"Many Southern California communities stand out as some of the nation’s worst environmental justice hot spots, according to a new map released Wednesday by the Obama administration."

"ST. LOUIS, Mich. — During recent summers birds were found littered around the town, poisoned with a long-banned pesticide."

"After a long delay, the Obama administration has signaled that it’s ready to launch talks with Canada to renew the 51-year-old Columbia River Treaty, a controversial pact that created dams for electricity and flood control in the Pacific Northwest."

"More than 100 scientists and economists from Canada and the U.S. made an unprecedented call Wednesday for a halt to new projects in the oilsands until carbon emissions can be reduced."

"U.S. environmental regulators are expected within days to propose rules to make trucks more fuel efficient, and trucking industry executives and lobbyists familiar with the process said the rules will probably call for boosting fuel efficiency by 2027 nearly 40 percent from 2010 levels."

"More than 35,000 square miles (90,650 sq km) of ocean habitat along the U.S. Atlantic coast gained protection on Wednesday from trawl and dredge fishing that could harm deep-sea ocean corals, according to an environmental group supporting the restrictions."

"South Korea should build a new temporary facility to store spent nuclear fuel from 2030 and consider permanent underground storage from the middle of the century, a government advisory body said on Thursday."

"Clean-up costs associated with a Californian oil pipeline rupture that dumped as much as 2,400 barrels of crude onto a pristine stretch of coastline and into the Pacific Ocean have exceeded $60 million, the Los Angeles Times reported on Wednesday."

"A bill that would effectively overturn a new Environmental Protection Agency clean water rule won a critical committee vote Wednesday and now appears headed for a decision by the full U.S. Senate."