"PARIS -- Will Brussels try to give bees a break? In a case closely watched on both sides of the Atlantic, European officials plan to vote Friday on a proposal to sharply restrict the use of pesticides that had been implicated in the decline of global bee populations."

"Makers of the specialty cocktails used to crack open the Earth and set loose gobs of oil and gas are sparring once again on behalf of their corner of the energy industry."

"The U.S. is in the midst of an energy transformation. Technologies that free fossil-fuel reserves, once trapped in shale, have radically shrunk natural gas imports. By 2020, the nation is expected to produce more gas than it needs. As the country approaches this milestone, it faces a question long asked in other countries with abundant energy resources: How much should we use at home and how much should we sell abroad?"

"The EPA has not revised key hazard standards that protect children from lead poisoning since 2001, despite science showing harms at far lower levels of exposure than previously believed."

"Report says toxic waste is being spread by scrap metal dealers, and describes its 'alarming' use in civilian areas during Iraq wars."

"Forty years ago, when North Carolina banned using deep wells to permanently dump industrial waste, some thought the issue had been decided for good. Now state lawmakers who want to turn North Carolina into the nation’s next fracking hotspot are reopening the case for injecting brines and toxins deep underground."

Researchers and campaigners claim that some 40 percent (19,200) of the children born to mothers taking the epilepsy drug Epilim have developed physical or mental problems.

"Dow Agrosciences LLC and two other pesticide makers won a bid to overturn U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service proposals to protect salmon when an appeals court found the agency’s decision 'arbitrary and capricious.'"

A surge in the use of fungicides is bringing higher crop yields; but experts warn that there is not enough monitoring of the emerging fungicide contamination of streams -- and that not enough is known about the health consequences.