"ASBESTOS, Quebec -- A plan to increase production from Canada's last asbestos mine near this town named for the deadly mineral has enraged physicians and public health workers around the globe."

"New evidence unearthed by investigators shows that in some key moments before the Deepwater Horizon exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, BP leaders were disengaged from critical tests and recognized major problems, but they failed to communicate their concerns or take corrective action."

"Japan abandoned the rest of its whale hunting season in Antarctic waters Friday citing repeated harassment by Sea Shepherd activists, after netting only a fifth of its targeted catch of 850 whales."

Voting largely along party lines, House Republicans loaded a stopgap funding measure with amendments that would block EPA climate rules, gut landscape conservation, stymie EPA rulemaking on coal ash, prevent preservation of national monuments, stop the "Greening the Capitol" program, quash a Chesapeake Bay cleanup, de-fund a National Park in former Speaker Nancy Pelosi's district, hamstring EPA's effort to control mercury air pollution, and fire President Obama's climate negotiator and policy "czars." The House could pass the spending measure today, sending it to the Senate on a take-it-or-leave it basis, with GOP leaders threatening a government shutdown if the Senate does not comply.