LE BOURGET, France -- The climate talks preparing to conclude in a suburb of Paris will probably produce a deal. There are still contentious issues to be addressed, but the delegates and environmental groups roaming the halls of the cavernous meeting complex tend to be pretty hopeful that a deal will be in place sometime in the next 24 hours.

LE BOURGET, France -- Brazil has joined a new coalition of countries calling for an ambitious climate deal, parting ways with other rapidly developing economies that have long been its allies in global talks.

LE BOURGET, France -- Climate change talks have gone into the final stretch, and despite early optimism about completing a global accord early, it now seems the negotiations will need a pair of elastic pants.

For Tangier Island, Va., lifelong resident Claudia Parks, climate change is a direct threat to her golf cart. As flooding and erosion have worsened on the Chesapeake Bay island in recent decades, the tour director with a broad smile avoids certain saturated roads at least 15 times in the spring and fall during tidal events on her regular work route. That involves getting visitors past the local ice cream shops, white picket fences and marshy hills that dot this car-free fishing community.

LE BOURGET, France -- By 9:30 a.m. local time Wednesday, two dozen junior staff working for a group called We Mean Business were squeezed around folding tables in a meeting room a stone's throw from U.N. climate negotiations. The hours were speeding toward today's flexible deadline for 196 nations to reach a deal aimed at halting the growth of carbon dioxide emissions and rebuilding the world economy around low-carbon energy. Later that morning, the squad from We Mean Business -- an umbrella group representing some of the world's largest multinational corporations -- would fan out across this sprawling tent city northeast of Paris. This was one of their last-ditch efforts to get international negotiators to include language in a final document that sets a long-term goal of decarbonizing the world economy.

A pending deal to reform the nation's wildfire spending and expedite logging on national forests is picking up momentum as a potential tag-along to the 2016 omnibus spending package, according to multiple sources close to Capitol Hill.