"After years of internal deliberation and controversy, the Obama administration has issued a document suggesting that when dealing with the aftermath of an accident or attack involving radioactive materials, public health guidelines can be made thousands of times less stringent than what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency would normally allow."

"LANCASTER, Calif. — There are at least two things to know about this high desert city. One, the sun just keeps on shining. Two, the city’s mayor, a class-action lawyer named R. Rex Parris, just keeps on competing."

"President Barack Obama’s choice to lead the Energy Department pledged to increase use of natural gas Tuesday as a way to combat climate change even as the nation seeks to boost domestic energy production."

"The year: 1990. The venue: Palais des Nations, Geneva. The star: Margaret Thatcher, conservative icon in the final month of her prime ministership. The topic: global warming. Thatcher went to the Second World Climate Conference to heap praise on the then-infant Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, and to sound, again, the alarm over global warming."

"Environmental groups on Monday asked the Obama administration to extend the approval process of the Keystone XL pipeline, using last month's spill of heavy Canadian crude oil in Arkansas as their latest reason to delay the project."

"With the warming U.S. Arctic region poised for greater oil and mining development, the White House needs to develop a national strategy that can take environmental decisions on a larger scale, a report issued Thursday concluded."

"The Canadian government has barred scientists from entering the Experimental Lakes Area in Ontario starting on 1 April and has begun dismantling some of its buildings. As funding for the internationally admired freshwater research station dried up this week, scientists with on-going projects at the facility were left wondering about the future of their research."

"On one covert video, farm workers illegally burn the ankles of Tennessee walking horses with chemicals. Another captures workers in Wyoming punching and kicking pigs and flinging piglets into the air. And at one of the country’s largest egg suppliers, a video shows hens caged alongside rotting bird corpses, while workers burn and snap off the beaks of young chicks."

"The Obama administration is inching ahead with a plan that would allow wastewater from fracking to be shipped on barges, fueling a debate whether it is safer than other transportation modes or risks polluting drinking water."

"Growing environmental objections to exporting coal from Washington state and Oregon have begun to endanger the coal industry’s hope to restore its flagging fortunes by shipping much more of the embattled fossil fuel to China and India."