"More than 1,100 incarcerated firefighters were sent to Southern California in January to fight four different wildfires. As the Palisades Fire ran up a hillside, one strike team saved the life of a resident who was still at his home."

"The United Nations warned that mercury contamination from illegal gold mining in Colombia’s Atrato River basin has created a “serious and ongoing human rights crisis,” threatening the health and survival of Indigenous and Afro-descendant communities who depend on the river for food, water and culture."

"After more than a century, these shellfish have reappeared along the Damariscotta River. Their return is a boon — and a warning of climate change."

"Global forest health has plunged to “dismal” levels and threatens the wellbeing of humanity, warns a damning report that highlights how financial systems are pouring money into land clearance and undermining efforts to reduce destruction."

"As we’ve seen with tigers and other threatened species, captive lion breeding may stimulate consumer demand and put additional pressure on wild populations across African home ranges."

"President Trump has been a cheerleader for coal miners. But these miners say his administration is failing to enforce limits on a lethal workplace hazard."

"Jasmín Ordóñez looks out from a wooden boat at the water as she crosses a narrow channel that connects a labyrinth of chinampas, island farms that were built by the Aztecs thousands of years ago."

"The white sandy beaches along a swath of Florida’s Gulf Coast were battered by three hurricanes last year, leading to a multimillion-dollar effort to repair a coastline that is the region’s economic engine."

"Countries in the Sahel region of Africa have made little progress on the “Great Green Wall,” a 5,000-mile-long band of trees planned for the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. Even where communities are planting new trees, few seedlings actually survive, new research shows."