"Uranium mines around the Grand Canyon. Oil drilling rigs studding the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. New coal and timber leases in the national forests. States divvying up millions of acres of federal land to dispose of as they wish. To environmental groups, it would be a nightmare. To miners, loggers, ranchers and conservative politicians in resource-dependent areas, it would be about time. Either way, Donald J. Trump’s election presages huge potential change on America’s 640 million acres of federal public lands, from the deep seas east of Maine to the volcanic coasts of Hawaii."

"More than 200 people have been hospitalized with breathing difficulties in Tennessee as wildfires scorched the Southeast. Over 30 large fires have burned more than 80,000 acres in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and Kentucky, according to the US Forest Service."

"The state of Michigan on Thursday challenged a federal court order demanding that officials deliver bottled water to Flint residents who can’t easily pick up their own from distribution sites around the city, calling the requirement 'unnecessary' and saying it would require 'a tremendous expenditure of taxpayer funds.'"

"Donald Trump’s new hires should brace themselves for a full immersion in government ethics school. They’re going to need it given the president-elect’s sprawling business empire and his lack of interest in selling off his companies and properties outright."

"At a time when public mistrust of science runs high, and non-experts are hard-pressed to separate fact from industry-sponsored spin, Sense About Science, a charity based in London with an affiliate in New York, presents itself as a trustworthy arbiter."

"This week’s supermoon was more than a spectacular sight in the night sky. It nudged up sea levels, leading to areas of coastal flooding along the East Coast. Such inundation offered a glimpse of the new normal in certain low-lying areas as sea levels rise because of climate change."

"The U.S. Geological Survey says a deposit in West Texas is the largest continuous oil and gas deposit ever discovered in the United States."

"Consensus is growing that emergency funding for Flint, Mich., may end up in a year-end spending bill as doubts about the prospects of a waterways measure continue to grow."

"China’s vice foreign minster has confirmed his country is not behind a climate change hoax, as suggested by Donald Trump."

"To lead the transition of the Environmental Protection Agency, President-elect Donald Trump settled on notorious climate change denier Myron Ebell. The decision rattled climate activists ... Farm chemicals, too, would likely flow unabated if Ebell's agenda comes to dominate Trump's EPA."