A weekend earthquake in Southern California was felt by millions and sent at least one person to the hospital, but the region avoided any significant damage or major injuries. The earthquake, measuring 4.7 in magnitude, hit just after 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, about three miles east of Los Angeles International Airport, the United States Geological Survey said. At least 10 aftershocks followed.

As schools shut down because of the flu

President Obama will announce tough new nationwide rules for automobile emissions and mileage standards on Tuesday, embracing standards that California has sought to enact for years over the objections of the auto industry and the Bush administration.

An assistant principal at a New York City public school died of complications from swine flu in an intensive care unit of a Queens hospital on Sunday night, the first death in New York State of the flu strain that has swept across much of the world since it was first identified in April.

Mitchell Wiener, the assistant principal of Intermediate School 238 in Hollis, Queens, died Sunday.

Swelled rivers that have flooded homes to their rooftops and forced more than 260,000 people from their homes in northeastern Brazil will probably take a few more weeks to recede, Brazilian authorities said over the weekend.

Global warming conjures images of rising seas that threaten coastal areas. But in Juneau, as almost nowhere else in the world, climate change is having the opposite effect: As the glaciers here melt, the land is rising, causing the sea to retreat.

The number of public schools in New York City reporting children with flulike symptoms continued to rise Friday, as three more schools in Queens and Brooklyn were closed, bringing the total to six this week, and parents and city officials wrestled with how to handle the growing spread of the disease.

A floating dredge lowered a clamshell bucket to the bottom of the Hudson River on Friday and pulled up a load of muck contaminated with PCBs

Delegates from scores of shipping nations signed an agreement on Friday at a conference of the International Maritime Organization of the United Nations in Hong Kong to require stronger environmental standards in recycling old ships. The rules will not become binding for at least two years, after a complex ratification formula is met.

A rocket carrying the largest telescope ever made has been sent into space on a mission that scientists hope will help unravel the mystery of the creation of the universe. The Ariane 5 rocket of the European Space Agency, left, launched Thursday from Kourou, carries the Herschel space telescope and the Planck spacecraft.