"California is suffering from 'second-hand smog' drifting in from Asia and other places, researchers said on Tuesday, even as the state's prolonged drought has made air quality worse."

"The Obama administration reaffirmed a 2008 government auction of Arctic drilling rights on Tuesday, delivering a major victory to Shell Oil Co. as it aims to resume exploratory drilling in the Chukchi Sea this summer."

"The White House Monday started its final review of a proposal to improve the efficiency of large trucks and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions."

"In the frozen far north, in Arctic Quebec, the Inuit have relied on the same nutritious foods culled from the oceans for centuries: beluga whale, fish, seal, and walrus. But some of these traditional foods have become so contaminated with brain-damaging mercury that the IQs of schoolchildren in remote Arctic villages are abnormally low."

"A common pollutant in vehicle exhaust, power plant emissions and cigarette smoke can shrink white matter in fetal brains and cause developmental damage during the toddler years, a new study suggests."

"The Ohio General Assembly Wednesday passed a major new measure to clean up Lake Erie pollution and fight the harmful algal blooms that contaminated Toledo’s water last summer."

"The Supreme Court on Wednesday seemed closely divided over the fate of one of the Obama administration’s most ambitious environmental initiatives."

"Scientists are looking for -- and finding -- little bits of plastic in a lot of places lately: ice cores, deep sea sediments, coral reefs, crab gills, the digestive system of mussels, even German beer. Now, new research suggests they need not actually be searching for the man-made material to discover it."

"A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee debated Wednesday whether to undercut the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s rule on disposing of coal ash, a toxic byproduct of burning coal. The debate came just a day before the Sierra Club announced a new lawsuit against Dominion Power over coal ash pits leaking into the Elizabeth River, 25 miles outside Virginia Beach."

"Democrats in the Legislature continued their multi-front effort to block a $225 settlement with Exxon Mobil in a pollution case in which the state originally sought $8.9 billion."