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"Oil drilling has sparked a frenzied prosperity in Jeff Keller's formerly quiet corner of western North Dakota in recent years, bringing an infusion of jobs and reviving moribund local businesses. But Keller, a natural resource manager for the Army Corps of Engineers, has seen a more ominous effect of the boom, too: Oil companies are spilling and dumping drilling waste onto the region's land and into its waterways with increasing regularity."

"Two First Nations communities devastated by mercury poisoning nearly 50 years ago are still feeling the impacts from the metal toxins in one of their key water supplies, a world-renowned expert suggested."

"Scientists have discovered a vast pea-soup-green bloom of tiny plant-like marine organisms under Arctic Ocean ice. The bloom represents an enormous, and until now, unknown reservoir of food for marine life in frigid waters at the top of the world."

"LONDON -- The price of oil fell to below $83 a barrel on Friday after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke gave no hint that the central bank is planning stimulus measures to revive a faltering recovery."

"TOLEDO, Ohio -- A FirstEnergy Corp. subsidiary said Thursday that they discovered and contained a pinhole-size leak spraying radioactive coolant at their Davis-Besse nuclear plant in Ohio."

"Parasitic mites wiping out bee colonies by transmitting deadly virus directly into the bloodstream of the bees, research reveals"

"There is a 50 percent chance the feared El Nino weather pattern which can trigger droughts in Southeast Asia and Australia and floods in South America may strike later this year, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center warned on Thursday."

"In its strongest prediction so far that El Nino could emerge, the CPC said conditions are still expected to be neutral between June and August, but there is a 50 percent likelihood that El Nino will develop in the remainder of the year.

"The scientist who exposed the inner workings of the ultra-conservative Heartland Institute, triggering the defection of key donors, has been reinstated after an investigation."

"A five-year farm and food bill that would revamp the federal safety net for farmers and eliminate direct government payments for idle crop fields took its first step toward passage Thursday in the Senate."

"So far, 2012 has been the warmest year the United States has ever seen, with the warmest spring and the second-warmest May since record-keeping began in 1895, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported on Thursday."