"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."

"David Cameron has ordered ministers to carry out the government's biggest U-turn since the general election by abandoning plans to change the ownership of 258,000 hectares of state-owned woodland."

"The St. Petersburg waterworks is putting six giant gastropods to work monitoring emissions from a sewage incinerator. The African snails, the size of some rats, are attached to sensors that will show them getting sick if they take in too much bad air."

"Selling off England's public forests could cost the nation more than it would save, according to an official government document that emerged last night."

"The International Dark-Sky Association has named the English Channel island of Sark its first 'dark-sky' island."

"Reacting to a French pledge to represent the 'common interest' in considering biotech foods, a former US ambassador recommended publishing a 'retaliation list' of European locations where genetically modified organisms (GMOs) were being grown in hopes that activists would destroy them and 'cause some pain' for officials, a leaked diplomatic cable shows."

"Owners who cannot afford to feed or stable their horses have been abandoning them at the Dunsink tip, which is on the outskirts of the Irish capital."

"Already been to North Korea? Hiking in Afghanistan a little bit too last year? Fear not. Tourism has a new frontier: the site of the world's biggest civilian nuclear disaster."