"MINERVA, N.Y. -- A 250-foot waterfall, one of the tallest in the Northeast, tumbles over giant slabs of marble. A chain of 13 crystalline lakes and ponds teems with bass and lake trout. A 10-mile stretch of the Hudson River gorge winds through dense stands of hemlock, white pine and red maple."

"NORTH GRAFTON, Mass. -- A loon was beached on Cobbossee Lake in Winthrop, Maine, a maggot-filled wing wound keeping it from flying or resisting capture from a game warden."

"For years, the advocacy group Environment and Human Health Inc. has led the battle against outdoor wood furnaces, claiming their smoke is bad to breathe. Now it has an ally -- Attorney General George Jepsen."

"BOSTON -- The Massachusetts Department of Public Health (DPH) and the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF) have closed 40 oyster beds in Plymouth Harbor, Kingston Bay, Duxbury Bay, Bluefish River and Back River in the towns of Plymouth, Kingston, Duxbury and Marshfield."

"Loons have enjoyed unprecedented population growth over the last 30 years. They outlived DDT and a time when people used to shoot loons for sport."

"TRENTON, N.J. -- Recent warmer-than-usual winters that may be attributable to climate change have brought a troublesome and potentially dangerous new effect, according to a Mercer County scientist: expanding swarms of Asian tiger mosquitoes."

"WASHINGTON -- States cannot shut down nuclear plants over safety worries, the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled on Wednesday, upholding a lower court’s decision that allowed the Vermont Yankee plant to keep running despite a seven-year effort by the Vermont Legislature to close it."

"PORTLAND, Maine -- A shell disease that has plagued the southern New England lobster industry for years by making lobsters unsightly and in some cases unmarketable appears to be creeping northward to the lobster-rich grounds off the coast of Maine."

"It’s only a few weeks until the end of summer, a terrible time to be a moose in the New Hampshire wild."