"House Republicans rejected a farm bill proposal by Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) this week, increasing the likelihood that lawmakers will pass another one-year extension of the massive legislation by the end of the year rather than a new, longer-term measure."

"Until earlier this week, most residents of this town east of Asheville had no drinkable tap water for 52 days. After the storm damaged infrastructure around the region, water had been partly restored in mid-October. It was good for flushing toilets but not safe for consumption. In some places, sediment left the water inky like black tea."

"Many nations hope to reduce the half a billion tons of plastic made each year. But pushback from plastic and oil producers, and Donald Trump’s election, could scuttle an agreement."

"The Biden administration is swimming against the current to get seven Western states to agree to divvy up the Colorado River’s water in a way that would protect the river basin and the West’s largest single water source – and do it before President-elect Donald Trump takes office, according to a source familiar with the negotiations."

"The Biden administration promised to release a new standard for ocean drilling that could help clean up a growing number of old oil and gas wells, but the first-of-a-kind rule has yet to arrive with just two months before President-elect Donald Trump reenters the White House."

"The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles has filed felony criminal charges against Phillips 66, accusing the company’s Carson refinery of illicitly dumping oil and grease into the county sewer system."

"Human-caused climate change boosted the wind speeds of recent Atlantic hurricanes, making them more damaging and costly, according to a pair of scientific reports released today."

"The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be doing more to help address potential climate change-related risks to hundreds of hazardous waste facilities across the country, according to a recent government watchdog report."

"In Mexico, the conditions that have contributed to the largest sustained movement of humans across any border in the world will get only more common. This spring, at the start of the corn-growing season, 76 percent of Mexico was in drought, and the country was sweltering under a deadly heat dome."