"President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he planned to expedite federal regulatory approvals, including all environmental permits, for any company or individual proposing to invest $1 billion or more in a construction project."

"A legal fight over an 88-mile proposed railway in Utah has set the stage for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide how federal agencies evaluate the environmental impacts of projects requiring their approval, a decision with the potential to drastically shift how projects are permitted across the nation."

"For millions of years, North America was home to a zoo of giants: mammoths and mastodons, camels and dire wolves, sloths the size of elephants and beavers as big as bears. And then, at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch about 12,000 years ago, most of them vanished."

"Giraffe populations are declining at such an alarming rate — from habitat loss, poaching, urbanization and climate change-fueled drought — that US wildlife officials announced a proposal on Wednesday to help protect several of the species."

"Spear points, hammer stones and picks lost to history under layers of leaves, roots and rocks — it was the evidence Scott Ashcraft was looking for."

"North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum is expected to implement President-elect Donald Trump’s “drill, baby, drill” ethos on public lands and waters if confirmed to helm the massive Interior Department. But the self-styled CEO of North Dakota, who Trump revealed Thursday night he would nominate as Interior secretary, would have a role much broader than advancing drilling for oil."

"A federal court in D.C. has issued a ruling that curtails the White House’s ability to set government-wide rules pertaining to how environmental reviews can be conducted."