A U.K. High Court judge has ruled that the government acted unlawfully when it approved a plan to meet climate targets without evidence it could be delivered. It was the second time in two years that the government’s main climate action plan was found unlawful and insufficient in meeting legally-binding targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Justice Clive Sheldon sided Friday with three environmental groups that brought the case. He ruled that the government’s decision to approve its Carbon Budget Delivery Plan last year was “simply not justified by the evidence.” Officials said they would publish a new report within 12 months following the judge’s ruling.

China is preparing to launch a lunar probe that would land on the far side of the moon and return with samples that could provide insights into differences between the less-explored region and the better-known near side. The unprecedented mission would be the latest advance in the increasingly sophisticated and ambitious space exploration program that is in competition with the leader in space, the United States. The rocket carrying the Chang'e-6 probe is set for liftoff Friday evening from the Wenchang launch center on the southern island province of Hainan. China already returned samples from the near side of the moon, the first time anyone has done so in decades.

The first scientist to publish a sequence of the COVID-19 virus in China says he has been allowed back into his lab after days of protest. Zhang Yongzhen posted online early Wednesday that authorities had “tentatively agreed” to allow him and his team to return to his laboratory and continue their research for now. Zhang had been staging a sit-in protest outside his lab since the weekend after he and his team were suddenly notified they had to leave their lab, a sign of Beijing’s continuing pressure on scientists conducting research on the coronavirus.

Indonesia’s Mount Ruang volcano has erupted for a second time in two weeks, spewing ash more than a mile into the sky, closing an airport and peppering nearby villages with debris. The alert level of the volcano on Sulawesi Island was again raised to the highest level by the Indonesian geological service Tuesday. More than 11,000 people had evacuated after the April 17 eruption, and some remain in shelters. The international airport in the North Sulawesi provincial capital of Manado was closed again. Ash, grit and rock fell from the sky in towns and cities across the region, including Manado, a city with more than 430,000 people where motorists had to switch on their headlights during daytime.

A new report says circumstantial evidence points to climate change as worsening the deadly deluge that flooded Dubai and surroundings. But scientists don't see the definitive fingerprints of greenhouse gas-triggered warming they find in other extreme weather events. Thursday's study says between 10% and 40% more rain fell in just one day last week than it would have in a world without the warming that has come from the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. At least two dozen people died in flooding in the United Arab Emirates, Oman and parts of Saudi Arabia.