"The United States, Japan and 10 other Pacific Rim nations on Monday reached final agreement on the largest regional trade accord in history, teeing up what could be the toughest fight President Obama will face in his final year in office: securing approval from Congress."

"JAKARTA -- The forest fires blanketing Southeast Asia in choking haze are on track to become among the worst on record, NASA has warned, with a prolonged dry season hampering efforts to curb a crisis that has persisted for nearly two decades."

"Six candidates are vying to become head of the U.N.'s top authority on climate change science this week, seeking to narrow down uncertainties about future warming to guide a trillion-dollar shift to greener energies."

"Where’s the money? Six years ago in Copenhagen, Hillary Clinton, then secretary of state, brought the moribund negotiations on a deal to slow climate change back from the dead with a single promise of $100 billion a year to help the world’s poor nations."

"The holy grail of space exploration is to find extraterrestrial life. An important precursor to that is finding liquid water—and that's exactly what NASA [Monday] announced scientists have discovered on Mars."

"Volkswagen’s diesel deception unleashed tons of extra pollutants in the United States, pollutants that can harm human health. So while many commentators have been quick to say that the cheating engines are not a highway safety concern, safety — as in health — is still an issue."

"The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving forward with new rules to ensure that shipments of hazardous waste are safely imported and exported."

"Donald Trump was succinct last week when asked how the United States should respond to climate change. 'It's not a big problem at all,' the leader in opinion polls for the Republican presidential nomination told a radio talk show host. 'If you look at China, they're doing nothing about it.'"

"While differences on cyber security and talk of sanctions dominated the headlines for Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to the US, the two countries also signed up to a major agreement to end the global trade in ivory."

"The pledges that countries are making to battle climate change would still allow the world to heat up by more than 6 degrees Fahrenheit, a new analysis shows, a level that scientists say is likely to produce catastrophes ranging from food shortages to widespread extinctions of plant and animal life."