"TOKYO — Two and a half years after a series of meltdowns, Japan’s effort to clean up what remains of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is turning into another kind of disaster."

"MOSCOW -- Eleven Nobel Peace Prize laureates urged Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday to drop piracy charges against 30 people detained over a Greenpeace protest last month at an Arctic oil rig."

"Tesoro Logistics LP detected anomalies during an inspection of its 20-year-old North Dakota pipeline just days before the line ruptured and spilled 20,600 barrels of oil onto farmland, the company said on Thursday."

"ROSS, N.D. — While three generations of the Sorenson family have made their livelihood growing wheat and other crops here, they also have learned to embrace the furious pace of North Dakota’s oil exploration. After all, oil money helped the Sorensons acquire the land and continue to farm it."

"When the sun shines directly on the Hudson Bay Railway (HBR), the tracks can expand, warp and buckle. Trains have to slow down to 9 miles an hour or even stop. Journeys can be delayed for hours."

"In three years the flow of coal waste through a pipeline to the Little Blue Run dump is set to stop, but before that happens neighbors want compensation for the smell, seepage and alleged property damage caused by the mammoth waste site."

"About 4 million barrels of spilled oil, as much as BP's Gulf of Mexico spill, is flowing into the Arctic Ocean every year, Greenpeace says."

"National parks from the Sierra Nevada to the Great Smoky Mountains are increasingly being fertilized by unwanted nutrients drifting through the air from agricultural operations, putting some of the country’s most treasured natural landscapes at risk of ecological damage, a new study has found."

"TOLEDO, Ohio -- Toxins from blobs of algae on western Lake Erie are infiltrating water treatment plants along the shoreline, forcing cities to spend a lot more money to make sure their drinking water is safe."