"Never really known as a friendly group, the Italian mafia has been brutally murdering people for hundreds of years. Most of the time, these killings are quick—some henchmen waylay the target, squeeze a trigger a few times and make their getaway. Yet according to a new report released last week by the Italian National Institute of Health, a few local Italian mobs have been slowly killing dozens of innocent people for decades by way of a multibillion dollar toxic waste disposal racket."

"It's now harder to find out where your beef or pork was born, raised and slaughtered. After more than a decade of wrangling, Congress repealed a labeling law last month that required retailers to include the animal's country of origin on packages of red meat. It's a major victory for the meat industry, which had fought the law in Congress and the courts since the early 2000s."

"Yorkshire, United Kingdom - Coal miners at Yorkshire’s Kellingley Colliery, the only remaining deep-pit coal mine in Britain, worked their last shift on Friday December 18, bringing to an end hundreds of years of underground coal mining in the UK."

"The largest ape to roam Earth died out 100,000 years ago because it failed to tuck into savannah grass after climate change hit its preferred diet of forest fruit, scientists suggest."

"As technology advances, many industries are being disrupted by increased automation. But when it comes to managing and protecting the water supply, there are many tasks that still require a combination of people and technology."

"A survey of economists with climate expertise finds a consensus that climate change is expensive and carbon pollution cuts are needed".

"Rising global temperatures may be affecting the Greenland ice sheet — and its contribution to sea-level rise — in more serious ways that scientists imagined, a new study finds."