"Florida's top state wetlands expert has been suspended after she refused to issue a permit on a controversial project -- one that she said her boss was willing to bend the rules to approve."

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"Tropical Storm Beryl threatened to snarl traffic on Memorial Day as it brought drenching rain, winds and the possibility of flooding to the southeastern U.S. coast.

The storm made landfall in Florida early Monday near Jacksonville Beach around 12:10 a.m. ET with near-hurricane-strength winds of 70 mph, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

"Consumer, environmental and anti-nuclear advocates said Monday they will fight proposed state legislation allowing Duke Energy to more easily pass costs of a new nuclear plant on to N.C. customers."

"Duke wants N.C. lawmakers to allow it to recoup nuclear pre-construction and financing costs without filing a lengthy general rate case. The bill would instead let utilities adjust rates annually to recover those costs, something South Carolina, Georgia and Florida already allow."

"Dozens of residents in Prichard’s Eight Mile community [Ala.] have sought medical help due to symptoms they believe are related to exposure to mercaptan, the chemical that Mobile Gas spilled in the neighborhood in 2008."

"Some bomb-sniffing dogs trained to help fight terrorism are turning their olfactory attention toward a different scourge: Burmese pythons in Florida's Everglades National Park."

"A decade after landmark toxic-air monitoring prompted a city crackdown on chemical emissions, a new analysis shows significant improvement in some areas — but still cause for concern in neighborhoods near western Louisville’s Rubbertown industries."

A coal-fired power plant in Georgia has neighbors worried about the consequences of its ash-disposal pond.

"Residents waiting to learn whether their property was contaminated by an insecticide manufacturing plant in their Park Hill neighborhood want to know why it took officials about 25 years to begin testing the soil in and near what has become the city's newest Superfund toxic waste site."

"ATLANTA -- Clean air advocates and environmental groups won a victory Monday when the utility consortium Power4Georgians agreed to cancel its proposal to build a coal-fired power plant near Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County, Georgia."

"Critics say the measure allows public school teachers to challenge the topics without fear of sanction. Gov. Bill Haslam expresses misgivings about the law."

"With pastures withered from a lingering drought, farmers in Texas and northwest Louisiana have abandoned donkeys by the hundreds, turning them into wandering refugees that have severely tested animal rescue groups."

"State legislature gives legal protection to teachers who do not believe in the science and want to debate alternate explanations."

"The Senate approved a highway bill Wednesday that includes a long-sought provision for the Gulf Coast: A guarantee that 80 percent of the fines collected from the April 2010 BP oil spill — an amount that could reach $20 billion — would be distributed for coastal restoration to the five states along the Gulf of Mexico: Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas and Alabama."

"TALLAHASSEE — Federal environmental officials underestimated the cost of implementing their new water pollution rules for Florida, just as critics have been saying, a National Research Council panel concluded in a report released Tuesday."

"Twenty-six-year-old Sara Barnes was arrested in Seminole County, Fla., after she admitted to setting fire to one of the oldest trees in the world."