"The White House announced new initiatives on Friday to promote the health of honeybees and other pollinators, which have suffered enormous losses in recent years. The memorandum, signed by President Obama, called for research into the causes of the severe decline and the role of pesticides, and formed a 'pollinator health task force' of more than 14 federal agencies, saying, 'It is critical to expand federal efforts and take new steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels.'"

"A potentially carcinogenic form of the element chromium is in Boulder’s drinking water and there are no plans to remove it anytime soon."

"Residents of a rural town east of New Orleans say they are being sickened by a nearby gas and petrochemical facility, and are reaching their third week of pleading with state officials to do something about it."

"The federal Conservative government is refusing to join the rest of the developed world in declaring that there are no safe uses for asbestos, even though the material is the top workplace killer in Canada and deaths from exposure are expected to rise."

"Anglers in a recent fishing derby on Michigan’s Pine River got news far better than pulling in the largest fish."

"Baltimore’s seaport is a world of big, noisy steel machines: Giant cargo ships, cranes, and roaring trucks."

"Canada’s embrace of the ‘miracle mineral’ has seeded an epidemic of cancers. Yet many Canadians are still exposed to asbestos every day"

"A debilitating, mosquito-borne virus called chikungunya has made its way to North Carolina, health officials say. It's the state's first reported case of the virus."

"For the past year local air regulators have been tracking the chemicals companies use in oil and gas exploration around Southern California. In a report released Wednesday, four environmental groups crunched the tracking reports to find that more than 40 toxic chemicals have been used in dozens of drilling operations, often near homes, schools, and hospitals."