"A ban on all sales of ivory products in China [came] into force on Sunday, a move hailed by conservationists as an important step in the fight to protect endangered species such as African elephants."

"The city of Flint, which has been reeling for years over lead seepage from its pipes into its tap water, is accused of violating the terms of a major settlement agreement aimed at improving its water quality. Advocacy groups say the city is failing to disclose information about its efforts to replace its lead pipes."

"On the last business day of the year, the Interior Department rescinded a 2015 Obama administration rule that would have set new environmental limitations on hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on public lands."

"The U.S. has abandoned any claim to climate leadership as the only nation to pull out of the Paris Climate Accord. In Trump's Cabinet, climate denial is pretty much cause for a Merit Badge. Congressional leadership doesn't acknowledge climate change to be a problem, or even a thing."

"The new chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission says the agency will review its policies, unchanged for nearly two decades, for certifying natural gas pipelines, projects that have sparked contention from North Dakota to Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia, where the Mountain Valley and Atlantic Coast pipelines are advancing toward construction."

"Eight northeastern states said on Tuesday they sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to force it to impose more stringent controls on a group of mostly Midwestern states whose air pollution they claim is being blown in their direction."

"The Trump administration moved Friday to renew leases for a copper and nickel mining operation on the border of Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, reversing a decision made in the final weeks of Barack Obama’s tenure in office."

"The Environmental Protection Agency has ignored many years of evidence of dangerous levels of lead paint in millions of Americans’ homes and must propose tighter standards within 90 days to protect children from lead exposure, a federal appeals court ruled Wednesday."

"The Environmental Protection Agency has tasked a banker who was banned from the banking industry for life with oversight of the nation’s Superfund program."