You are now in California and the U.S. category.

Firefighters expect to fully contain the deadly Wine Country wildfires this week, just as a final blow to the burn areas is anticipated from above — in the form of rain. The most vicious blaze to explode across Sonoma and Napa counties three weeks ago, the 36,807-acre Tubbs Fire, was 98 percent contained Sunday, nearing the 100 percent mark when crews are confident they’ve entirely surrounded the burn with fire breaks. The blaze has killed 22 people and leveled 5,300 structures, most in Santa Rosa.

The unexpectedly long life of a pair of pioneering satellites that deepened scientific understanding of society’s influence on water and land is over. NASA and its project partners decided to end the GRACE satellite mission this week after the eighth of 20 battery cells on GRACE-2 failed. GRACE-1 was still working, but the mission, which measures fractional changes in Earth’s gravity based on the position of the satellites relative to each other, requires both to move in tandem. Losing one means losing all.

Humanity has sought to make the Earth’s oceans potable for thousands of years. The Norse tale of Utgarda-Loki tells of Odin being tricked into drinking from a horn connected to the sea, while Exodus 15:22–26 of the Bible likely describes Moses desalinating the water of Marah: When they came to Marah, they could not drink the water of Marah because it was bitter; therefore it was named Marah. And the people grumbled against Moses, saying, “What shall we drink?”

The Interior Department will continue to work with California on its $17 billion water project. An earlier statement saying the Trump administration didn’t support the project confused state officials. An official later clarified the department will continue to help with the project but not in its funding.

Californians strongly support action by state and federal agencies to ensure that the water in our streams and the water we drink are free of dangerous contaminants, and that our precious wetlands are preserved. Unfortunately, the Trump administration and Congress propose to weaken federal Clean Water Act protections for those essential resources. But California regulatory agencies needn’t and shouldn’t wait for this federal rollback. They should instead take action proactively to use state law to ensure clean water and wetlands protections for all Californians.