"Metro Detroit’s poor and minority populations face greater health and environmental challenges than most communities because of their proximity to industrial pollution - an “environmental injustice” and “human rights abuse,” Sierra Club Detroit officials said today as they released a report on the state of Detroit’s environment."

"TORONTO, Ontario, Canada, April 4, 2013 (ENS) – The province of Ontario is harnessing more renewable electricity from Niagara Falls through the just-completed Niagara Tunnel Project, as part of its plan to phase out its coal-fired power plants by the end of 2014."

"Coal production in Kentucky last year reached its lowest level since 1965, while shedding more than 4,000 jobs, nearly all of them in Appalachian counties, according to a new state report."

"MIAMI -- Responding to criticism after Superstorm Sandy, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday it would change the way it warns people about tropical storms that morph into something else."

"SHANGHAI/HONG KONG --  Chinese authorities slaughtered over 20,000 birds at a poultry market in Shanghai on Friday as the death toll from a new strain of bird flu mounted to six, spreading concern overseas and sparking a sell-off in airline shares in Europe and Hong Kong."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. (9501), the operator of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi plant, said a cooling system for one of its spent fuel pools at the crippled nuclear station stopped today."

"The government on Thursday recommended the removal of four hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River in Oregon and California to aid native salmon runs and help resolve a decades-long struggle over allocation of scarce water resources."

"A federal agency has declared that more sick and dying sea lion pups have stranded themselves on southern California beaches so far in 2013 than in the previous five years combined, but scientists are still unsure what is afflicting the mammals."

"The Obama administration is inching ahead with a plan that would allow wastewater from fracking to be shipped on barges, fueling a debate whether it is safer than other transportation modes or risks polluting drinking water."

Next year, Ontario will become the first industrial region in North America to eliminate coal-fired electrical generation.