The Trump administration on Friday ordered agencies to eliminate at least one-third of their advisory committees, a move that has government watchdogs and science advocacy groups concerned.

In the daylight hours of a recent Wednesday afternoon, a 33-year-old man was shot and killed in Southeast Washington, D.C., just a short walk from where children at Savoy Elementary School were in their afternoon classes. Hendley Elementary School, roughly a mile away, was recently hit by bullets, reportedly for the second time in a month.

Gloria Vanderbilt was an artist, heiress, designer and philanthropist who, for many Americans, may be best remembered for her blue jeans. She died at the age of 95.

Vanderbilt's son, Anderson Cooper, announced her death Monday, airing an obituary for her on CNN. Vanderbilt had cancer, he said.

"Earlier this month, we had to take her to the hospital. That's where she learned she had very advanced cancer in her stomach, and that it had spread," Cooper said.

When 565 spellers took the stage in Maryland last month for the annual Scripps National Spelling Bee, five of them shared something more than the spirit of friendly competition. They shared a coach.

Bill Schaefer, a 77-year-old retired teacher, first started teaching spelling in the early 1970s. Schaefer kept his eyes on this year's bee from his home in Denver.

Just like any other professional coach, Schaefer is always full of emotions watching his spellers compete.

A scientist walks up to a cottonwood tree, sticks a hollow tube in the middle and then takes a lighter and flicks it. A jet of flame shoots out from the tube.

It seems like a magician's trick. Turns out, there's methane trapped in certain cottonwood trees. Methane is the gas in natural gas. It's also a powerful greenhouse gas.

So how does it get inside towering trees like the ones on the campus of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee?