"Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell has directed the agency's regions and research stations to jointly produce draft "landscape conservation action plans" by March 1 to guide its day-to-day response to climate change."

"The Department of Natural Resources' efforts to combat chronic wasting disease -- an illness that threatens Wisconsin's entire deer herd -- have had little effect after seven years and nearly $41 million in state and federal spending, data and interviews indicate."

"The 2009 Atlantic hurricane season ended Monday without a hurricane landing on U.S. shores and with the fewest named storms in 12 years, according to the National Hurricane Center."

"Twenty-five years on, the world's worst industrial accident continues to kill and blight many lives. And still there's been no trial."

"What kind of insurance policy do you take out if you operate a large nuclear plant in one of the most densely populated, fastest-growing communities in Canada?"

"Despite months of additional study and a self-imposed timetable, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration likely will not release its ruling Monday on the safety of bisphenol A, a chemical used in thousands of household products that has been linked to developmental and behavioral problems."

"A group of U.S. senators who could determine the fate of a climate bill received more than $20 million in campaign contributions over the past two decades from energy interests with a direct stake in pending legislation."

Monsanto's use of market dominance in genetically modified seeds to crush competion and coerce farmers into paying higher prices has drawn complaints. After years of looking the other way, antitrust enforcers are thinking about acting.

"Aggressively reducing emissions of non-CO2 climate drivers could forestall abrupt climate change for up to 40 years, according to a recent study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Without such efforts, even drastic cuts to CO2 emissions will fail to put the brakes on planetary warming soon enough to avoid climate tipping points, the authors warn."

Health problems, some fatal, linger for workers at the Bannister Federal Complex in south Kansas City. It is being closed by Honeywell, the latest in a series of contractors who have operated it for the Energy Department's nuclear weapons program. No nuclear weapons were made there -- only non-nuclear components. But some 785 toxic substances were used there. Despite a $65-million cleanup, workers feel abandoned.