"WILLIAMSTOWN, Australia -- The whale conservation group Sea Shepherd is celebrating victory as Japan ends its whaling season with less than a third of its annual self-assigned quota."

"LUDINGTON, Mich. (AP) — On many a summer evening, Jim Fay joins dozens of onlookers on this tourist town's waterfront, exchanging friendly waves with passengers and crew members as the S.S. Badger chugs into the harbor after a 60-mile voyage across Lake Michigan from Manitowoc, Wis. It's a cherished ritual in Ludington, and its days may be numbered. "

"NIAGARA FALLS, N.Y. — Niagara Falls has gone on record against treating wastewater from hydraulic fracturing, with elected officials saying they don't want the city that endured the Love Canal toxic waste crisis to be a test case for the technology used in gas drilling operations."

"More than two billion people have gained access to better drinking water sources, such as piped supplies and protected wells, between 1990 and 2010, UN officials said on Tuesday. The figure means the world has met the internationally agreed Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people with no safe drinking water well ahead of a 2015 deadline, UNICEF and the World Health Organization said."

"HAGERSTOWN, Md. -- A 2009 federal study that concluded groundwater contamination from Fort Detrick was unlikely to have harmful health effects was flawed, a national scientific panel said Monday, prompting two U.S. senators to demand a faster cleanup of the Superfund site in Frederick [MD]."

"President Barack Obama said Friday that his personal experiences with America's national parks - both as an 11-year-old with his mother and grandmother and later as a father - have made a conservationist out of him. The President was speaking at a conference hosted by the White House linking conservation with strong local economies through tourism, outdoor recreation, and healthy lands, waters and wildlife."

"SAN FRANCISCO -- In 2005, the USS America aircraft carrier was towed out to sea on her final voyage. Hundreds of miles off the Atlantic coast, U.S. Navy personnel then blasted the 40-year-old warship with missiles and bombs until it sank."

"After one of the biggest environmental fights in decades, exploratory drilling is expected to begin in July off the state's north coast. The company has plans in case of a spill; opponents say normal operations will still release damaging chemicals."