Rain Forests

COPENHAGEN - Negotiators moved closer to a deal to protect the world's forests with a pledge from the United States and five other countries to spend $3.5 billion over the next three years to slow their destruction.

MANAUS, Brazil - Brazil's president said that "gringos" should pay Amazon nations to prevent deforestation, insisting rich Western nations have caused much more past environmental destruction than the loggers and farmers who cut and burn trees in the world's largest tropical rain forest.