AP - The Coast Guard is backing off its earlier report that an oil sheen about a mile long was spreading following a platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico.

Reuters - The Environmental Protection Agency will roll out more regulations on greenhouse gases and other pollution to help fight climate change, but they will not be as strong as action by Congress, a senior administration official said.

Reuters - An oil and gas platform operated by Mariner Energy burst into flames on Thursday and unleashed a mile-long oil sheen into the Gulf of Mexico, in the region's first major offshore disaster since BP's oil spill began in April.

AP - Midwest farmers who sold corn to bankrupt ethanol producer VeraSun Energy Corp. have been receiving official letters asking for most of that money back.

LiveScience.com - Mass extinctions have served as huge reset buttons that dramatically changed the diversity of species found in oceans all over the world, according to a comprehensive study of fossil records. The findings suggest humans will live in a very different future if they drive animals to extinction, because the loss of each species can alter entire ecosystems.

Reuters - About 45 nations met on Thursday to seek ways to raise billions of dollars in aid to help the poor combat climate change as the United Nations warned them of a long haul to slow global warming.

AFP - There is no sign of an oil spill after a rig caught fire in the Gulf of Mexico, a spokesman for rig operator Mariner Energy said.

AFP - UN climate chief Christiana Figueres on Thursday warned that a string of weather calamities showed the deepening urgency to forge a breakthrough deal on global warming this year.

AFP - The Amazon, the world's biggest river, is at its lowest level in over 40 years near its source in northeastern Peru, causing havoc in a region where it is used as the only form of travel, authorities said.

Reuters - The U.S. Coast Guard was flying helicopters to a possible offshore drilling rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico, a Coast Guard spokesman said.

Reuters - BP Plc said it had begun removing a cap from equipment atop its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well on Thursday, the first of several steps in advance of plugging the leak for good.

AP - The cap that ended BP's three-month oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico was set to come off Thursday as a prelude to raising a massive, failed piece of equipment and preparing for a final seal on the broken seafloor well.

AFP - Scottish oil exploration group Cairn Energy said Thursday it had resumed operations on a rig off the coast of Greenland after Greenpeace ended a protest.

AFP - US fast food giant Burger King said Thursday it would no longer buy palm oil from Sinar Mas or its subsidiaries after Greenpeace campaigned against the Indonesian group's land-clearing practices.

AP - The U.N.'s climate chief says poor countries are right to expect that any funding they receive to combat global warming be kept separate from development aid or poverty relief.

AFP - Climate change could reduce key harvests in China by a fifth if the gloomiest scenarios prove true, according to a study on Wednesday.

AFP - Two Greenpeace activists will face possible jail terms in Japan on Monday for stealing a box of whale meat in a trial the environmental group says will test the country's limits on political activism.

AP - Nepalese investigators have found the flight data recorders from the wreckage of a small plane that crashed last week en route to the Mount Everest area, killing 14 people including six foreigners, officials said Thursday.

AP - The U.S. Forest Service is reviewing whether an eastern Arizona ranger whose tip led to the capture of two of the most wanted fugitives in America can receive $27,500 in reward money under the agency's ethics guidelines.

AP - Wave after wave of tar balls floated ashore Wednesday on the renowned Goa beaches after a ship dumped tons of waste oil off India's western coast, officials said.