"President Donald Trump on Friday teed up an expected Senate vote on a stopgap government spending measure that includes the funds he sought for his border wall — and pressured Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., to "use the Nuclear Option" to get the bill passed."

"ALCEDO VOLCANO, Galápagos — When the clouds break, the equatorial sun bears down on the crater of this steaming volcano, revealing a watery landscape where the theory of evolution began to be conceived."

"A bucolic community was reduced to ash by a new kind of wildfire – the deadliest in California’s history. Survivors recall that horrible day".

"Donald Trump isn’t getting the “big, beautiful” wall he wants at the border with Mexico anytime this year. And it’s highly unlikely he’ll get it in 2019 or 2020."

"The White House’s nominee to head a top US conservation agency lacks her predecessors’ experience, while her political connections raise potential conflicts of interest, a Guardian analysis has found. Aurelia Skipwith, who started her career at the agrochemical giant Monsanto, has been nominated to lead the interior department’s Fish and Wildlife Service, which oversees endangered species and wildlife refuges."

"Japan is to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and resume commercial whaling next year, a report claimed on Thursday, in a move that drew condemnation from Australia, with other anti-whaling nations expected to follow suit."

"Hundreds of thousands of homes in the Southeast may have had their wells inundated by record-level floodwater resulting from major hurricanes this year, yet only a fraction have been tested for harmful contaminants."

"Elmira High School is one of 1,290 active and 220 potential toxic legacy sites statewide, according to an analysis of state records by the Elmira Star-Gazette."

"Nine Eastern states have committed to cut transportation emissions in their region by designing a new cap-and-trade system. It's the latest and perhaps most significant example of states working together to fill a void left by the federal government to address climate change."

"The results landed on Nikolai Vitti’s desk on a late summer afternoon, days before Detroit’s nearly 50,000 public school students would return to class. The findings were definitive and disturbing: In initial tests, two-thirds of schools showed alarming levels of lead in the water."