"Most levees in the city of Sacramento have technically failed a maintenance inspection by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because they are bristling with trees and other structural intrusions. But the city won't be penalized — for now — while long-term solutions are being developed."

"The tragic explosion of a gas pipeline  in a San Francisco suburb has shed light on a problem usually kept underground: Communities have expanded over pipes built decades earlier when no one lived there. Utilities have been under pressure for years to better inspect and replace aging gas pipes — many of them laid years before sprawling communities were erected around them — that now are at risk of leaking or erupting."

A progressive blog reports that almost every Republican candidate running for a U.S. Senate seat this fall either denies consensus scientific findings of manmade climate change or opposes efforts to head it off.

"Scientists in the Arctic are reporting a rare mass migration of thousands of walrus from the ice floes to dry land along Alaska's coast."

The House Science Committee on Thursday holds a hearing to probe what went wrong thirteen years ago when a federal report whitewashed the health threats to Marines and their families from contaminated water at the Camp Lejeune, N.C., base.

"Swimming in a chlorinated pool may increase your risk of developing cancer, suggest a new suite of studies, which identified more than 100 chemical byproducts in pools that use chlorine as a disinfectant."

Pouty green fashionistas stalk the runways as Fashion Week takes over Gotham. Ten top designers show that eco-friendly, ethically sound, fair-trade fashion does not have to be matronly. It's all about recycled glitz. But are recycled soda tabs wearable?

"The federal government declared in April that basking sharks in the Pacific Ocean are a 'species of concern,' which means the government doesn't yet have enough information to say the giant fish is threatened or endangered, but it might be."

"The ice around the North Pole has experienced another severe meltdown this year, German scientists said."