"U.S. Enrichment Corp., which produces fuel for nuclear power plants, is having its own sort of meltdown. Disillusioned investors have wiped out 95 percent of the company’s market value since 2007. Standard & Poor’s has saddled it with a dismal CCC-plus credit rating.

"As one of Congress' top experts on spending issues, Washington state Rep. Norm Dicks keeps an eye on the public purse, and he says that Burmese pythons just cost taxpayers way too much money."

"DETROIT -- The Obama administration intends to open a new advanced battery research center this year, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu told an audience at the Detroit Economic Club on Tuesday."

"Across the Midwest and northeast this weekend, ski resort towns are celebrating the arrival of winter for the first time this season. Terry Hill has been renting out cabins near Baxter State Park in Maine in 30 years, where she says they only received about four to five inches of snow on Saturday. She usually rents her cabins to those who like to snowmobile, but those cabins are empty right now. She says Maine needs a couple more big storms to make up lost ground for what's been a brown winter."

"Starting Feb. 1, drilling operators in Texas will have to report many of the chemicals used in the process known as hydraulic fracturing. Environmentalists and landowners are looking forward to learning what acids, hydroxides and other materials have gone into a given well."

"Some states have introduced education standards requiring teachers to defend the denial of man-made global warming. A national watchdog group says it will start monitoring classrooms."

"Ever since the collapse of the domestic steel industry, blue-collar workers living in the mountain towns near the border of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio have struggled to find jobs. But last June, Shell Oil Co. announced it would build a huge petrochemical refinery somewhere in that Appalachian region. The plant, known in the industry as a "cracker," could bring billions of investment dollars and thousands of jobs."

"OTTAWA — Subsidiaries of the company that wants to build the Gateway pipeline through northern B.C. have reported more than 170 pipeline leaks and spills in the United States since 2002, accident reporting data show."

"The U.S. Navy is asking government investigators to suppress information concerning the toxic water scandal at the Marine Corps' Camp Lejeune, according to a letter obtained Thursday by The Huffington Post."

"The farm bill is a favorite target of budget-cutters and those looking to reduce the size of government, particularly because about 80% of it encompasses food stamps and nutritional programs. However, it also contains some of the most successful conservation programs in our nation’s history, and those are now threatened with the ax, including the popular 1985 Conservation Reserve Program."