"El Niño, a tropical-climate phenomenon with a global reach and following, is stirring in the Pacific, although forecasters aren't ready to pronouncing it awake just yet."
"The North Carolina Senate gave tentative approval Tuesday to a bill that makes Duke Energy close its 33 coal ash ponds in the state within 15 years, but it blocked a vote on shifting costs away from consumers."
"The size of the annual summer "dead zone" of low-oxygen water in the Gulf of Mexico along Louisiana's coast will cover between 4,633 and 5,708 miles, about the size of the state of Connecticut, according to a Tuesday forecast announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."
"According to the 24th annual report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council, one in 10 U.S. beaches are dangerously polluted -- so polluted, in fact, that they have been deemed unsafe for swimmers."
"It would be so much easier if the whales had faced just one problem."
"When Penelope Jagessar Chaffer became pregnant, her obstetrician warned her to avoid alcohol, cigarettes and mercury-laden tuna. Dangers posed to her unborn child by industrial chemicals such as flame retardants, pesticides and plastics, however, never came up."
"U.S. EPA's nine-year effort to document air pollution at livestock operations is likely still many years from completion and unlikely to be as useful as industry and environmental groups had hoped."
"A new census study shows there are more than 2,400 white sharks off California and suggests that existing protective measures should be maintained because they are increasing the size and health of the population."
"House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) on Wednesday threatened to hold the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in contempt of Congress if officials fail to turn over subpoenaed communications with the White House."
"Home Depot and other U.S. companies are working to eliminate or limit use of a type of pesticide suspected of helping cause dramatic declines in honeybee populations needed to pollinate key American crops, officials said on Wednesday."
