"Royal Dutch Shell Plc has agreed to cut pollution at its joint-venture 327,000 barrel per day (bpd) refinery in the Houston suburb of Deer Park, Texas, according to an announcement on Wednesday by the U.S. Justice Department and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

"If you doubt that climate change is transforming the American landscape, go to Santa Fe, New Mexico. Sweltering temperatures there have broken records this summer, and a seemingly permanent orange haze of smoke hangs in the air from multiple wildfires."

"As the community grieved the loss of 19 firefighters who died Sunday fighting the Yarnell Hill Fire, the deadly blaze continued to rage out of control. As of 9:30 p.m. Monday, it had grown to 8,400 acres and remained zero percent contained. About 500 firefighters were battling the blaze, with more expected to join Tuesday."

"YARNELL, Ariz. -- Gusty, hot winds blew an Arizona blaze out of control Sunday in a forest northwest of Phoenix, overtaking and killing 19 members of an elite fire crew in the deadliest wildfire involving firefighters in the U.S. for at least 30 years."

"A potentially deadly heat wave is expected to bear down on some Arizona and California desert areas in the next few days, forecasters said on Wednesday."

"ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- A furious wildfire torching through the mountains of southern New Mexico's Gila National Forest has grown to 127 square miles, forcing some ranchers to ship their cattle out of state as the blaze burns through entire grazing areas."

"The Supreme Court ruled today that Texas has no right to Oklahoma's water under a 1980 interstate compact in a case seen as having broad implications in the arid western United States."

"The Bracken Bat Cave, just north of San Antonio, is as rural as it gets. You have to drive down a long, 2-mile rocky road to reach it. There's nothing nearby — no lights, no running water. The only thing you hear are the katydids."

"LULING, Texas -- Amid the dry weeds on a 470-acre ranch here, a rusted head of steel pokes up, a vestige of an oil well abandoned decades ago. Across the field stand two huge, old wooden oil tanks, one of them tilting like a smokestack on the Titanic."

"The Powerhouse fire has a dance all its own, and firefighters have struggled to keep up with the flames."

"The Houston area produces about a quarter of the nation's gasoline, and about a third of the plastics that are in our cars, cupboards and just about everywhere else. So it is no surprise that this heavily industrial area has a problem with air pollution. But in the past decade, Houston's air has improved dramatically."

"Victoria County, a little slice of the Texas chemical coast, has nearly 39 million pounds of concoctions that can poison and nearly 11 million pounds that can catch fire."

"The Ogallala Aquifer suffered its second-worst drop since at least 2000 in a large swath of the Texas Panhandle, new measurements show."

"At least 51 people -- including at least 20 children -- were killed when a massive tornado struck an area outside Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, officials said."

"HASKELL COUNTY, Kan. — Forty-nine years ago, Ashley Yost’s grandfather sank a well deep into a half-mile square of rich Kansas farmland. He struck an artery of water so prodigious that he could pump 1,600 gallons to the surface every minute."