"The Interior Department will investigate whether mining companies are gaming the federal government by skirting royalty payments, a pair of senior senators announced Friday."

"SANDBORN, Ind. -- Farmer Hugh Bowman hardly looks the part of a revolutionary who stands in the way of promising new biotech discoveries and threatens Monsanto’s pursuit of new products it says will 'feed the world.'"

"President Barack Obama’s annual addresses to Congress offer a glimpse at a leader whose rhetoric on energy and the environment has changed dramatically over the past four years -- from his calls to pass sweeping climate legislation in 2009 to a full-throated embrace of natural gas last year."

"Cancer death rates among African American men declined faster than those of white men in the last decade, even though overall survival rates for black men and women remained the lowest of all racial groups for most types of cancer, according to a recent report."

"Ever since last summer, when a 82-year-old nun broke into the Y-12 nuclear weapons complex in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the National Nuclear Security Administration has scrambled to improve its leadership and beef up security at America's nuke facilities."

"The use of antibiotics in food animal production slightly increased and antibiotic resistant bacteria in meat products remained an issue 2011, according to two sets of data released by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday."

"One of the oldest known workplace dangers is breathing in tiny bits of silica, which is basically sand. Even the ancient Greeks knew that stone cutters got sick from breathing in dust. And today, nearly 2 million American workers are exposed to silica dust in jobs ranging from construction to manufacturing."

The case of a Texas organic cotton farmer -- and a class-action lawsuit -- illustrates how the victims of genetic pollution can be sued by the behemoth agribusiness giants who are harming them -- and the environment.

"President Barack Obama is considering naming nuclear physicist Ernest Moniz, one of his science and energy advisers, as the next energy secretary, sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Wednesday."

"Every summer, millions of sockeye salmon flood into the Fraser River in British Columbia, clogging its shivering waters with their brilliant blushing bodies."