"Michigan Governor Rick Snyder on Wednesday appointed a group of government officials, health and other experts to implement long-term fixes for Flint's lead-contaminated water system, which has become a national scandal."

"The armed occupation of a wildlife refuge in eastern Oregon, which flashed into violent confrontation with law enforcement on Tuesday when eight members of the group were arrested and one was killed, appeared to be unraveling on Wednesday night when the jailed leader of the siege advised his followers to go home."

"The Senate on Wednesday started debating its first comprehensive energy legislation since the George W. Bush administration, a bipartisan measure meant to update the nation’s power grid and oil and gas transportation systems to address major changes in the ways that power is now produced in the United States."

"In Michigan, leaders talk about a "blue economy," everything from reviving waterfronts to lakefront tourism to new technology that cleans, treats or saves water. In Wisconsin, they're also linking water and economic revitalization. Nowhere are they testing the idea of a water tech economy more urgently than Milwaukee."

"The Doomsday Clock remains unchanged this year, at three minutes to midnight. Managed by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the clock symbolizes how close humanity is to destroying itself, with midnight representing global apocalyptic disaster."

"North Carolina is one of the country's largest poultry producers — and getting bigger. Large-scale chicken farms are spreading across the state. Government regulations have allowed these farms to get much closer to where people live. That's not just a nuisance. Neighbors say it's also a potential health hazard."

"Analysts have long argued that nations aiming to use wind and solar power to curb emissions from fossil fuel burning would first have to invest heavily in new technologies to store electricity produced by these intermittent sources—after all, the sun isn’t always shining and the wind isn’t always blowing. But a study out today suggests that the United States could, at least in theory, use new high-voltage power lines to move renewable power across the nation, and essentially eliminate the need to add new storage capacity."

"A decades-old and little-used provision of the Clean Air Act intended to make the United States a good environmental neighbor could now be employed to comprehensively control the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new analysis."

"Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged on Tuesday to require that environmental reviews of oil pipelines and LNG export projects consider greenhouse gas effects, and said it was not his role to be a cheerleader for such projects."