"Japanese officials began encouraging people to evacuate a larger swath of territory around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Friday as new signs emerged that parts of the crippled facility are so damaged and contaminated that it will be hard to bring the plant under control soon."

The big international Earth Summit coming next year in Rio de Janiero -- 20 years after the epochal original meeting there -- may generate both good news and bad news about the future of the planet.

"Japan’s effort to contain the crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant suffered a setback, an official said on Friday, citing evidence that the reactor vessel of the No. 3 unit may have been damaged."

"Spawned by strangely cold temperatures, 'beautiful' clouds helped strip the Arctic atmosphere of most of its protective ozone this winter, new research shows."

"An especially large moon will appear to rise on Saturday in the most extreme example of a so-called super-moon phenomenon in nearly 20 years, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory."

"Africa's cities are growing at a faster rate than anywhere else in the world, stressing drinking water supplies and sanitation services, says a new UN report released to mark World Water Day 2011."

"A map of radiation levels in Japan released by the US Department of Energy on Tuesday evening indicates that potentially dangerous levels of radioactive contamination have spread beyond the 13-mile evacuation zone surrounding the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant."

"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."