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"Alaska Inuit hunter John Goodwin for decades has hunted oogruk, the bearded seal, a marine mammal prized for its meat, oil and hide.

The largest of Alaska's ice seals uses sea ice to rest and birth pups, and after the long winter, when ice breaks into floes, there's a window of opportunity for Goodwin to leave his home in Kotzebue and motor his boat between ice panels, shoot seals and butcher them before they migrate north through the Bering Strait.

"Following the discovery in the UK of bacteria that resist the most common antibiotic of last resort, a leading British expert is warning it is “almost too late” to stop a global superbug crisis."

"Nevada should accept a federal plan to add an abandoned copper mine near Yerington to the Superfund National Priority List — a move that would designate it as one of the nation's most polluted sites and bring federal funds to cover 90 percent of the cleanup, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid said."

"Say goodbye to the beads. On Monday, Dec. 28, President Barack Obama signed into law a ban on tiny plastic particles used in personal cosmetic products that scientists say are polluting U.S. lakes, rivers and the oceans."

A spate of fires has been sweeping northern Spain for over a week now, an unusual phenomenon in regions that skirt the rough seas of the Bay of Biscay and are normally rainy, especially in winter."

"Contractors at Entergy's Waterford 3 nuclear power plant on the west bank of St. Charles Parish failed to conduct required hourly fire inspections and falsified records for 10 months to show the inspections occurred, according to the results of a 15-month-long investigation announced Wednesday (Dec. 23) by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission."

"Snow, sleet and hail snarled transportation across swaths of the United States on Monday during one of the busiest travel weeks, after dozens died in U.S. storms that were part of a wild worldwide weather system seen over the Christmas holiday period."

"The presence of the chemical compound PFOA in the village water supply has residents of one community on edge."

"A coalition of green groups has filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) new smog rules."