President Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he reversed bans on offshore drilling in vast parts of the Arctic Ocean and dozens of canyons in the Atlantic Ocean, a U.S. judge said in a ruling that restored the Obama-era restrictions. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason in a decision late Friday threw out Trump's executive order that overturned the bans that comprised a key part of Obama's environmental legacy.

A two-decade-long dry spell that has parched much of the western United States is turning into one of the deepest megadroughts in the region in more than 1,200 years, a new study found. And about half of this historic drought can be blamed on man-made global warming, according to a study in Thursday’s journal Science.

Conservation groups are alarmed by the Trump administration's proposal to rename some radioactive waste left from the production of nuclear weapons to make it cheaper and easier to achieve permanent disposal. The U.S. Department of Energy is considering a change in its legal definition of high-level radioactive waste, which is stored at places like the Hanford.

Officials began to clean up a massive oil spill Friday that dumped nearly 800,000 gallons of oil and water into a California canyon, making it larger — if less devastating — than the state's last two major oil spills. The newly revealed spill has been flowing off and on since May and has again stopped, Chevron spokeswoman Veronica Flores-Paniagua said. She and California officials said the spill is not near any waterway and has not significantly affected wildlife. The last flow was Tuesday.

House Democrats on Tuesday unveiled a plan to address climate change that would set a goal of net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, while pushing renewable energy such as wind and solar power and addressing environmental contamination that disproportionately harms low-income and minority communities. The election-year plan backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other leaders is less ambitious than a sweeping Green New Deal that a group of progressive Democrats outlined last year to combat climate change and create thousands of jobs in renewable energy.

In a dramatic rollback of environmental oversight, President Donald Trump took action Thursday to clear the way and speed up development of a wide range of commercial projects by cutting back federal review of their impact on the environment.

Poland Spring announced Monday a plan to use 100% recycled plastic for all its noncarbonated water containers, a move that comes amid growing concern about plastic pollution. The Maine-based company said the effort kicks off this month with 1-liter bottles. By 2022, the company plans to use 100% recycled plastic for bottles in all of its still water lines. A niche product called Poland Spring Origin also uses 100% recycled plastic bottles.

At ski races across the United States, competitors are starting to abandon a type of wax many count on for speed amid concerns it contains potentially hazardous chemicals that threaten human health and could reach streams and other critical groundwater sources. The International Ski Federation, the governing body for international skiing, announced plans to ban the use of fluorinated waxes in all disciplines next season.

"Thousands of scientists around the world joined together last month to label climate change the 'emergency' that it is. But one of the main points they make — linking control of women’s reproduction to environmental goals — is problematic," says columnist Kelsey Holt. "Focusing on what women in poor nations with the highest birth rates can do to curb climate change distracts from holding wealthy countries and corporations accountable for their disproportionate harm to the planet and imperils the right to reproductive autonomy.

Flying into the uninhabited Northwestern Hawaiian Islands, Midway Atoll appears out of the vast blue Pacific as a tiny oasis of coral-fringed land with pristine white sand beaches that are teeming with life. But on the ground, there's a different scene: plastic, pollution and death. Here's a look at the island.