, businesses, schools, churches and health care facilities, while supporting the needs of people affected by the devastation.

“Make no mistake, Los Angeles will use this money wisely,” Newsom wrote.

His largest request is for an additional $16.8 billion from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, mostly intended for the rebuilding of property and infrastructure, with $5 billion earmarked for debris cleanup.

Newsom also asked for $9.9 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development for grants to fire victims, homeowners, businesses and renters, as well as $5.29 billion from the Small Business Administration for homeowner and business loans.

Newsom thanked President Donald Trump for support for fast-tracking debris removal. The letter did not mention recent threats by the Trump administration that federal aid could come with strings attached.

“We are eternally grateful,” Newsom said.

Trump has been a frequent critic of Newsom and California’s water policies. Ric Grenell, a Trump ally serving as his envoy for special missions, said Friday that “there will be conditions” to any federal aid for the state.

He said one of the possible conditions being discussed was defunding the California Coastal Commission, which regulates coastal development and protects public beach access. Trump has criticized the agency as overly restrictive, bureaucratic and a hindrance to timely rebuilding efforts.

Residents in the German town of Geretsried have long wanted to run their buildings with clean heat and electricity from geothermal energy instead of fossil fuels.

Their hopes were dashed about 15 years ago when a drilling company couldn’t find enough hot water close to the surface to be profitable using traditional geothermal technology. That basically left them with natural gas.

“We gave up. We had big hopes,” recalled First Mayor of Geretsried Michael Müller, who was raised in the town.

Today the next generation of geothermal companies is trying to succeed where previous efforts failed. They don’t rely on hot water close to the surface, but instead use techniques developed in the oil and gas industry to drill deep and extract heat from dry, hot rock. One of them, Eavor, is starting up its first commercial power plant in Geretsried — turning the tiny town of about 26,000 people, south of Munich, into a proving ground for the future of geothermal energy.

Can technology like this be scaled and really make a difference for the future of the planet? The International Energy Agency thinks so. In a recent report, it said technology breakthroughs are unlocking huge potential for geothermal energy. Now that companies are drilling deeper than 3 kilometers (close to 2 miles), nearly every country has the potential to make heat and electricity this way, the IEA said.

“It has been a niche energy and concentrated in a few countries,” IEA Executive Director Fatih Birol said in an interview. But soon, Birol said, “geothermal can contribute to the global energy picture in an accelerated manner.”

Eavor CEO John Redfern said the earlier failure in Gerestried opened up the possibility for a high-profile success — Geretsried’s ordinary geology was appealing. No one would’ve been impressed if the Canadian company demonstrated its technology in Iceland, a place with abundant, easily accessible hot water, he added.

It helped that the town was excited for geothermal and open to new ideas, he added.

“Our whole point is that we want to have geothermal anywhere, everywhere,” Redfern said. “What better way to prove that than to put our first well where they tried and failed with traditional geothermal systems.”

Germany is committed to transitioning away from fossil fuels. As part of the commitment, heating systems must switch to renewable sources because heating is one of the main sources of carbon dioxide emissions in Germany. And Germany couldn’t depend on importing natural gas from Russia after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.

Eavor, named for the phrase “energy for ever,” has a demonstration facility in Alberta, Canada. Company executives know Geretsried well. One of them managed operations for the contractor that drilled there previously.

This project will start by generating electricity in Geretsried, then add heat as the town fully builds out a district heating system.

With district heating, heat is generated in a central location and distributed to homes and businesses. Most of these systems make their heat from burning fossil fuels, especially in China and Russia, which have the largest number of them, according to the IEA. Europe has 17,000 district heating and cooling networks, serving 67 million people, according to Euroheat & Power, the international network for district energy.

In the United States, district energy systems are most often on college campuses, at hospitals, on military bases and in some downtown areas in larger cities. Some universities are switching their district heating systems off gas or heating oil to geothermal energy to address climate change. The Trump administration, while pivoting back to pro-oil and gas policies, does appear to also favor geothermal.

Eavor has a contract to provide heat in the northwestern German city of Hanover, too. The city of more than 500,000 people is phasing out coal.

Eavor is also licensing its technology to utilities and companies that are trying to curb emissions and want secure energy, Redfern said. A large Japanese power provider, Chubu Electric Power Company, is a major investor in Eavor. Japan has many sites suitable for geothermal but few geothermal power plants.

The way it works is that Eavor drills two wells about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) deep, then branches out and drills a dozen lateral wells, to maximize contact with the hot rock. The wells intersect to create a closed loop where water can flow, the “Eavor loop.” The Geretsried project will have four loops, each with two vertical wells and about 12 lateral ones.

Eavor does not frack, or hydraulically fracture, to create cracks and increase the permeability of rock.

Instead in Geretsried, it will pump water down to flow through the hot rock, heating up on contact. It will rise naturally to the surface through an outlet well.

That hot water can be used to heat the utility’s water so it can be sent through pipes to heat the equivalent of about 36,000 homes. The hot water also can be routed to a power plant to make steam and then recirculated. When used to spin a turbine, that steam can generate electricity without any planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

Müller, the mayor, said it’s better to start changing the approach to energy today than push it off to tomorrow. He said residents can’t rely on fossil fuels long term, they have to address climate change and they need secure energy.

“We want to remain future proof,” he said. “So let’s start the future.”

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The Associated Press’ climate and environmental coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. AP is solely responsible for all content. Find AP’s standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.

Snow, sleet and freezing rain were expected to continue pummeling the central Appalachians and mid-Atlantic states Wednesday, while California readied for a storm that could flood areas ravaged by the recent wildfires.

Especially heavy snowfall — up to nearly 14 inches (25 centimeters) — was expected in parts of Virginia and West Virginia, according to the National Weather Service. Ice accumulations could reach more than a third of an inch (8.4 millimeters) in Stanleytown, Virginia, and a quarter of an inch (6.3 millimeters) in Glendale Springs, North Carolina.

In California, an atmospheric river — a long band of water vapor that can transport moisture from the tropics to more northern areas — was expected to move in late Wednesday, likely flooding urban areas across central and Southern California, according to the weather service.

The snowstorm that blew into the mid-Atlantic states on Tuesday caused accidents on icy roads and prompted school closures. By Tuesday night, nearly 12,000 people in Virginia had lost power, according to PowerOutage.us.

“Stay home and off the roads tonight, Virginia,” the Virginia Department of Transportation posted on social media Tuesday night, alongside a meme of Dorothy from “The Wizard of Oz” saying, “There’s no place like home.”

In parts of Baltimore and Washington, an inch (2.5 centimeters) of snow was falling each hour, according to the weather service. All Washington public schools were closed Wednesday due to the weather.

Appalachian Power, which serves 1 million customers in West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee, said Tuesday it had 5,400 workers dedicated to restoring power.

About 65 Virginia National Guard soldiers were at facilities along the Interstate 95 and state Route 29 corridors and in southwest Virginia to support the storm response, guard officials said. Another 20 soldiers and members of the Virginia Defense Force were in support roles.

Winter storm warnings extended from northwest North Carolina to southern New Jersey, and the snow-and-ice mix was expected to become all rain by Wednesday afternoon as temperatures climb.

Meanwhile a separate storm system was expected to dump heavy snow on an area stretching from Kansas to the Great Lakes starting Tuesday night, the weather service said. The Kansas Legislature canceled Wednesday meetings because of the weather, and Gov. Laura Kelly closed state offices in the capital, Topeka.

In Virginia, where Gov. Glenn Youngkin declared a state of emergency and schools and government offices were closed Tuesday, state police reported 700 accidents and dozens of injuries Tuesday. Although Matt Demlein, a spokesperson for the Virginia State Police, said they can’t say definitively that all were weather related.

In southern West Virginia, multiple crashes temporarily shut down several major highways Tuesday. Smith’s Towing and Truck Repair responded to at least 15 calls, mostly from tractor-trailer drivers who got stuck on Interstate 64 in Greenbrier County near the Virginia border, dispatcher Kelly Pickles said.

“Basically they just get sucked over into the median or they go off of the interstate just a little bit on the right-hand side,” she said. “And they just don’t have enough power in their vehicles to get back onto the road due to the icy conditions.”

Paige Williams, who owns Downtown Books in Lexington, Virginia, closed her store Tuesday because of the weather. She hoped to reopen Wednesday, noting that Lexington and surrounding Rockbridge County are dependable when it comes to clearing the roads.

But with temperatures on either side of freezing Tuesday night and Wednesday, the rain that is supposed to follow could make the roads better or worse.

“It’s just going to depend on where those temperatures go,” Williams said. “Rain can clear things off. And rain can also freeze. And then you have a lot of skating rinks instead of roads.”

An Arctic air mass stretched from Portland, Oregon, to the Great Lakes.

The temperature bottomed out Tuesday morning at minus 31 degrees (minus 35 Celsius) in Butte, Montana, where over the past two winters at least five people died from cold exposure, said Brayton Erickson, executive director of the Butte Rescue Mission.

Advocates for homeless people in the city of about 35,000 were out on the streets distributing sleeping bags, jackets, mittens and other cold weather gear to anyone who needed them, according to Erickson.

“When it gets this cold, we kind of pull out all the stops,” Erickson said.

In Oregon’s Multnomah County, officials extended a state of emergency through at least Thursday. Five emergency shelters were set to open Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon. Midweek wind chill readings could dip to 10 degrees (minus 12 Celsius) in Portland, the weather service said.

The atmospheric river was expected to arrive in California starting late Wednesday and to peak Thursday, according to Miles Bliss, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service. Along with flooding, heavy snowfall was expected in the Sierra Nevada.

More than 700,000 sandbags have been arranged across central and Southern California, according to the California Department of Water Resources.

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Associated Press journalists from across the U.S. contributed to this report.

WARTBURG, Tenn. — Two people were killed in eastern Tennessee when severe storms with a possible tornado moved through the region.

Local officials announced Friday morning that a mother and daughter from the same household were killed when the storm passed through the Deer Lodge and Sunbright areas of Morgan County on Thursday night.

That is according to a social media post by the county emergency management agency. Three other injuries were also reported, officials said.

The Tennessee Highway Patrol said on social media that troopers were in Morgan County ensuring resident safety and assessing and helping with structure damage.

The Morgan County School District said on its website that schools would be closed Friday because of “significant damage from tornadoes in parts of our county.”