"A panel of federal appeals court judges in New Orleans has refused to reconsider a ruling that BP and Andarko Petroleum Corp. must pay federal fines related to the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil disaster."

"Bad news in the bug department: The emerald ash borer, a tiny, glitter-green insect from China expected to kill virtually all ash trees in the eastern U.S. - unless they are treated with expensive chemicals - may have a new target."

"Two years ago, Superstorm Sandy devastated the northeastern United States, killing more than 70 people, causing $60 billion in damage and exposing major gaps in federal disaster preparedness and response. But there has been little movement in Congress to change policies to prepare the country for future disasters."

"Federal regulators secretly and illegally revised the license for California’s last nuclear power facility — PG&E’s Diablo Canyon — to mask the aging plant’s vulnerability to earthquakes, according to a lawsuit filed Tuesday by environmentalists."

"A pipeline carrying condensate, a toxic substance produced during natural gas and oil processing, caught fire in eastern Ohio early this morning."

"Thirty years after the world’s most dangerous chemical plant disaster, we’re not much safer."

"Japan has moved closer to a return to nuclear power, more than three years after the Fukushima disaster, after a town in the country’s south-west voted to approve two reactors coming back online."