"LOS ANGELES -- White abalone, the endangered shellfish that once numbered in the millions off the Southern California coast, have declined precipitously over the last decade and are on the brink of extinction, a study has found."

"MOAPA, Nev. -- Beyond the ancestral hunting fields and the rows of small, sparse homes, the cemetery at the Moapa River Indian Reservation sprawls across a barren hill with the tombstones of tribal members who died young."

"HARTFORD CITY, Ind. -- Across a wide stretch of the Midwest, sweltering temperatures and a lack of rain are threatening what had been expected to be the nation’s largest corn crop in generations."

"Clashes in northern Peru between police and demonstrators opposing a multi-million dollar gold mining project have left at least three people dead."

"Reports of infants and children dying in this summer's early heat wave have been documented in locales ranging from Kansas to Tennessee. And experts fear that increasingly frequent spikes in extreme high temperatures might bring such unwelcome news more often in the years ahead."

"In an effort to clear up any potential confusion on the subject of mermaids, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has released a statement confirming that 'no evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.'"

"The US Air Force, which grounded the remaining seven of its eight C-130 air tankers after a crash in South Dakota on Sunday, has cleared the fleet to fly again today."

The bizarre weather of early summer in the US – from heatwave, wildfires, drought to freak storms – is just a sampling of what is to come for 2012 and a window to the future under climate change, scientists have said.

Scientists are wary of linking specific weather events to climate change, and this year's punishing heat and deadly thunder storms have been confined to the Americas. Europe, Asia and Africa haven't experienced severe weather this year – though they have in past years.

"The discovery of persistent, bioaccumulative, and toxic flame-retardant chemicals everywhere from animals north of the Arctic Circle to the breast milk of California women has been a cause for considerable concern. Alternative flame retardants were introduced to replace these chemicals, but investigators had not even produced the first empirical data on the substitutes’ metabolic fate and toxicity before emerging evidence indicated they, like their predecessors, were accumulating rapidly in the environment. As the postmarket research continues, one wonders: Who, exactly, decides on the replacements for toxic chemicals, and on the basis of what criteria? And why does finding truly safer alternatives seem so difficult?"

"A U.S. Navy oiler slipped away from a fuel depot on the Puget Sound in Washington state one recent day, headed toward the central Pacific and into the storm over the Pentagon's controversial green fuels initiative."