"ANCHORAGE -- Royal Dutch Shell PLC's foray into Arctic offshore drilling has suffered a serious setback after one of its two Alaska drilling rigs ran aground in shallow water off a small island."

"FAIRBANKS -- Longtime Fairbanks-area resident Suzanne Fenner doesn't have to check the borough's air quality monitoring website to see whether or not pollution is high. She just looks out the front door. When she sees smoke rolling through, she knows she'll be coughing soon enough."

"Fenner, who's lived in Fairbanks since 1986, was shocked to learn recently she'd developed asthma. After being sick off and on for months, her doctor told her the asthma was a direct result of air pollution. ...

"The young, the elderly and the weakened in Fairbanks risk accelerated health problems every winter because of particulate. Much of it comes from wood smoke produced by homeowners trying to cut their fuel bills."

"A photojournalist charters a flight to see just how close Shell's offshore rig is to the protected Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Turns out a photo is worth a lot more than a bunch of GPS coordinates."

"ANCHORAGE, Alaska — The group aiming to develop a giant copper and gold mine in the Bristol Bay area is vetting the scientific studies that underlay its work, turning to a Colorado-based non-profit with expertise in environmental conflict resolution. But critics of the proposed Pebble mine are having little of it."

"A team of biologists has just announced the first documented case of bird-to-bird malaria transmission in Alaska. Writing in the journal PLOS ONE, they've shown that this frequently fatal avian illness, which is normally associated with the tropics and temperate areas, may be expanding its range. Fortunately, avian malaria doesn't affect humans, co-author Ravinder Sehgal of San Francisco State University said, but the findings are particularly significant from a bird conservation as well as a climate change standpoint."

"ANCHORAGE -- More than four years after Royal Dutch Shell paid $2.8 billion to the federal government for petroleum leases in the Chukchi Sea, a company vessel on Sunday morning sent a drill bit into the ocean floor, beginning preliminary work on an exploratory well 70 miles off the northwest coast of Alaska."

"Alaska health officials, concerned about amateur miners seeking riches in a modern-day mini gold rush, plan to test prospectors in the town of Nome for mercury exposure for fear that archaic mining techniques may be inadvertently harming their bodies."

"The Department of Interior on Monday proposed a mixture of new oil and gas development and environmental protections in a vast swathe of Arctic land."

"As Royal Dutch Shell PLC seeks to explore for oil this summer in Alaska's northern waters, the Arctic sea ice is melting at a record pace, breaking the record low-ice levels set in 2007, according to the National Snow and Ice Data Center at the University of Colorado, Boulder. The one big exception, however, is the Chukchi Sea, where Shell is hoping to explore for oil this summer."