"Erin Brockovich, a U.S. consumer health advocate whose life story was the basis for an Academy Award-winning film, urged senators Tuesday to pass a law to document disease clusters in the United States."

"A conservative research group in Michigan has issued a far-reaching public records request to the labor studies departments at three public universities in the state, seeking any e-mails involving the Wisconsin labor turmoil." Among the professors under assault by the secretive conservatives is William Cronon, one of the foremost environmental historians in the United States.

"As Japan wrestles with its nuclear crisis, the U.S. nuclear industry is seeing a partial meltdown in public support as Americans wonder whether such tragedy could strike here."

"The American Lung Association has opened a billboard campaign against Fred Upton, the Republican chairman of the House Commerce and Energy Committee, taking him to task for his legislative attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency and clean air regulations."

"Senate Democrats hope to siphon votes from a GOP bid to hamstring EPA climate rules by voting first on a Democratic alternative."
 

"German chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives have suffered a historic defeat in a state ballot after almost six decades in power there, partial results showed Sunday, in an election that amounted to a referendum on the party's stance on nuclear power."

"What had been growing acceptance of nuclear power in the United States has eroded sharply in the wake of the nuclear crisis in Japan, with support for building nuclear power plants dropping slightly lower than it was immediately after the accident at the Three Mile Island plant in 1979, according to a CBS News poll released on Tuesday evening."

"In a setback that could stall the rollout of California's landmark climate change law, a court in San Francisco has ruled that the state must spend more time studying alternatives to the measure's key feature -- a cap-and-trade program on greenhouse gas emissions -- before it goes into effect Jan. 1."

"The Supreme Court declined today to take up the question of whether an environmental inspection of a private property can be viewed as an unconstitutional search and seizure."