"German chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives have suffered a historic defeat in a state ballot after almost six decades in power there, partial results showed Sunday, in an election that amounted to a referendum on the party's stance on nuclear power."

"Japanese officials began encouraging people to evacuate a larger swath of territory around the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant on Friday as new signs emerged that parts of the crippled facility are so damaged and contaminated that it will be hard to bring the plant under control soon."

"More than a quarter of U.S. nuclear plant operators have failed to properly tell regulators about equipment defects that could imperil reactor safety, according to a report by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission's inspector general."

"The federal government promoted some uses of coal ash, including wallboard or filler in road embankments, without properly testing the environmental risks, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency's inspector general."

"It has killed millions of fish and hundreds of dolphins and manatees. It has ruined countless Florida beach vacations. And it has left people with respiratory problems gasping for air. Yet until now, how Red Tide's poisons worked remained something of a mystery."

In 1961, three young nuclear plant operators in Idaho were killed when a small experimental power reactor melted down. They were so radioactive they had to be buried in lead-lined coffins under concrete. And one bereaved family was only allowed a five-minute funeral.

The big international Earth Summit coming next year in Rio de Janiero -- 20 years after the epochal original meeting there -- may generate both good news and bad news about the future of the planet.