Researchers in Antarctica encounter a rare melanistic emperor penguin.

A new White House panel to reexamine the national security implications of climate change will include William Happer, a climate denialist who believes that carbon dioxide is beneficial to the planet. 

The Supreme Court will consider whether pollutants discharged into groundwater violate the Clean Water Act. 

Maria Caffrey, a climate scientist for the National Park Service who resisted efforts by her superiors to censor references to human-caused climate change in her report, is told that her contract will not be renewed.  

A single female Wallace’s giant bee—four times larger than a honeybee—is found in Indonesia. The species was thought to be extinct for the past 38 years.  

A single female Fernandina giant tortoise is found on the remote Galápagos island of Fernandina. The species was thought to be extinct for the past 110 years. 

The Trump administration ends talks with California on fuel-efficiency rules for cars and trucks, guaranteeing a showdown over California’s stricter standards. 

North Dakota’s House passes a bill making it illegal to block parking spaces intended for charging electric vehicles—a practice known as ICEing. 

The Sierra Club joins with the ACLU to challenge President Donald Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency to fund a wall on the US-Mexico border.

Cacao from one out of 10 chocolate bars in the world comes from illegally cleared rainforest in national parks and other nominally protected forests in the Ivory Coast.  

The recent polar vortex may have killed off 95 percent of invasive brown marmorated stinkbugs.

For 20 years, visitors to Grand Canyon National Park’s Museums Collection building were exposed to radiation from uranium ore kept in three plastic buckets near the taxidermy exhibit. Exposure levels for kids could have been 4,000 times the safe level.  

Zebras may have evolved their stripes to avoid being bitten by tsetse flies and horseflies.

Dolphins appear to use toxic pufferfish to get high.