"At least 13 people in eight states have died after eating cantaloupe contaminated with listeria, in the deadliest outbreak of food-borne illness in the United States in more than a decade, public health officials said on Tuesday."

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor pressed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to send disaster aid funds to his own district even as he argued on the floor that all other parts of the US should not receive natural disaster aid from the general Treasury without offsets.

"Florida horticulturists worry palm trees throughout the Sunshine State and Southeast could vanish as a new bacterial condition ravages the state’s most iconic scenery."

A new trade association launching a PR blitz on behalf of various big agriculture groups is portaying itself -- falsely, it seems -- as representing small-time farmers and ranchers.

"The Daily Caller claimed on Tuesday that the Environmental Protection Agency is going to have to hire 230,000 new employees just to put new climate rules in place. And then others, including Fox News, repeated it." The Daily Caller's story was not only untrue -- it was not even plausible.

"SEATTLE -- Utility crews have found a total of eight natural gas leaks in the north Seattle neighborhood where a home exploded, injuring two residents in a two-alarm fire."

"Foreign timber companies, Tea Party groups, and Gibson Guitar have turned illegal logging into Republicans' new cause célèbre."

"The federal government plans to delay until mid-November new rules to implement a set of fuel efficiency standards for cars and light-duty trucks, administration officials said Tuesday."

"I got a call the other day from some producers I very much admire. They wanted to talk about a series next year on global warming and I thought, why does this subject make me instantly tired? Global warming is important, yes; controversial, certainly; complicated (OK by me); but somehow, even broaching this subject makes me feel like someone's put heavy stones in my head. Why is that?"

Robert Krulwich reports for NPR's Krulwich Wonders blog September 26, 2011. [28]

"SAN BRUNO -- Much of Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s natural-gas transmission system could be at risk of catastrophic failure, but the company's record-keeping system is so flawed that the true danger is impossible to determine, federal investigators said Monday in their final report on last year's San Bruno disaster."