"Senator Tom Libous, a champion of fracking in the New York Legislature, is blocking a bill that would delay drilling for natural gas for at least two more years. Passage of the measure would harm the prospects of a real-estate company founded by Libous’s wife and run by a business partner and campaign donor."

"Exposure to air pollution raises the risk of resistance to insulin, a typical warning sign of diabetes, according to a study of almost 400 German children."

"OTTAWA — Some federal scientists working at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans may soon gain new freedom to control their research and speak in public, under a tentative deal announced Thursday to transfer management of a world-renowned freshwater research facility that opened in 1968."

"At about 300 colleges across the country, young activists worried about climate change are borrowing a strategy that students successfully used in decades past. In the 1980s, students enraged about South Africa's racist Apartheid regime got their schools to drop stocks in companies that did business with that government. In the 1990s students pressured their schools to divest in Big Tobacco."

"Two residents of Mayflower, Arkansas, the site of the March 29 pipeline spill, traveled to Washington on Thursday to ask Secretary of State John Kerry to reject the Keystone XL pipeline."

"An elderly nun and two other peace activists will be sentenced in September on their convictions for damaging a Tennessee defense facility where enriched uranium for nuclear bombs is stored, a federal judge said on Thursday."

"Senate Republicans continued a campaign to delay confirmation of President Obama’s second-term cabinet nominees on Thursday, blocking a committee vote on Gina McCarthy, the president’s pick to lead the Environmental Protection Agency."

"One of the two dams on the Elwha River has been completely removed and there are about 50 feet of the remaining Glines Canyon dam left. Already so much sediment has been released that its clogged up and shut down one of the water treatment plants in nearby Port Angeles, temporarily halting the largest dam removal project in U.S. history."

"The Arkansas Department of Health says people with dizziness, nausea and headaches have the option to leave, and it is their personal choice."