"Senate Republicans continued a campaign to delay confirmation of President Obama’s second-term cabinet nominees on Thursday, blocking a committee vote on Gina McCarthy, the president’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency."

"An elderly nun and two other peace activists will be sentenced in September on their convictions for damaging a Tennessee defense facility where enriched uranium for nuclear bombs is stored, a federal judge said on Thursday."

"Two residents of Mayflower, Arkansas, the site of the March 29 pipeline spill, traveled to Washington on Thursday to ask Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the Keystone XL pipeline."

"At about 300 colleges across the country, young activists worried about climate change are borrowing a strategy that students successfully used in decades past. In the 1980s, students enraged about South Africa's racist Apartheid regime got their schools to drop stocks in companies that did business with that government. In the 1990s students pressured their schools to divest in Big Tobacco."

"OTTAWA — Some federal scientists working at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans may soon gain new freedom to control their research and speak in public, under a tentative deal announced Thursday to transfer management of a world-renowned freshwater research facility that opened in 1968."

"Exposure to air pollution raises the risk of resistance to insulin, a typical warning sign of diabetes, according to a study of almost 400 German children."

"Senator Tom Libous, a champion of fracking in the New York Legislature, is blocking a bill that would delay drilling for natural gas for at least two more years. Passage of the measure would harm the prospects of a real-estate company founded by Libous’s wife and run by a business partner and campaign donor."

"Conor Jackson had a big bat and a bright future. But after he contracted a rare illness in 2009 while playing with the Arizona Diamondbacks he was never quite the same."

"Several hundred people have been evacuated from a section of Lubbock, Texas, after a leaking tank released a chemical that could turn into highly corrosive hydrochloric acid, the city's Fire Department said on Thursday."

"Prince Charles has attacked corporate lobbyists and climate change sceptics for turning the Earth into a 'dying patient', making his most outspoken criticism yet of the world's failure to tackle global warming just when the heir to the throne is assuming a growing number of the duties of what is supposed to be an apolitical monarchy."

"A Senate Committee will vote Thursday on whether to advance President Obama’s pick to run the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the full Senate."

"A key House Democrat [Wednesday] criticized the Obama administration's proposal for regulating hydraulic fracturing on public land, saying it appears to be watering down the rule "under pressure from industry."

"Natural gas has already been blamed for shuttering of coal plants and slowing wind and solar financing. Evidence suggests nuclear is also falling victim to the glut of cheap natural gas. The closure of a nuclear plant in Wisconsin Tuesday is exhibit A."

"Assistant U.S. Attorney General Ignacia Moreno, the point person at the Justice Department for prosecuting environmental crimes, says she will leave government service next month."

"Terminal developer Kinder Morgan will not go forward with a proposal to export coal to Asia from the Port Westward industrial park on the Columbia River, a company spokesman said [Wednesday] morning."