NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Two environmental groups have sued the Trump administration, saying it has failed to protect map turtles found in Mississippi and Louisiana under the Endangered Species Act.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — More than 70% of the world’s people live in countries where inequality has grown since 1990, including China and India, and growing inequalities are benefiting the wealthiest, a U.N. report said Tuesday.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record, two U.S. agencies reported Wednesday. And scientists said they see no end to the way man-made climate change keeps shattering records.

Increasingly intense wildfires are scorching forests from California to Australia and stoking concern among residents and health professionals about long-term health impacts from smoke exposure.

CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Thunderstorms and showers brought some relief for firefighters battling deadly wildfires across Australia’s drought-parched east coast on Wednesday, but also raised concerns that lightning will spark more fires before dangerous hot and windy conditions return.

SYDNEY (AP) — Australia’s government said Monday it was willing to pay “whatever it takes” to help communities recover from deadly wildfires that have ravaged the country.

After years of fear and uncertainty, bottom trawler fishermen — those who use nets to catch rockfish, bocaccio, sole, Pacific Ocean perch and other deep-dwelling fish — are making a comeback here, reinventing themselves as a sustainable industry less than two decades after authorities closed huge stretches of the Pacific Ocean because of the species’ depletion.