"Water utilities in some of the largest cities in the US that collectively serve some 12 million people have used tests that downplay the amount of lead contamination found in drinking water for more than a decade, a Guardian analysis of testing protocols reveals."

"When it comes to water, only about half of Americans are very confident in the safety of what's flowing from their tap, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll, which found that trust is even weaker among minorities and people with lower incomes."

"A report by Media Matters for America reveals that the media are failing to inform the American public on the most important issue of our time".

"Award-winning American environmental photographer Gary Braasch died on Monday while snorkeling at the northern end of the Great Barrier Reef."

"Hillary Clinton used Sunday's Democratic debate to for the first time directly call on Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder to resign over the water crisis in Flint, Mich."

Some chemicals that are common in commercial products and processes are known to find their way into the environment and seriously (even fatally) harm human health. Yet current U.S. law makes it hard for EPA to keep companies from using them. Sometimes the chemicals used to replace them are just as bad, but the law does not even require those to be tested. A vast regime of secrecy based on unchallenged claims of "confidential business information" makes the danger to public health worse. Often, not even the EPA employees responsible for protecting people can access information about the toxic chemicals. The chemical reform bills now pending in Congress won't fix the problem.

"A new scientific study released Thursday has delivered yet another burst of bad news about Greenland — the vast northern ice sheet that contains 20 feet of potential sea level rise. The ice sheet is “darkening,” or losing its ability to reflect both visible and invisible radiation, as it melts more and more, the research finds. That means it’s absorbing more of the sun’s energy — which then drives further melting.

"A few miles outside Glacier National Park in northwest Montana is land known as the Badger-Two Medicine, the ancestral home of the Blackfeet tribe. But it's also the site of 18 oil and gas development leases, and an energy company is heading to federal court March 10 to fight for the right to drill there after decades of delay."

"A US government agency says it has attained the “holy grail” of energy – the next-generation system of battery storage, that has has been hotly pursued by the likes of Bill Gates and Elon Musk."