"Florida’s biggest electric utility companies are backing a proposed constitutional amendment that, the campaign says, 'promotes solar in the Sunshine State.' Not so: If Florida voters approve the ballot measure, it could pave the way for utilities to raise fees on solar customers and cast a heavy cloud over the future of rooftop solar energy in Florida."

"South Carolina’s newest social media star is young, friendly, and could weigh up to 700 pounds. It’s a bull elk that likely wandered from North Carolina across state lines, the first time an elk has been spotted in the woodlands of South Carolina in more than 200 years."

"Scarcely two months have passed since the Obama administration announced a major breakthrough in its program to resurrect the population of the world’s most endangered wolf."

"Duke Energy, North Carolina’s largest utility, has been ordered to submit a post-flood plan for the storage ponds at one coal-fired power plant, after reports surfaced of coal ash residue contaminating a local waterway."

"Floridians will vote on a constitutional amendment that is couched in pro-solar power language but would actually give utilities, which are funding the ballot measure, more power to block rooftop solar development in the Sunshine State."

"The League of Conservation Voters (LCV) and an affiliated group are putting $3 million into a home-stretch advertising campaign against Sen. Richard Burr’s (R-N.C.) reelection."

"Federal health officials have made a new color-coded map for Miami and say pregnant women should stay out of the "red zone" — where Zika virus is actively infecting new people daily."

"Chicken farms, once tucked into fields and in mostly rural areas, have come to roost near schools, daycare centers and subdivisions on the Delmarva Peninsula. The change — in both location and density — is prompting local politicians to enact some of their first zoning restrictions on poultry growers."

"A filthy brown sea, a slurry of mud, debris, chemicals and waste, has overtaken miles of rural counties in North Carolina. Against the drab water, the shiny metal roofs of hog houses are impossible to miss, visible from the air, as are the rectangular and diamond-shaped outlines of massive lagoons constructed just feet away."