"At each of Electricite de France SA’s 58 nuclear reactors, there’s a water tank that stores spent atomic fuel rods, keeping them cool and trapping deadly radiation. The country’s atomic watchdog is concerned they aren’t safe enough."

"The Italian Senate is investigating a cluster of cancers near Naples which may have been caused by the mafia's dumping of toxic waste. It's a question that has long been on the conscience of one former mafia boss, who says it was not the violence but pollution that made him turn police informer."

"Spider sightings may be up, but experts say it's due to a reaction to the media frenzy, not an explosion in their population."

"A German scientist who is critical of the European Union’s plan to regulate chemicals and has extensive financial ties to regulated companies has resigned from a key scientific committee of the European Commission."

"On June 16th something very peculiar happened in Germany’s electricity market. The wholesale price of electricity fell to minus €100 per megawatt hour (MWh). That is, generating companies were having to pay the managers of the grid to take their electricity."

"In an episode that evokes B-grade sci-fi movie plots from the 1950s, but actually reflects a continuing global problem, nuclear engineers in southeastern Sweden have been wrestling with a giant swarm of jellyfish that forced the shutdown of the world’s largest boiling-water reactor."

"Germany’s Greens party is open to talking to Chancellor Angela Merkel about joining her third-term government as it seeks to refocus on the switch to clean-energy sources to win over alienated voters."

"Officials raise alert as 'zombie' birds fall to earth amid fears city may be in grip of avian ailment Newcastle disease."

"Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron has given his unequivocal backing to the divisive 'fracking' process used to extract shale gas from rocks, risking angering his party's supporters from more rural areas."

"Britain's biggest ever 'fatberg' has been removed from a London sewer. Thames Water say a 'bus-sized lump' of food fat mixed with wet wipes formed in drains under London Road in Kingston upon Thames."