"FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. -- With inviting beaches that run for miles along South Florida’s shores, it is easy to put sand into the same category as turbo air-conditioning and a decent mojito — something ever present and easily taken for granted."

"ATLANTA -- If Georgia was starting from scratch, it would not build a nuclear power plant. That conclusion from a state financial analyst illustrates how an anticipated boom in nuclear power turned into a bust as natural gas prices fell."

"Authorities in south Georgia say at least three people have been injured in a chemical explosion that rocked an industrial complex."

"TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Federal officials are declaring a fishery disaster for Florida's oyster industry in the Gulf of Mexico.

The collapse of the oyster industry last year followed a drought that reduced freshwater into Apalachicola Bay. But state officials have also blamed the lack of freshwater flow due to increased consumption in Georgia.

"No more than 15 years ago, it would have made a bird watcher's week to see the seldom-seen wood stork. Today, a daily siting is not unusual."

"Lake Okeechobee keeps rising — and so do worries about an aging dike the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers ranks among the most vulnerable to failure in the country."

"MAYFLOWER, Ark. -- In the week after an oil spill strangled the air in Ann Jarrell's neighborhood, tens of thousands of her bees either died or went mad."

"MELBOURNE, Fla. — The first hint that something was amiss here, in the shallow lagoons and brackish streams that buffer inland Florida from the Atlantic’s salt water, came last summer in the Banana River, just south of Kennedy Space Center. Three manatees — the languid, plant-munching, over-upholstered mammals known as sea cows — died suddenly and inexplicably, one after another, in a spot where deaths were rare."

"The train that derailed in Lawtell [La.] is leaking chemicals and at least one of two cars carrying a hazardous chemical, vinyl chrloride, is damaged."