By The Associated Press

A German court ruled against a Peruvian farmer Wednesday in a landmark case that claimed global warming fueled by energy company RWE ‘s historical greenhouse gas emissions put his home at risk.

Farmer and mountain guide Saúl Luciano Lliuya said glaciers above his hometown of Huaraz are melting, increasing the risk of catastrophic flooding.

RWE, which has never operated in Peru, denied legal responsibility, arguing that climate change is a global issue caused by many contributors.

Experts said the case had the potential to set a significant precedent in the fight to hold major polluters accountable for climate change.

Here’s a look at other climate cases being watched closely:

An environmental group has asked the Dutch Supreme Court to uphold a landmark lower court ruling that ordered energy company Shell to cut carbon emissions by net 45% by 2030 compared to 2019 levels.

That ruling was overturned in November by an appeals court — a defeat for the Dutch arm of Friends of the Earth and other environmental groups, which had hailed the original 2021 ruling as a victory for the climate.

Climate activists have scored several courtroom victories, including in 2015, when a court in The Hague ordered the government to cut emissions by at least 25% by the end of 2020 from benchmark 1990 levels. The Dutch Supreme Court upheld that ruling five years ago.

The United Nations’ top court held two weeks of hearings in December into what countries worldwide are legally required to do to combat climate change and help vulnerable nations fight its impacts.

The case was spurred by a group of island nations that fear they could simply disappear under rising sea waters, prompting the U.N. General Assembly asked the International Court of Justice for an opinion on “the obligations of States in respect of climate change.”

Any decision in the case, the largest in the court’s history, would be non-binding advice and could not directly force wealthy nations to act, though it could serve as the basis for other legal actions, including domestic lawsuits.

In another advisory opinion requested by small island nations, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea last year said carbon emissions qualify as marine pollution and countries must take steps to mitigate and adapt to their adverse effects.

Colombia and Chile are awaiting an advisory opinion from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on whether countries are responsible for climate change harms and, if so, what their obligations are to respond on human rights grounds.

A four-day hearing was held this month in the Brazilian state of Amazonas and an opinion is expected by the end of the year.

Much of the testimony focused on indigenous rights in Latin America, including whether industries violate their rights to life and to defend their land from environmental harm.

Dozens of U.S. states and local governments have filed lawsuits alleging that fossil fuel companies misled the public about how their products could contribute to climate change, claiming billions of dollars in damage from more frequent and intense storms, flooding, rising seas and extreme heat.

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In March the U.S. Supreme Court 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.

And state supreme courts in Massachusetts, Hawaii and Colorado have rejected attempts by oil companies to dismiss lawsuits, allowing them to proceed in lower courts.

Even so, the Department of Justice recently sued Hawaii and Michigan to prevent the states from seeking damages from fossil fuel companies in state court for harms caused by climate change. The DOJ also sued New York and Vermont, challenging their climate superfund laws that would force fossil fuel companies to pay into state-based funds based on previous greenhouse gas emissions.

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.

By MELINA WALLING, ANNIKA HAMMERSCHLAG and JOSHUA A. BICKEL

GILBERT, Ariz. (AP) — Just steps from the porticos, patios, clay-tiled roofs and manicured lawns of suburbia, Kelly Saxer has gotten used to questions. As she weaves through tomato vines, snaps asparagus and generally gets her hands dirty, visitors and even some nearby residents want to know what she’s doing — and how the farm where she works wound up here.

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“Sometimes it feels like we’re animals in a zoo a little bit because people will walk by and they’ll just stare, you know, like gawk at us,” Saxer said.

This is Agritopia, an 11-acre organic farm that’s all that remains after miles of alfalfa, corn, cotton, durum wheat and sugar beets were swallowed up by Phoenix’s roaring development.

In this “agrihood” — a residential community that includes a working farm — kids play outside at a school that borders vegetable fields or in communal green spaces nestled between homes. Well-dressed couples and boisterous teenagers flock for selfies and picturesque photos. Lines form at the diner featured on Guy Fieri’s Food Network show. On the farm itself, people can walk the dirt roads, rent out plots to grow their own foods or buy its produce.

Some developers have turned to the agrihood concept in the past couple of decades to lure buyers with a different kind of amenity. At least 27 U.S. states and Canadian provinces had agrihoods as of a 2018 report from the Urban Land Institute, and more have cropped up since then.

Experts say agrihoods cater to buyers interested in sustainability, access to healthy food and a mix of urban and rural life. The core aim of many projects is to “create a feeling for people,” said Matt Norris, one of the lead authors of that report.

Agritopia’s founders saw change coming, and made a plan

It was the late 1990s when the family behind Agritopia saw “the writing on the wall,” said Joe Johnston.

The family farm was some 5 miles from Gilbert then but it was clear the Phoenix area’s rapid growth was going to bring development to their doorstep. With his parents mostly retired and a pair of brothers interested in doing other things, Johnston got their blessing to develop the land himself rather than simply selling it.

Johnston, with a background in design engineering, was intent on “creating place,” as he puts it. The neighborhood features narrow streets and homes within walking distance of restaurants, bars, shops, small parks and fitness businesses. The farm is at the center of it.

Melissa Checker, a professor of anthropology at City University of New York and author of a book on environmental gentrification, said agrihoods can appeal to people in different ways — their desire to feel environmentally conscious, nostalgia for an imagined idea of the past, increased interest in food “self-sufficiency” and even a heightened desire to be safe and connected to neighbors after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“You have a kind of convergence of some commercial interests, you know, something that you can sell to people, and then also this real desire to change the way we do things,” she said.

Agritopia, but not utopia

In an ideal world, using green community space to grow food could especially benefit people who are food-insecure, Checker said. But because agrihoods are often tied to real estate prices and developers want a return on their investment, “it’s much more likely that these kinds of projects go into gentrifying neighborhoods or more affluent neighborhoods,” she said.

It’s not clear just how big a role the farm plays in attracting buyers. At Agritopia, for example, few of the 500 homes participate in the farm box program that offers them first pick of seasonal fruits and vegetables. (The farm also sells at a market in downtown Gilbert and donates to a local food pantry.)

Johnston said he knew “not everyone’s going to be passionate about agriculture.” That’s why he was intent on creating a village where people have spaces to come together; it’s up to them how much, if at all, they want to be involved in farming.

Still, farms are a selling point for developers especially across the Sun Belt who compete to offer pools, gyms, parks and other perks to would-be residents who have a wide range of planned communities to choose from, said Scott Snodgrass. He’s founding partner of a developer that created Indigo, an agrihood outside Houston, and also of a company called Agmenity that runs farms for agrihood developers.

How the farm and the neighborhood intersect

As the sun rises, the farm’s workers snip the roots off scallions and pull up thick bunches of lettuce and green garlic.

Before he started working at Agritopia, Ernesto Penalba didn’t know all the steps involved in growing garlic — harvesting, cleaning, plus packing and transporting. “But we only perceive it as one process. So it was really interesting to understand that,” he said, speaking in Spanish.

CC Garrett, who goes by “Miss Hickory” when she’s leading educational tours for kids on the farm, said she loves watching young people connect with their food in new ways — eating and maybe even enjoying salad for the first time or learning why you can’t grow tomatoes year-round.

“It’s amazing for me just because this community, it just really speaks to me, being built around an urban farm, which I think is such an important American concept,” she said.

For some who live here, this place is more than a typical neighborhood. In Agritopia’s “kid pod,” a cluster of families with 23 kids between them, parents let the young ones roam freely, knowing at least one guardian will always be looking out for them. The rest of the parents make dinner or plan a date night. Just across the street, a peach and citrus orchard sways in the breeze, occasionally wafting the smells of fruit into front yards.

Maria Padron lives in the “kid pod” with her husband and two children. She loves living in Agritopia for the sense of camaraderie with her neighbors.

Her own family in Virginia had to give up their farm when her grandfather couldn’t take care of it anymore. She wishes it had stayed in the family, but it’s a vineyard now.

Asked whether she would have wanted her grandfather’s land to become an agrihood, she says maybe — if it was done right.

“There’s something obviously beautiful here that’s going on, but there is some grief there too, if you’ve watched this land be a certain thing and then it changes within an instant,” Padron said.

Follow Melina Walling on X @MelinaWalling and Bluesky @melinawalling.bsky.social. Follow Joshua A. Bickel on Instagram, Bluesky and X @joshuabickel. Follow Annika Hammerschlag on Instagram @ahammergram.

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.

CALICO ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Officials scoured Arkansas’ rugged Ozark Mountains for a former police chief and convicted killer who escaped from prison over the weekend.

Grant Hardin, who briefly served as police chief for the small town of Gateway near the Arkansas-Missouri border, was serving a decades-long sentence for murder and rape.

Known as the “Devil in the Ozarks,” he escaped Sunday from the North Central Unit, a medium-security prison in Calico Rock.

Hardin’s escape happened days after 10 men fled a New Orleans jail by going through a hole behind a toilet. Eight of those fugitives have since been captured.

Here’s what to know about Hardin and his escape:

How did he escape?

Hardin escaped from the prison Sunday afternoon by impersonating a corrections officer “in dress and manner,” according to a court document. A prison officer opened a secure gate, allowing him to leave the facility.

The outfit was not a standard inmate or correctional uniform, said Rand Champion, a spokesperson for the Arkansas Department of Corrections. Officials are working to determine how he was either able to get the uniform or manufacture it himself.

This undated photo provided by the Arkansas Department of Corrections Communications Department shows inmate Grant Hardin. (Arkansas Department of Corrections Communications Department via AP)

Video surveillance shows Hardin escaped at about 2:55 p.m. on Sunday, Champion said. Officials announced his escape about two hours later.

But how he got out of the prison and escaped into a rural part of the state, as well as whether he had any help is still unclear.

Prison officials say they are investigating what led up to the escape “to help determine any assistance he may have had.”

Champion said the decision to house Hardin in a medium-security facility, which has a capacity of about 800 people, weighed the “needs of the different facilities and inmates” and “assessments” of his crimes.

Why was he in prison?

Hardin had been held at the Calico Rock prison since 2017 after pleading guilty to first-degree murder for fatally shooting James Appleton, 59.

Appleton, a Gateway water department employee, was shot in the head in 2017. Police found his body inside a car. Hardin was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Hardin’s DNA was entered into the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System, and it matched the 1997 rape of a teacher at an elementary school in Rogers, north of Fayetteville. He was sentenced to 50 years in prison for that crime. He was a police officer in Eureka Springs at that time.

His short tenure as police chief

Hardin became police chief of Gateway, a town of about 450 people, in 2016.

Virtually overnight, people in the community described in the HBO documentary “Devil in the Ozarks” a dramatic shift.

“He was out chasing cars for no reason,” said Cheryl Tillman, one of Appleton’s sisters. “He was pulling guns on the citizens here in Gateway and then as time went on with him being the police chief things just started going down hill fast.”

The documentary revealed a crucial run-in between Hardin and Appleton in the Spring of 2016 in which Appleton stood up to Hardin about fixing a police car. A Benton county sheriff’s office lieutenant described several times when they got into each other’s faces and the dislike they both felt toward one another.

The city council gave him an ultimatum: resign or be fired. He stepped down four months after taking the position and nine months later, he killed Appleton.

The ‘Devil in the Ozarks’ documentary

Hardin was the focus of a popular 2023 HBO documentary, “Devil in the Ozarks,” that featured interviews with everyone from the victim of the 1997 rape and sisters of the murder victim to Hardin’s family.

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It revealed key details about the bubbling resentment Hardin felt toward Appleton as well as revealing accounts of the moments right before and after the murder.

Then Gateway Mayor Andrew Tillman, who was Appleton’s brother-in-law, described being on the phone with him when he was shot, while local resident John Bray spoke about driving past Appleton’s car when the shooting happened. He was the first to find his body and identified Hardin as the shooter.

“I heard what I thought was someone had fired a rifle,” he said.

“I went back and I seen it looked like he had been shot,” he added, wiping away tears.

The documentary also includes security video of Hardin at a restaurant with his family just after the shooting and the police interrogation in which he tells law enforcement he has “the right to be silent” and opted not to give a statement.

The search for Hardin

Authorities are using canines, drones and helicopters to search the rugged northern Arkansas terrain, Champion said.

Although he did not reveal the exact areas of the search, he did say it has expanded as more time has elapsed since the escape.

Officials have faced challenges searching the areas as it’s very rocky and heavy rain has fallen in recent days.

The area around the prison is a rural part of the state, which can make Hardin’s escape more difficult. In a small community, there’s a higher chance someone will recognize him and alert the authorities, said Craig Caine, a retired inspector with the U.S. Marshals who has handled many cases involving escaped prisoners.

The Division of Correction and the Division of Community Correction are following leads with local, state and federal law enforcement agencies.

After 24 years serving the city, and three years in her current role, Eagan City Administrator Dianne Miller will step down in July, the city announced Wednesday.

Eagan City Administrator Dianne Miller will step down from her role in July, the city announced May 28, 2025. (Courtesy of the City of Eagan)

Miller, who first began with the city as a 22-year-old graduate school intern, will take on a new role as deputy director and chief operating officer for the International City/County Management Association, according to a news release from the city.

“It has been one of the greatest honors of my career to serve alongside the talented and dedicated team here in Eagan,” Miller said in the release. “Our core values — serving the community with care, integrity, and foresight — are lived out daily by our staff. That’s what makes Eagan truly special.”

Prior to becoming the third city administrator in Eagan’s history, Miller served as assistant city administrator for 11 years and assistant to the city administrator for nine years before that.

During her time with the city, Miller was integral to the Eagan Forward initiative, sustainability efforts and capital projects like the City Hall/Police Department renovation and the development of the Eagan Art House.

Miller also led efforts to retain significant employers like Thomson Reuters and helped foster a culture of collaboration and innovation, per the release.

“Her vision, dedication and deep commitment to public service have helped shape Eagan into the thriving community it is today,” Eagan Mayor Mike Maguire said in the release. “We are grateful for her service and excited to see her continue to lead on a national stage.”

Based in Washington, D.C., the International City/County Management Association represents some 13,000 professionals in local government and conducts research on local government practices.

In her new role, Miller will have direct responsibility for human resources, information technology, the ICMA ethics program and will help guide the change in how the organization  oversees its Future of Professional Management Fund, according to a company news release.

Miller, whose last day is July 18, will work with the mayor, city council and department heads to ensure a smooth transition.

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