Scientists determine that the “buzzing, grinding metal, piercing squeals, and humming” sounds reported by US diplomatic personnel in Cuba as sonic attacks were produced by Indies short-tailed crickets (Anurogryllus celerinictus) looking for love.

A third of the Bureau of Land Management employees remaining on duty during the government shutdown are working to further oil and gas drilling operations.

During the government shutdown, vandals at Joshua Tree National Park cut chains and locks to access campgrounds, carve off-road vehicle tracks in wilderness areas, and cut down Joshua trees. 

Donald Trump officially nominates former coal lobbyist Andrew Wheeler to be EPA administrator. Responding to a public-records request from the Sierra Club, a judge orders the EPA to turn over 20,000 communications between industry groups and political appointees—including Wheeler—at the agency.

Trump’s EPA proposes a regulatory change that would allow coal plants to emit higher levels of mercury and other toxins. 

More coal-fired power plants have closed in the first two years of Trump’s administration than in the first four years of Barack Obama’s. 

Xcel Energy says that by 2050, it will end carbon emissions in the eight western and midwestern states where it operates. 

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer will not run for president in 2020.

Trump threatens to halt payments to survivors of California’s 2018 wildfires from the Federal Emergency Management Agency unless unspecified changes are made to the state’s forest policy.  

A study in the journal Science suggests that 2018 will prove the hottest year on record. 

A 612-pound endangered bluefin tuna sells for $3.1 million at Tokyo's fish market. 

It’s legal to call almond milk “milk.”

The number of monarch butterflies overwintering in California has declined by 86 percent since 2017. 

An oil well in the Gulf of Mexico is leaking 10,000 to 30,000 gallons a day—and has been doing so for more than 14 years. 

Boaters kill 119 manatees in Florida in 2018, a record number. 

Sales of plug-in electric vehicles increase 72.5 percent in 2018 over 2017. 

In a practice known as ICEing, drivers are using their pickup trucks to block Tesla charging stations.

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s new Republican governor, bans fracking in the state.

Fiat Chrysler will pay nearly $800 million in fines for cheating on emissions tests of its vehicles.  

Eddie, a southern sea otter at the Oregon Zoo known for his skills at basketball and auto-eroticism, dies at age 20. 

Alba, the world's only known albino orangutan, is returned to a remote Borneo jungle a year after being rescued from captivity. 

George, a 14-year-old Hawaiian land snail, Achatinella apexfulva, dies in captivity. He was the last of his species.