"TULSA, Okla. -- A massive dust storm swirling reddish-brown clouds over northern Oklahoma triggered a multi-vehicle accident along a major interstate Thursday, forcing police to shut down the heavily traveled roadway amid near blackout conditions."

"OMAHA, Neb. -- A Nebraska environmental group wants federal regulators to keep the Fort Calhoun nuclear plant shut down because it would be inundated by floodwaters in the unlikely event of a dam failing upstream."

"The Clean Nebraska group said Wednesday that the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's own assessment of the flood threat at the plant about 20 miles north of Omaha predicts all major equipment at Fort Calhoun would be flooded if the Oahe dam on the Missouri River failed.

"ST. LOUIS -- Illinois rejected an application for a permit for a strip coal mine that opponents claimed would have threatened a tiny village's water supply and various animals in a nearby wildlife area."

"A byproduct of the ongoing heat wave, increased smog, may ultimately bring more and longer-lasting annoyance than the heat itself. The heat wave will eventually break, but Wichita’s smog reports probably already have been damaged to the extent of triggering some mandatory -- and potentially costly and inconvenient -- pollution controls like those in other big cities."

Politicians touted the use of tax credits to clean up the long-abandoned Carondelet Coke brownfields site site in St. Louis and turn it into an industrial park. But corner-cutting and lax oversight meant companies would benefit and taxpayers would get a raw deal, an investigation shows.

"STUART, Neb. -- Stepping carefully through a 12-foot-deep canyon gouged into the sandy soil of their family ranch by a long-gone storm, Kurt and Laura Meusch ask a Shakespearean question: What's in a name?"

"The historic Texas drought caused the Ogallala Aquifer to experience its largest decline in 25 years across a large swath of the Texas Panhandle, new numbers from a water district show."

"Oil drilling has sparked a frenzied prosperity in Jeff Keller's formerly quiet corner of western North Dakota in recent years, bringing an infusion of jobs and reviving moribund local businesses. But Keller, a natural resource manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, has seen a more ominous effect of the boom, too: Oil companies are spilling and dumping drilling waste onto the region's land and into its waterways with increasing regularity."

"Mason Hansen guns his pickup and cranks the steering wheel to spin through sand up to 4 feet high, but this is no day at the beach. Hanson once grew corn and soybeans in the sandy wasteland in western Iowa, and his frustration is clear. Despite months spent hauling away tons of sand dropped when the flooded Missouri River engulfed his farm last summer, parts of the property still look like a desert."

"In a St. Louis courtroom last month, attorneys geared up for a trial more than a year away that will center on whether 17 children allegedly poisoned by the lead smelter in Herculaneum can prove their ailments deserve compensation."

"A new study looking at key aquifers beneath the Great Plains and California's Central Valley suggests that areas of Texas and Kansas are drawing groundwater at an unsustainable rate."

"KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Cattle farmers complained on Wednesday that a federal agency is 'spying' on their operations by flying airplanes over Midwest cattle feedlots to see if they are complying with clean water regulations."

"July 4 is the normal standard for wheat harvest in Southeast Nebraska. This year, Memorial Day might not be far off the mark. It’s the fastest pace from green to gold that Steve Baenziger has experienced in 26 years as a wheat breeder at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln."

"The Bitterroot Salish, Kootenai and Pen d'Oreilles tribes consider Montana's National Bison Range part of their heritage, a link to the animals their ancestors once hunted and worshipped."

"BLAIR, Neb. -- Federal regulators said Wednesday it's unlikely the Fort Calhoun nuclear power plant will restart before fall because of the extensive inspections and repairs needed."