AEROPHOBIA, or fear of flying, affects thousands of people in Ireland and it can develop very suddenly.

An enormous forest fire started by tool sparks has destroyed dozens of homes and cabins on the scenic Kenai Peninsula south of Anchorage, Alaska.

Lingering crude from the largest US oil spill has resisted weathering in some places almost 18 years after the tanker Exxon Valdez ran aground and fouled hundreds of miles of Alaska shoreline, a new federal study concludes.

A powerful storm has pounded California for a second day, flooding freeways and desert roads, tossing boats ashore and triggering a rockslide that blocked the central coast highway.

More than 30,000 Nike basketball shoes – enough to kit out every high school team in Alaska – are drifting through the Pacific Ocean towards the state after spilling from a container ship off Northern California.

A US airman is believed to have killed the world's largest bear.