LAS VEGAS (AP) — Utility regulators in Nevada gave the state’s largest power provider clearance to start work on a $333 million project to build a natural gas plant in the state for the first time in nearly 15 years, signaling yet another consequence of the extreme drought conditions in the southwestern U.S.

The two gas-fired turbines to be erected north of Las Vegas by NV Energy are expected to come online by July 2024 amid hotter summers and longer wildfire seasons in a state that aims to have a carbon-free power grid by 2050.

Nevada’s Public Utilities Commission approved the plans last week. It said the turbines are needed to address peak electricity demand in the summer months, as ever-drying conditions in the West continue to stress the region’s power grids and slash hydroelectric output, including the behemoth power producers on the Colorado River — the Hoover Dam and Glen Canyon Dam.

But environmental advocates have argued that the turbines mark a major step backwards for Nevada's climate goals.

Excerpts from recent editorials in the United States and abroad:

March 15

The Washington Post on voter fraud:

A 59-year-old man was arrested last week for allegedly double voting in the 2020 presidential election. Florida authorities brought the felony charge because of information submitted by Virginia to a national database called ERIC, which is short for the Electronic Registration Information Center. The very same day, Florida pulled out of the fraud detection consortium, along with Missouri and West Virginia, capitulating for political reasons to bizarre conspiracy theories peddled by those who still claim that former president Donald Trump won reelection in 2020.

VIENNA (AP) — A Vienna museum is hanging some of its paintings at an angle to reflect the possible effects of climate change on the landscapes they depict.

The Austrian capital's Leopold Museum said Tuesday that 15 paintings will be slightly skewed until June 26 as part of the action titled “A Few Degrees More (Will Turn the World into an Uncomfortable Place).” They include works by Gustave Courbet, Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.

The museum is turning the paintings by the number of degrees by which temperatures at the locations they depict — such as the coast of Normandy and Austria's Attersee region — could rise if far-reaching action isn't taken against climate change.

It worked with a Vienna-based climate research network, Climate Change Center Austria. Museum director Hans-Peter Wipplinger said in a statement that museums “preserve and impart cultural heritage to the next generations” and “have the potential to positively influence our future action by making people aware of social phenomena.”

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Here is a list of the Top 10 Sierra winters with the most snow in the 77 years since the UC-Berkeley Central Sierra Snow Lab started keeping records in 1946 northwest of Lake Tahoe near Donner Pass at Soda Springs, California:

TOP TEN HISTORIC SIERRA SNOW SEASONS

1951-52 — 812 inches (2,062 cm), or 67.7 feet (20.6 meters)

2022-23 — 677 inches (1,719.6 cm), or 56.4 feet (17.2 meters)

NATHROP, Colo. (AP) — Wildlife officials said Monday they are searching for a mountain lion that clawed a man's head while he was sitting in a hot tub with his wife at a rental home in central Colorado.

The man was soaking in the in-ground hot tub in a wooded subdivision west of Nathrop on Saturday night when he felt something grab his head, according to Colorado Parks and Wildlife. He screamed at the mountain lion and started splashing water while his wife shined a flashlight at the animal.

Authorities said it retreated to the top of a hill and continued to watch the couple.

The man and his wife were able to get back into the home, where they cleaned his wounds and called the property owner, who happened to work for Colorado Parks and Wildlife. The man had four superficial scratches on top of his head and near his right ear, but he declined medical treatment.