"PARIS -- Will Brussels try to give bees a break? In a case closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic, European officials plan to vote Friday on a proposal to sharply restrict the use of pesticides that had been implicated in the decline of global bee populations."

Researchers and campaigners claim that some 40 percent (19,200) of the children born to mothers taking the epilepsy drug Epilim have developed physical or mental problems.

"ESTREMOZ, PORTUGAL — We spent Christmas in a cabin on a hillside in the cork oak forest that clothes much of southern and central Portugal. We hiked along streams awakened by the winter rains. After dinner we walked under shockingly bright stars, undimmed by light pollution, listening to owls and the tinkle of bells from goats."

"Pesticides blamed for killing bees have been removed from the shelves of Britain's biggest gardening chains, prompting calls for similar chemicals widely-used on farms to be banned completely."

"BRUSSELS -- The 'Type 2  plug developed by the German company Mennekes will be the common standard for charging electrified vehicles across the European Union, the European Commission has announced."

"The toxic legacy of the Cold War lives on in Russia's Arctic, where the Soviet military dumped many tonnes of radioactive hardware at sea."

"PALERMO, Italy -- Inside a midnight-blue BMW, a Sicilian entrepreneur delivered his pitch to the accused mafia boss. A new business was blowing into Italy that could spin wind and sunlight into gold, ensuring the future of the Earth as well as the Cosa Nostra: renewable energy."

"The world's most widely used insecticide has for the first time been officially labelled an 'unacceptable' danger to bees feeding on flowering crops. Environmental campaigners say the conclusion, by Europe's leading food safety authority, sounds the 'death knell' for the insect nerve agent."

"PARIS, France -- From rising shorelines to devastating hurricanes, the visible effects scientists say climate change is wreaking on daily life no longer surprise many people around the world. The French have their own take on just how radically life may change."

"A new strain of MRSA has been found in British milk, indicating that the superbug is spreading through the livestock population and poses a growing threat to human health."

"Spain's oldest nuclear plant Garona is shutting down on Sunday ahead of new taxes included in a government energy reform that would render the plant unviable."

"PARIS -- The French parliament voted Thursday to ban the use of bisphenol A, a chemical thought to have a toxic effect on the brain and nervous system, in baby food packaging next year and all food containers in 2015."

"VISAGINAS, Lithuania -- The parking lot outside the atomic power plant is weedy and potholed. Bus stops that once teemed with hundreds of workers are eerily empty."

"Money raised from carbon taxes on energy bills should be used to lift millions of households out of fuel poverty and boost the economy, it has been suggested."

"Britain is facing its worst ecological disaster in at least a generation, as a devastating fungus that has already wiped out most of continental Europe's ash trees, appears to have taken root in rural England, conservationists say."