"Giraffe populations are declining at such an alarming rate — from habitat loss, poaching, urbanization and climate change-fueled drought — that US wildlife officials announced a proposal on Wednesday to help protect several of the species."

"More than 50 governments have signed a U.N. declaration to make tourism around the globe more climate friendly, the United Nations said on Wednesday, in what it hailed as a major achievement of the climate summit in Azerbaijan."

"The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) should be doing more to help address potential climate change-related risks to hundreds of hazardous waste facilities across the country, according to a recent government watchdog report."

"For many years, wealthy places like the United States and Europe have had the biggest historical responsibility for global warming and have been tasked with taking the lead in stopping it. China’s astonishing rise is upending that dynamic."

"Donald Trump’s second term promises to deliver historic threats to US press freedom – directly from the Oval Office."

"In Mexico, the conditions that have contributed to the largest sustained movement of humans across any border in the world will get only more common. This spring, at the start of the corn-growing season, 76 percent of Mexico was in drought, and the country was sweltering under a deadly heat dome."

"About 50 axis deer crowded around the fence line separating Maui Nui Botanical Gardens and Keopuolani Regional Park, startling the gardens staff on a recent Thursday afternoon. The threat posed by the invasive deer was alarming because the gardens serve as a seed bank and are home to some of Hawaii’s rarest endemic and native plants."

"Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) will lead the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee next year. He’ll take over for the panel’s current top Republican, Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), who will become the upper chamber’s No. 2 Republican next year."

"Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm warned Friday that President-elect Trump’s reported plans to cut consumer subsidies for electric vehicles (EVs) would benefit China."

"With just shy of 800 residents, West Bend, Iowa is barely a blip on a prairie landscape, but it has become home base for an uncommonly large expanse of organically grown crops- operations that have found success in challenging the popular convention that pesticides and other agricultural chemicals are needed to feed the world."