"In the latest legal showdown over the Dakota Access pipeline, federal judges seemed skeptical today of American Indian tribes' arguments for extending a work freeze on a contentious stretch of land in North Dakota."

"Silky sharks, thresher sharks and devil rays all won new protections at a global wildlife summit late on Monday."

"Delegates at a UN wildlife conference have endorsed calls for the closure of all domestic ivory markets."

"Seven types of bees once found in abundance in Hawaii have become the first bees to be added to the US federal list of endangered and threatened species."

"As a persistent rain pelts the clear, swift Middle Fork of the Vermilion River on a mid-September day, the water swells and rises. Clumps of tree roots hang precariously over the river, exposed by the crumbly, receding banks. Where the bank is firmer, the water has carved out tiny caves."

"Volkswagen has agreed to pay its U.S. dealers up to $1.2 billion to compensate them for losses suffered as a result of the company's emissions cheating scandal, according to a settlement agreement filed Friday in federal court in San Francisco."

"The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights says coal ash ponds and landfills disproportionately affect poor and minority communities across the U.S. But that’s not what North Carolina officials found when they conducted their own 'environmental justice reviews' of two sites this year."

"A Canadian farming federation and an anti-GMO network are separately calling on the federal Competition Bureau to review the possible implications of Bayer's $66 billion US takeover of seed giant Monsanto."

"U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle has temporarily restricted the federal government’s ability to remove red wolves from private property in North Carolina in a ruling issued Thursday that conservationists are cheering."

"A vigorously non-partisan commission, the SEC finds itself on Texas Republican's list of Exxon investigators he says are 'chilling' climate research."