"Tensions between the Gogebic Taconite mining company and the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources rose to new heights last week in a public dispute over how much regulatory authority remains in the agency’s hands under a 2013 law that rolled back environmental restrictions to make iron mining easier."

"WASHINGTON, D.C. - Negotiators between the House of Representatives and U.S. Senate on Monday night released a $1.012 trillion compromise 2014 spending bill that would restore Great Lakes cleanup money to last year's levels and also repeal a newly enacted cut to cost of living adjustments, or COLAs, for disabled military retirees and their survivors."

"CHICAGO -- A proposal to prevent the infestation of the Great Lakes by Asian carp faced opposition Sunday when a group organized by Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., gathered on the Chicago River to criticize the plan."

"Radio Disney made 26 stops across Ohio with a pro-fracking group to promote oil and gas to elementary school students."

"TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. -- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has released a report years in the making about options for keeping Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes."

"MONROE, Mich. -- Honking geese soar overhead in a V formation, buffeted by bitter gusts off nearby Lake Erie, while flocks of mallards bob along the shore. Even blanketed in snow, the sprawling wetland in southeastern Michigan is a magnet for water birds — one reason a public-private project is underway to improve it."

"Bill Williams, the president of the company that wants to open a $1.5 billion iron ore mine in northern Wisconsin, is being charged with contaminating an emergency water supply at a mine in Spain."

"MILWAUKEE — In a state whose license plates advertise it as America’s Dairyland, where lawmakers once honored the bacterium in Monterey Jack as the state’s official microbe and where otherwise sober citizens wear foam cheesehead hats, road crews are trying to thaw freezing Wisconsin streets with a material that smells a little like mozzarella."

"MILWAUKEE - The electric barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that is considered the last line of defense to stop an Asian carp invasion of Lake Michigan has a problem: Fish can swim through it."

"ST CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio -- Farmers in the close-knit Amish community who eschew electricity and most technology, are among landowners capitalizing on a new financial trend in the United States energy boom - selling decades of future oil and natural gas royalties for an immediate pile of cash."