"The nation's top scientists and spies are collaborating on an effort to use the federal government's intelligence assets -- including spy satellites and other classified sensors -- as sensitive instruments that can assess the hidden complexities of environmental change. They seek insights from natural phenomena like clouds and glaciers, deserts and tropical forests."

"Former San Joaquin Valley congressman Richard Pombo will formally announce his comeback bid Tuesday, igniting a heated competition to replace retiring Rep. George Radanovich, R-Mariposa."

"Many old factories around the country now sit dark and empty. But at a once-defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Mass., the lights are on again and a new industry is rising up inside the ruins of an old one."

"After years of negotiations between environmentalists and industry groups, observers say efforts to reform a century-old law regulating mining may finally pick up steam in Congress."

"The infighting among the federal officials in charge of the Savannah River Site, a federally owned nuclear site in South Carolina that won one of the country’s biggest pots of stimulus money, is so severe that it threatens to undermine public confidence in their work, a federal watchdog warned Thursday."

"The Obama administration may issue an order that would expand the National Environmental Policy Act's scope to prevent global warming. The move could open up new avenues to challenge projects."

Despite a 60-vote Democrat majority, climate change legislation faces an uphill fight in the Senate. Are more offshore drilling and subsidies for nuclear plants the key?

"Virginia banned smoking in most restaurants a month ago -- and not all of them mind. North Carolina follows suit."

"Of the 84,000 chemicals in commercial use in the United States -- from flame retardants in furniture to household cleaners -- nearly 20 percent are secret, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, their names and physical properties guarded from consumers and virtually all public officials under a little-known federal provision."

"To quote a famous line from a famous movie, "It's the only thing that lasts" — land, that is. No wonder, then, that many see land as their legacy, something to pass down to future generations when they die. A landowner in Michigan wants to use death itself — her own — to leave a legacy that's unusually personal."