"Eastern larch beetles, tiny burrowing bugs native to Minnesota, are exploding in number across the state’s northern forest and have killed or damaged about a third of the state’s tamarack trees — one of the first clear signs of a rapidly changing climate."

"ELY, Minn. — It is high season in the Boundary Waters, when legions of canoe-carrying trucks transform this small outpost 20 miles from Canada into one of the nation's primary gateways to wilderness recreation."

CHICAGO - "Federal environmental regulators are cracking down on a Southeast Side company after finding high levels of brain-damaging manganese in a low-income, predominantly Latino neighborhood."

"The best way to keep invasive Asian carp from entering and wreaking havoc on the Great Lakes would involve a series of water jets, flushing locks and electrical barriers on the Illinois River, according to a long-delayed Army Corps of Engineers report out today."

"Contractors in Detroit were under so much pressure to knock down thousands of abandoned properties that they cut corners, mishandled deadly asbestos at dozens of sites, and, in two cases, appeared to falsify inspection reports, according to documents the Free Press obtained under the state Freedom of Information Act."

"During a stop in East Chicago three months ago, Scott Pruitt vowed that cleaning up the low-income, predominantly African-American and Latino city would be one of his top priorities as head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency."

"This year's bloom is predicted by NOAA to be much larger than average - just under the size of the 2014 bloom that left 500,000 without drinking water".

"The forecast for western Lake Erie for later this summer into fall?: Green and mucky.

The algae blooms that have plagued the lake in recent years are expected to be worse than normal this year, well above the size at which they can potentially become harmful to aquatic life and even humans, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration forecasters announced Thursday.

"It is not just a bad summer for ticks — it has been a bad decade for the spread of tick-borne infections. New surveillance from the CDC reports rapid expansion and increase in cases of babesiosis, a sometimes life-threatening disease, in Wisconsin."

"Each day for decades, five pipelines have quietly pumped more than 2 million barrels of Canadian crude oil below northern Minnesota's forests, lakes and rivers to refineries around the Upper Midwest."