"The most expansive drought in more than a half century intensified this week and stretched further into major farm areas of the western Midwest where crops had largely been shielded from the harsh conditions that decimated yields further east."

"WASHINGTON — With the growing conviction that the Assad family’s 42-year grip on power in Syria is coming to an end, Obama administration officials worked on contingency plans Wednesday for a collapse of the Syrian government, focusing particularly on the chemical weapons that Syria is thought to possess and that President Bashar al-Assad could try to use on opposition forces and civilians."

"They pray for rain these days across a drought-stricken American west. The very idea – a light shower, even an inch of rain – fills Walter Dasheno with dread. Dasheno is the governor of the Santa Clara pueblo, a Native American community living just below a canyon of the same name."

"For the first time, more than 8,000 temporary wilderness firefighters -- the men and women who battle some of the nation's most devastating fires -- will be eligible to receive federal health insurance, the White House said Tuesday."

"Japan will on Wednesday restart its second nuclear reactor after the Fukushima crisis closed the nation's atomic power plants, even as fresh concerns surfaced about the unit's positioning near a faultline."

"SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Predictably, the clash of the titans ended loudly Tuesday. With the U.S. attorney's office in Sacramento and lumber giant Sierra Pacific Industries Inc. trotting out competing versions of a settlement's meaning, their epic legal match over who started the Moonlight fire and who should pay for the damages is closed."

"Pacific Gas and Electric Co. suggested to managers before the San Bruno pipeline explosion that downgrading more than 2,300 natural-gas leaks - and potentially not fixing them - would save the company nearly $5 million, according to an internal document obtained by The Chronicle."

"More than 50 percent of the United States is under drought conditions right now, putting 2012 in the same category with some of the worst droughts in the nation's history."

"It took less than an hour last month for a Montana wildfire to reduce Scott McRae's ranch to thousands of blackened acres devoid of the grasses that were to sustain hundreds of cattle."

"The beleaguered federal agency that oversees oil and gas pipelines meets today to consider lobbying push-back against congressional orders that it stop charging the public up to $995 to read one of its industry-developed safety standards."