"WASHINGTON -- Taking aim at California's pioneering efforts to bolster animal safety, the House Agriculture Committee has moved to block states from imposing their own standards for agriculture products on producers from other states."

"WASHINGTON -- A U.S. senator questioned federal environmental health officials at a hearing Thursday about what is being done to address lead poisoning risks posed by contaminated soil around hundreds of old lead factory sites featured in a recent USA TODAY investigation."

"More than 1,000 counties in 26 states are being named natural-disaster areas, the biggest such declaration ever by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, as drought grips the Midwest."

"WASHINGTON -- The worst Midwest drought in a quarter century is doing more damage to U.S. crops than previously expected with the government on Wednesday slashing its estimate for what was supposed to be a record harvest."

"Despite promises from the nuclear industry to regulators and consumers that they learned from mistakes of the past, the nation's first two nuclear reactor projects built from scratch in 30 years are headed toward hundreds of millions of dollars in cost overruns and months, if not years, of delays."

"WASHINGTON, DC -- The same 'man-made' problems underlying last year's nuclear disaster in Japan exist today in the United States, warn five U.S. groups responding to the Fukushima Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission's report to Japan's Diet, or parliament."

"LOS ANGELES -- US nuclear regulators published an update on California's troubled San Onofre power plant Thursday, sparking an expert warning that the problem is more serious than first thought."

"Senior environment officials from the United States, Mexico and Canada meeting in New Orleans on Wednesday were briefed on environmental concerns facing homeland communities, including indoor air pollution in Alaska, protecting freshwater sources from sewage and other pollutants in Mexico, and the impact of climate change already on First Nation villages along the Arctic Circle."

"The wind power industry, which has been one of the nation’s fastest growing energy sectors, is facing layoffs and factory closings as a federal subsidy nears an end."

A Colorado family typifies a growing number of Americans whose health may be put at risk by the drift of pesticides from their neighbors' fogging activities. But neighbors doing the fogging say they, too, are acting to protect their health. A judge ruled this month that pesticide drift can be a form of trespass.