"Hundreds of people are suing New York City over cancer diagnoses they received after working at ground zero. A judge last week rejected a $575 million legal settlement for thousands of sick 9/11 responders in part because he thought it should contain more money for cancer victims."

As the gas boom stampedes landowners in New York to lease rights to drill the Marcellus shale formations beneath their farms and homes, many worry the drilling could pollute wells permanently.

"The White House Conference on America's Great Outdoors will be held April 16. It will focus on how local leadership, not the federal government, can encourage conservation."

"The International Maritime Organization today finalized plans that would subject ships within a 230-mile buffer zone around the U.S. and Canadian coastlines to stricter air pollution regulations."

"President Obama's top aides huddled [Wednesday] with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Democratic committee leaders to map out a strategy for cobbling together 60 votes on a comprehensive energy and climate change bill once lawmakers return next month from their spring break."

"In Maryland, messing with Big Chicken can bring big trouble. The latest case study is playing out in Annapolis, where the state Senate wants to impose greater scrutiny on the University of Maryland's environmental law clinic. The reason? Apparently, it's the law clinic's pro bono work for an environmental group that is suing an Eastern Shore chicken farmer and the poultry giant Perdue Farms."

"Farmers raising the cattle and horses -- and those applying to be designated official certified organic vegetable growers -- are organizing to oppose plans by the city of Seaside [OR] to spray biosolids on a local farmer's property."

"The metal tungsten remains an important clue in research related to the Fallon [NV] leukemia cluster, which sickened 17 children and killed three of them between 1997 and 2004, scientists said Thursday."

"The Wampanoag Indians of southeastern Massachusetts welcomed the Pilgrims when they arrived on the Mayflower nearly 400 years ago. But now they're trying to stop another newcomer -- wind turbines."