Reuters - Canada will set up a new environmental monitoring system for the northern Alberta oil sands as it seeks to fend off harsh international criticism following revelations that oversight of the huge petroleum development has been insufficient.

Reuters - The U.S. Agriculture Department on Friday awarded $40.2 million in grants to farmers, ranchers and farmer-controlled rural business ventures aimed at spurring locally produced food supplies and renewable energy ventures.

AP - Federal safety officials will vote Feb. 9 on whether to approve what could become the nation's first nuclear plant in a generation.

LiveScience.com - Hundreds of species never before seen in a Peruvian national park have been found during an inventory of the Amazonian forests there, according to a conservation group.

AP - British leader David Cameron made a third unwanted shake up of his government since 2010 on Friday after Cabinet minister Chris Huhne quit as prosecutors charged him over an alleged attempt to pin a speeding penalty on his ex-wife.

AP - The view off the mid-Atlantic shore in the next decade could include giant wind turbines generating electricity for homes in several states if federal efforts to speed approval for the projects shave years off the process as officials intend.

AP - Unusual wear has been found on hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water at Southern California's San Onofre Unit 2 nuclear plant, raising questions about the integrity of equipment the company installed in a multimillion-dollar makeover in 2009.

AP - An environmental watchdog group filed a lawsuit Thursday against the company it blames for an oil spill 11 miles off the coast of Louisiana, claiming oil has been flowing into the Gulf of Mexico for more than seven years with few details about what's being done to stop it.

Reuters - You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

Reuters - Spanish oil company Repsol YPF has begun drilling the first well in Cuba's long-awaited exploration of offshore oilfields that the communist country says hold both billions of barrels of oil and the key to greater prosperity, industry sources told Reuters on Thursday.

AP - A tiny amount of radiation could have escaped from a Southern California nuclear power plant after a water leak prompted operators to shut down a reactor as a precaution, but plant workers and the public were not endangered, officials said Wednesday.

Reuters - The director of a U.S. documentary that portrays shale gas production as dangerous was arrested and escorted out of a Republican-dominated Congressional hearing on Wednesday, touching off a dispute over public access to the event.

AP - The Atlantic sturgeon, a prehistoric fish whose once bountiful populations were depleted by anglers seeking its coveted caviar, has been declared an endangered species by federal officials, a decision that could lead to moves to protect its habitats along the East Coast.

AP - In a Jan. 31 story about a zoo's complaints over a company's use of chimpanzees in a television ad set to air on Super Bowl Sunday, The Associated Press erroneously reported that CareerBuilder.com said the American Humane Society watched the filming to ensure the animals were treated with respect. The company actually said someone from the American Humane Association watched the filming.

Reuters - The risk to public health from a severe nuclear power plant accident in the United States is "very small" because reactor operators should have time to prevent core damage and reduce the release of radioactive materials, U.S. nuclear regulators said in a study on Wednesday.

LiveScience.com - Between out-of-control fires and destructive invasive species, Australia is facing major environmental problems. Now, an Australian scientist says he has a radical solution to these issues: Import large animals, such as elephants, to consume flammable grasses and combat the feral animals that are reconstructing the ecosystem.

LiveScience.com - Fracking, mountaintop removal and offshore oil drilling are just a few of the top concerns facing the southern United States in 2012.

Reuters - One of two reactors at the San Onofre nuclear power station in Southern California was shut down on Tuesday after a small leak was detected in a steam generator tube, but the incident posed no risk to the public or plant workers, the facility operator said.

AP - A Chicago zoo is mounting a campaign to stop a company from airing a Super Bowl Sunday commercial featuring mischievous suit-and-tie wearing chimpanzees playing tricks on their human co-worker, saying all that monkey business proves deadly for the endangered species.

AP - A federal judge ruled Tuesday that Halliburton can avoid paying most of the pollution claims that resulted from the catastrophic 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill because it was shielded in a contract with well-owner BP.