Great Lakes (IL IN MI MN OH WI)

"Wisconsin wildlife officials on Thursday released their first new wolf management plan in almost a quarter-century but the document doesn’t establish a new statewide population goal, a number that has become a flashpoint in the fight over hunting quotas."

"In the state with the most lead pipes per capita, new criteria for funding prioritizes projects in low-income communities and those that remove lead service lines."

"A circuit court judge on Tuesday dismissed charges against former state and Flint officials for their roles in the water crisis that gripped the city beginning in 2014. The result had been a likely outcome after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled in June that state prosecutors incorrectly used a one-man grand jury to issue indictments last year."

"Seated low in her canoe sliding through a rice bed on this vast lake, Kendra Haugen used one wooden stick to bend the stalks and another to knock the rice off, so gently the stalks sprung right back up."

"One in 20 tap water tests performed for thousands of Chicago residents found lead, a neurotoxin, at or above US government limits, according to a Guardian analysis of a City of Chicago data trove."

"After two years, Brightmark Energy has yet to get the factory up and running. Environmentalists say pyrolysis requires too much energy, emits greenhouse gases and pollutants, and turns plastic waste into new, dirty fossil fuels."

"TAMARACK, Minn. — In this isolated town of about 100 people, dozens of employees are at work for Talon Metals, drawing long cylinders of rock from deep in the earth and analyzing their contents. They liken their work to a game of Battleship — each hole drilled allows them to better map out where a massive and long-hidden mineral deposit is lurking below."