"The White House has removed the scientist responsible for the National Climate Assessment, the federal government’s premier contribution to climate knowledge and the foundation for regulations to combat global warming, in what critics interpreted as the latest sign that the Trump administration intends to use its remaining months in office to continue impeding climate science and policy."

"Admirers of national parks and world-class trout streams in the state of Montana have expressed alarm over the election of a new Republican governor and his environmental plans."

"The EPA and Interior Department under President-elect Joe Biden will have a range of tools at their disposal to start undoing President Donald Trump’s deregulatory agenda on the environment, according to former agency officials, lawyers, and environmentalists."

"In four years, President Donald Trump and his appointees in the Environmental Protection Agency, Interior Department, and other agencies made dramatic regulatory changes that sparked an ongoing series of legal battles. Biden’s team is expected to reverse course on big-ticket items, stopping many of those lawsuits in their tracks."

"President-elect Joe Biden on Monday announced the members of his coronavirus task force, a group made up entirely of doctors and health experts, signaling his intent to seek a science-based approach to bring the raging pandemic under control."

"New administration will seek to shift U.S. off fossil fuels and expand public lands protections, but face serious opposition from Senate GOP."

"A rapidly rising flood of coronavirus infections engulfed much of the United States on Thursday, setting records for new cases in 20 states, killing 1,158 people and straining the health system’s capacity to keep up with the pandemic.

On Thursday, 116,707 new cases were reported, the second straight record for a single day and a figure that dwarfed the total for any day in the previous worst two periods of the outbreak, in April and July. From Washington state to West Virginia and from Texas to Pennsylvania, the country was awash in record or near-record case counts Thursday.

"The world’s largest mink producer, Denmark, says it plans to cull more than 15 million of the animals, due to fears that a Covid-19 mutation moving from mink to humans could jeopardise future vaccines."

"A Taiwan-based company and opponents to plans for a $9.4 billion plastics complex have agreed that site preparation can continue except in wetlands and in five known or possible sites of enslaved people’s graves."

"Even if Joe Biden wins the White House, his ambitious climate agenda could be thwarted by a Senate that is increasingly likely to remain in Republican control."