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The mysterious fall of the largest of the world's earliest urban civilizations nearly 4,000 years ago in what is now India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh now appears to have a key culprit — ancient climate change, researchers say. Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia may be the best known of the first great urban cultures, but the largest was the Indus or Harappan civilization. This culture once extended over more than 386,000 square miles (1 million square kilometers) across the plains of the Indus River from the Arabian Sea to the Ganges, and at its peak may have accounted for 10 percent of the world population. The civilization developed about 5,200 years ago, and slowly disintegrated between 3,900 and 3,000 years ago — populations largely abandoned cities, migrating toward the east. "Antiquity knew about Egypt and Mesopotamia, but the Indus civilization, which was bigger than these two, was completely forgotten until the 1920s," said researcher Liviu Giosan, a g...

Lower temperatures and higher humidity Saturday were helping crews assigned to a wildfire that has scorched 12 square miles in northern Colorado, one of several burning across the West. The fire, which started Monday about 20 miles northwest of Fort Collins, had prompted officials to evacuate about 80 homes, but all residents were allowed to return by Friday night. No buildings have been damaged, and the blaze was about 45 percent contained Saturday afternoon. Reghan Cloudman with the U.S. Forest Service said the area received about 0.15 inches of rain Saturday morning, which "is better than nothing." Scattered rain storms moved through the area in the afternoon, and temperatures were expected to remain in the 50s throughout the day — more than a 20-degree drop from highs during the previous three days. "The rain is definitely helping firefighters out there," Cloudman said. "It's good news, but we don't want people to let their guard down....