"U.S. federal prosecutors have been asked to take legal action over safety and environmental violations discovered on one of two drillships Royal Dutch Shell used last year in Arctic waters off Alaska, officials said on Monday."

"WICHITA -- Years of drought are reshaping the U.S. beef industry with feedlots and a major meatpacking plant closing because there are too few cattle left in the United States to support them."

"After nearly two decades of pollution problems and financial woes, a tire incinerator in one of Illinois' poorest communities will close permanently as part of a legal settlement announced Monday by federal authorities."

"A California senator's decision to quit and jump to Chevron Corp. has sparked questions about whether he should have negotiated for that job while in a position to help the company politically."

"War has erupted between clean-air activists and state leaders, with the battleground being the data driving decisions about Utah’s air quality."

"High levels of a dangerous toxin found in bagged dog food on a grocery store shelf in Iowa have highlighted the prevalence of a problematic mold in last year's U.S. corn crop, as state and federal officials work on limiting the food safety concern."

"NEW ORLEANS -- Billions of dollars will be at stake Monday at the opening of a complex trial to determine how much BP should pay for the devastating 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill."

The U.S. food industry's response to the emerging obesity problem has often put its own profits ahead of public health.

"Native Americans on an oil-rich North Dakota reservation have been cheated out of more than $1 billion by schemes to buy drilling rights for lowball prices, a flurry of recent lawsuits assert. And, the suits claim, the federal government facilitated the alleged swindle by failing in its legal obligation to ensure the tribes got a fair deal."

"Alaska’s Izembek National Wildlife Refuge is a 315,000-acre stretch of eelgrass and tundra pockmarked with lakes and lagoons, a site where the geese called Pacific black brants stop off to feed before they begin their journey to wintering grounds in Mexico."

"A team of state scientists has outlined serious concerns about the damage South Carolina will suffer from climate change – threats that include invading eels, dying salt marshes, flooded homes and increased diseases in the state’s wildlife."

"WASHINGTON, DC -- If Congress does not act this coming week, automatic federal spending cuts, called the sequester, will go into effect March 1 that will impact the environment. Funding for parks, energy development, travel, clean air and water, fish and wildlife protection, pollution prevention, and disaster readiness will be cut."

"You're going to need a bigger fishbowl.

"The former U.S. EPA official who tangled with Texas officials in a drilling contamination case outside Fort Worth said the state's oil and gas regulators were more interested in promoting the industry than policing it."

A surge in the use of fungicides is bringing higher crop yields; but experts warn that there is not enough monitoring of the emerging fungicide contamination of streams -- and that not enough is known about the health consequences.