"More than a year after President George W. Bush created a vast marine national monument near the Northern Marianas Islands, the federal government has yet to make good on promised investments in the islands."

"Federal law forces companies to provide detailed information to U.S. EPA about the toxicity of the chemicals they use. But there is a catch. The same law -- the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA -- prohibits the agency from sharing that information with the public or even with state and local authorities. States are demanding that the law be changed."

"Hopes for a nuclear revival, fanned by fears of global warming and a changing political climate in Washington, are running into new obstacles over a key element -- money. A new approach for easing the cost of new multibillion-dollar reactors, which can take years to complete, has provoked a backlash from big-business customers unwilling to go along."

"A new study has found that male frogs exposed to the herbicide atrazine -- one of the most common man-made chemicals found in U.S. waters -- can make a startling developmental U-turn, becoming so completely female that they can mate and lay viable eggs."

The Pacific "ring of fire" -- the zone where tectonic plates crunch -- doesn't stop at the equator. It extends through the U.S. Pacific Northwest, which is also vulnerable to intense quakes. States like Oregon are just beginning to retrofit potentially lethal buildings, and the seismic clock is ticking.

Utah has refused shipments of depleted uranium from the Department of Energy's Savannah River nuclear materials processing center in South Carolina.

"Thousands of the nation's largest water polluters are outside the Clean Water Act's reach because the Supreme Court has left uncertain which waterways are protected by that law, according to interviews with regulators."

"One in four U.S. parents believes some vaccines cause autism in healthy children, but even many of those worried about vaccine risks think their children should be vaccinated. Most parents continue to follow the advice of their children's doctors, according to a study based on a survey of 1,552 parents. Extensive research has found no connection between autism and vaccines."

"The Environmental Protection Agency is considering a petition from farm worker and public health advocates to ban pesticide spraying near schools, hospitals and child care centers."

"Animal manure, a byproduct as old as agriculture, has become an unlikely modern pollution problem, scientists and environmentalists say."