SE (AL AR FL GA KY LA MS NC PR SC TN)

"Critics say the measure allows public school teachers to challenge the topics without fear of sanction. Gov. Bill Haslam expresses misgivings about the law."

"ATLANTA -- Clean air advocates and environmental groups won a victory Monday when the utility consortium Power4Georgians agreed to cancel its proposal to build a coal-fired power plant near Fitzgerald in Ben Hill County, Georgia."

"With pastures withered from a lingering drought, farmers in Texas and northwest Louisiana have abandoned donkeys by the hundreds, turning them into wandering refugees that have severely tested animal rescue groups."

"State legislature gives legal protection to teachers who do not believe in the science and want to debate alternate explanations."

"The Senate approved a highway bill Wednesday that includes a long-sought provision for the Gulf Coast: A guarantee that 80 percent of the fines collected from the April 2010 BP oil spill — an amount that could reach $20 billion — would be distributed for coastal restoration to the five states along the Gulf of Mexico: Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, Texas and Alabama."

"TALLAHASSEE — Federal environmental officials underestimated the cost of implementing their new water pollution rules for Florida, just as critics have been saying, a National Research Council panel concluded in a report released Tuesday."

"Twenty-six-year-old Sara Barnes was arrested in Seminole County, Fla., after she admitted to setting fire to one of the oldest trees in the world."