“As more states look for ways to reopen, they’re hampered by the lack of sufficient testing for the coronavirus, making its prevalence impossible to gauge. So public health officials are now looking at another way to measure the spread of the contagion: by examining raw sewage. If ...

“With the Trump administration poised to roll back key protections for much of the nation’s wetlands, scientists at the US Environmental Protection Agency are accusing the agency’s political appointees of ignoring their advice and barring them from shaping sweeping new guidelines ...

“Converting much of the region’s sewage into a valuable byproduct was a major achievement of the Boston Harbor cleanup. Over the past three decades, the fertilizer has been sold or given away in massive amounts: tens of thousands of tons a year sent to farms and golf courses, parks ...

“QUINCY — The sludge arrives by the ton, pumped through miles of underwater pipes from Deer Island to a waste-water treatment plant on the banks of the Weymouth Fore River, where it’s spun through centrifuges into a kind of wet cake, dried by large furnaces, and made into ...

“For weeks, legislative leaders have been unable to reach a compromise to close the books on last fiscal year, leaving a relatively routine spending bill and a $1.1 billion surplus that it is built on to languish. But that impasse is affecting more than just the state’s ledger: ...