"One of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s biggest “drill, baby, drill” initiatives suffered a significant setback on Wednesday as the Interior Department announced that a lease sale in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge ended without a single bidder."

"The Biden administration on Tuesday abruptly dropped its nascent plan to protect old-growth forests after getting pushback from Republicans and the timber industry."

"Krishna, a skinny 12-year-old, waits near a Hindu temple packed with pilgrims. He hears a yell – that's his cue. He zigzags between motorbikes and honking tuk-tuks, elbows his way through the crowd and finds a man waving wildly at a monkey."

"An apparently grieving killer whale who swam more than 1,000 miles pushing the body of her dead newborn has lost another calf and is again carrying the body, a development researchers say is a “devastating” loss for the ailing population."

"Wyoming will sell a 1-square-mile (2.6-square-kilometer) parcel of pristine land bordering Grand Teton National Park to the U.S. government for $100 million after Gov. Mark Gordon signed off on a deal Friday that ends the state’s longstanding threats to unload it to a developer."

"Experts believe three more cats in Los Angeles County have been infected with H5N1 bird flu. Two others succumbed to the disease earlier this month after drinking recalled raw milk from Fresno-based Raw Farm LLC dairies."

"The hunt for invasive “murder hornets” is over in Washington and the rest of the U.S. after three years without confirmed detections, state and federal officials said Wednesday."

"Paul Watson, the anti-whaling campaigner, has spoken of delight that he will be reunited with his young children for Christmas after Denmark rejected Japan’s extradition request and released him from prison in Greenland."

"An invasive predator that can grow up to 20ft, weigh over 100kg and devour prey six times its size – it is enough to make anyone’s skin crawl. That’s what residents of southern Florida have been struggling with for the past few decades, with the rapid growth of the Burmese python population in the Everglades."