"SAN FRANCISCO -- The use of pesticides and the planting of genetically engineered crops on U.S. national wildlife refuges are illegal and damaging to the environment, say four advocacy groups who have filed a federal lawsuit to halt these practices on national wildlife refuges across the Midwest."

"NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. -- A loon was beached on Cobbossee Lake in Winthrop, Maine, a maggot-filled wing wound keeping it from flying or resisting capture from a game warden."

The small Michigan town of Mancelona is the site of one of the nation's largest underground plumes of the toxic industrial solvent trichloroethylene. Wells dug to supply uncontaminated water are now themselves threatened.

"Marta Cruz left Michoacán, Mexico with her husband and 1-year-old son a decade and a half ago to work in the fields of Homestead, Florida, picking lemons and tomatoes as farm workers. A couple of years ago, she began suffering from headaches but figured it was from the long hours working under the sweltering sun or the stress of figuring out how to pay bills."

"There's a heated debate over the use of antibiotics in farm animals. Critics say farmers overuse these drugs; farmers say they don't. It's hard to resolve the argument, in part because no one knows exactly how farmers use antibiotics."

"Mercury found in high levels in deep Pacific Ocean fish such as swordfish has a chemical fingerprint, and it implicates coal-burning power plants in Asia, according to a new study."

"MONTREAL — Quebecers should be worried that it took 15 years for officials to clue into the fact that a Pointe-Claire company had a yard full of toxic materials, says one environmental expert, and the public should be demanding more transparency in the wake of the discovery."

"An Oakland watchdog group has sued four companies and plans to sue dozens more for allegedly manufacturing or selling shampoos, soaps and other care products without attaching labels warning consumers that they contained high levels of a carcinogen."

"Secretary of State John Kerry said Monday that a large-scale chemical weapons attack occurred in Syria. There are still many questions about chemical weapons, some of which can be answered easily and some of which can't."