"After plunking down more than $2.5 billion for drilling rights in U.S. Arctic waters, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, ConocoPhillips and other companies have quietly relinquished claims they once hoped would net the next big oil discovery."

"As America’s only barrier reefs bleach, dissolve and succumb to disease, experts worry that a $320 million plan to expand oil and cargo shipments through Florida’s corals could worsen flooding and threaten ecosystems crucial to fisheries and tourism businesses."

"After months of national attention on lead-tainted drinking water in Flint, many are starting to ask questions about a 74-mile pipeline being built from Lake Huron to the struggling former auto manufacturing powerhouse".

"Young starfish are staging a comeback in Oregon and Northern California, after a virus that melts the animal devastated adult populations along the northern West Coast starting in 2013."

"The future of the Newport Banning Ranch site, where developers want to build a hotel and hundreds of homes, now rests with the California Coastal Commission — which is engaged in its own struggle for identity."

"A coalition of environmental groups sued the Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday to demand a strong uniform standard for the transportation, storage and disposal of frack waste."

"President Barack Obama’s assurances Wednesday that Flint’s water is safe to drink from faucet filters was met with skepticism among residents of this predominately African-American city beset by fears of lead lingering in their pipes."

"Water shortages will deliver a 'severe hit' to the economies of the Middle East, central Asia, and Africa by the middle of the century, taking double digits off their GDP, the World Bank warned on Tuesday."

"Zimbabwe put its wild animals up for sale on Tuesday, saying it needed buyers to step in and save the beasts from a devastating drought."