"Federal health authorities have significantly raised their estimate of the prevalence of autism in children, concluding in a new study of 8-year-olds that 1 in 88 has some form of the disorder."

"The five-day-and-counting mega-engineering challenge continues at Total's Well-from-Hell in the North Sea. That name was coined by Frederic Hauge of Bellona, a Norwegian group that monitors the oil industry:

"A last minute entreaty by President Obama wasn’t enough to convince senators to strip the oil and gas industry of billions in tax incentives."

"The search for the killer of America's bees is a little bit like an Agatha Christie novel. Suspicion has turned toward one shady character and then another: declining habitat; parasites; diseases; pesticides.

Or did they all conspire in the recent mass murder of the country's bees?

"California's long-running campaign to reduce air pollution has indirectly helped create a new problem: its oil refineries produce more greenhouse gas emissions than refineries anywhere else in the country."

"ST. PAUL, Minn. -- The Minnesota Department of Health is taking a closer look at a variety of chemicals that make their way into the water supply. Federal and state regulators have already placed limits on many contaminants found in drinking water, among them lead and mercury. But health officials are turning their attention to other chemicals that are not widely known, including those in fragrances, prescription drugs and bug spray."

"With pastures withered from a lingering drought, farmers in Texas and northwest Louisiana have abandoned donkeys by the hundreds, turning them into wandering refugees that have severely tested animal rescue groups."