"The water isn’t always brown, but Scarlet Weathers lives like it is. Not once has she drank the tap water from her kitchen sink in her house in Sweeny, Texas. She knows, like everyone else in the town, that it can’t be trusted. Even her small grandchildren have noticed it during bathtime. Why is the water brown?"

"For as long as 55-year-old Hopi Chairman Tim Nuvangyaoma has been alive, high-voltage power lines have cut across Hopi lands in northeast Arizona, carrying vast amounts of power long distances throughout the Southwest. But residents of the Hopi Reservation have never been connected to that grid."

"Millions of women and children are at risk of losing food benefits during the shutdown. The USDA just killed the long-running survey that would track the fallout."

"An environmental advocacy group has filed complaints under the Hatch Act against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Forest Service over what it described as “partisan” messaging blaming Democrats for the ongoing government shutdown."

"President Trump has been a cheerleader for coal miners. But these miners say his administration is failing to enforce limits on a lethal workplace hazard."

"A federal judge Thursday temporarily blocked federal agents with the Department of Homeland Security from using riot control weapons against journalists covering protests and immigration enforcement operations in the Chicago area."

"The U.S. Department of Energy is considering terminating 300 additional clean energy projects worth over $15 billion, according to a leaked list reviewed by The Times."

"Staff shortages, turnover, and new priorities at the Department of Justice are stretching legal staff handling environmental issues and causing unusual delays—even before the government shutdown."

"Last year, state epidemiologists studied an industrialized region east of Houston. They reported  finding high rates of cancer, but refused to release key geographic details—a decision some experts say is irresponsible."

"Public health advocates pushed back when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said it planned to delay for two years a requirement that steel companies monitor air quality at the perimeters of their 11 coke plants in Western Pennsylvania and across the country. Two groups sued. Now, the EPA has reversed course."