"When a wildfire started in the mountains of Fresno County late last month, much of California was on the cusp of a heat wave that would go on to smash records both for its intensity and duration. Over the next week and a half, as the Basin fire swelled to more than 14,000 acres and temperatures in the area reached 112 degrees, at least nine firefighters were treated for heat-related illness. Four were taken to local hospitals, three of them airlifted from the fire line."

"Coastal residents are conflicted over the planned location of a facility that advocates say will help launch Maine's offshore wind industry."

"Hundreds of people in a southern Illinois town were ordered to evacuate Tuesday as water rolled over the top of a dam, just one perilous result of severe weather that raged through the Midwest overnight with relentless rain and tornadoes and hit the Chicago area especially hard."

"The lack of federal regulations and clear definitions for bioplastics make it increasingly difficult to determine whether or not they are a safe alternative to traditional plastics, according to a new report from Beyond Plastics."