"KENNEWICK, Wash. – On his tiny farm, Terry Wattenburger admired a new cycle of life emerging in his backyard: A blue-eyed American Paint foal grazed next to its mother and a fuzzy, multicolored chick chirped and hopped through the grass."

"World’s fastest submerging state is looking to nature in an ambitious plan to turn back the tide, and to BP to fund it – but will it work?"

"When billionaire Chris Cline's company bought an option to mine a swath of northern Wisconsin in 2010, the company touted the project's potential to bring up to 700 well-paid jobs to a hard-pressed part of the state."

"From 2004 to 2011, American and Iraqi troops repeatedly encountered, and at times were wounded by, chemical weapons that were hidden or abandoned years earlier."

"A decades-long quest to save the north Atlantic right whale is helping revive a species that is a bellwether of the health of the oceans."

"Iowa voted for Barack Obama in the last two presidential elections, but now it is seriously considering electing a United States Senate candidate with a hard-right proposal that is truly radical: abolishing the Environmental Protection Agency."

"A highly flammable byproduct flowed from oil tankers into an area stormwater system for at least a year before state regulators inspected the problem."

"As concerns mount over people’s exposure to the plasticizer bisphenol A in everyday products, it’s also contaminating the air near manufacturing plants: U.S. companies emitted about 26 tons of the hormone-disrupting compound in 2013."

"A long-running battle over an oyster farm at Pt. Reyes National Seashore may be winding down. The National Park Service says a settlement agreement would, if approved by a federal court, would require the Drake Bay Oyster Company to cease operations by the end of the year."

"Recent analyses raise disturbing questions about the health and environmental effects of the stuff that encases our edibles."