"Much of the oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon explosion in 2010 disappeared within weeks of the capping of BP's Macondo well on July 15, digested by a massive explosion in oil-eating microorganisms, said Terry Hazen, a professor of environmental biology at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, during a Monday panel at the national conference of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans."

"More than 1,000 people were injured when a severe tornado ripped through Joplin, Missouri, on 22 May 2011, and 158 eventually died. Within a few days of the tornado, several of the injured began to suffer from a fungal infection suspected to be cutaneous necrotizing mucormycosis."

"Leaky pipes are the 'super low-hanging fruit' of climate change."

"A city administrator looks out at the Gulf of Mexico from this Southeast Texas town, wondering what vicious hurricanes it may spawn. In the Panhandle, a farmer tries new techniques to keep soil from turning to dust. In West Texas, ranchers watch prairie grass die. Others grow algae as water becomes too salty for other crops. And statewide, reservoirs dry up. Want to see what happens when the impacts of climate change are felt? Well, just look at Texas, some scientists say."

"Listeria in cantaloupes. Salmonella in peanuts. E. coli in spinach. Hepatitis A in green onions. In the past decade a rash of tainted food has resulted in thousands of hospitalizations and hundreds of deaths. It has also prompted the most sweeping reform of U.S. food safety laws in more than 70 years."

"On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks."

"Two Arkansas women sue ExxonMobil after its Pegasus pipeline ruptured, spewing oil onto lawns and roads. The $5 million class-action suit charges the pipeline spill has permanently diminished their property value."

"With the warming U.S. Arctic region poised for greater oil and mining development, the White House needs to develop a national strategy that can take environmental decisions on a larger scale, a report issued Thursday concluded."

"LOS ANGELES -- Surfers here have long lived by a simple rule: When it rains, no matter how good the waves may be, stay out of the water. Those who do head out to the Venice Pier on a rainy day might have their bravery (or naïveté) repaid with pinkeye, a fever or diarrhea."

"InsideClimate News reporter Lisa Song was threatened with arrest on Wednesday after she entered the command center for the cleanup operation in Mayflower, Ark., where a major oil pipeline spill occurred on Friday."

"The government on Thursday recommended the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California to aid native salmon runs and help resolve a decades-long struggle over allocation of scarce water resources."

"MIAMI -- Responding to criticism after Superstorm Sandy, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday it would change the way it warns people about tropical storms that morph into something else."

"Coal production in Kentucky last year reached its lowest level since 1965, while shedding more than 4,000 jobs, nearly all of them in Appalachian counties, according to a new state report."

"Metro Detroit’s poor and minority populations face greater health and environmental challenges than most communities because of their proximity to industrial pollution - an “environmental injustice” and “human rights abuse,” Sierra Club Detroit officials said today as they released a report on the state of Detroit’s environment."

"The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning."