"Heat-trapping pollution from U.S. power plants hit a 27-year low in April, the Department of Energy announced Wednesday."

"SALISBURY, Md. — The floors are spotless in Hatchery 3 on the sprawling Perdue compound here. Doors have been rehung to open out, and temperature control and ventilation systems have been upgraded, all to minimize the potential for airborne contamination."

"Chris Cline, the billionaire coal baron, revealed himself today as the donor behind a $1 million contribution to a super-PAC supporting Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign."

"Three days after EPA workers triggered a huge blowout at a festering mine in southwestern Colorado, a mustard-colored plume — still fed by 548 gallons leaking per minute — stretched more than 100 miles, spreading contaminants including cadmium, arsenic, copper, lead and zinc."

"There could be half a billion reasons for the concessions President Barack Obama’s clean-power plan made to a defiant energy industry."

"A decade after Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans seems to have found its rhythm again: the French Quarter is choked with tourists, construction cranes tower over the skyline, and hipsters bike to cafes in gentrifying neighborhoods."

"The lesser prairie chicken population appears to be on the rebound a year after the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife placed the bird in threatened status."

The megabillionaire Koch brothers, whose agenda opposes environmental regulation, have a major impact on Republican politics -- including the 2016 presidential race. Their influence is magnified by the big donors they attract to their causes via semiannual retreats like the one that just ended at a luxury resort near Dana Point, Calif. This year, journalists got limited access to the traditionally secret conclave by agreeing not to disclose donors' identities. Now critics are asking whether such rules compromise the integrity of journalism.

As August warms waters seasonally in many parts of the U.S., harmful algal blooms are causing health hazards. A prime example is Toledo, where high levels of an algal toxin made city drinking water unusable last year. Algal blooms in the warm, shallow Lake Erie are worsened by agricultural runoff. With climate warming, new algal blooms are showing up in new places, like the Pacific Ocean.

EPA is trying to phase out the soil fumigant methyl bromide, on which the commercial strawberry crop has been dependent. Methyl bromide damages the ozone layer of the atmosphere. But the effort to find an adequate substitute has scientists scrambling.