National (U.S.)

EPA last month denied a petition from a coalition of environmental groups to ban lead hunting ammunition, who claimed EPA could do it under the Toxic Substances Control Act. Now the environmentalists have filed a Freedom of Information Act request, seeking documents that could tell whether EPA bowed to pressure from the National Rifle Association in an effort to dispose of the issue before the November election.

"Navy Secretary Ray Mabus is set to present the Obama administration's coastal restoration plan in New Orleans. Perhaps no state is more anxious to see what's in the plan than Louisiana, which has lost hundreds of square miles of coastal land in the last century."

"The carefully cultivated socially liberal image of Ben & Jerry's ice cream has suffered a knock with a decision by the Vermont-based manufacturer to stop calling its food  "all natural" following pressure from a watchdog that questioned whether ingredients such as partially hydrogenated soya bean oil fitted the billing."

"The two chairmen of the president's Oil Spill Commission, which is conducting an inquiry into the April 20 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, expressed skepticism Monday about claims from BP and government officials that initial underestimation of the flow rate of the Macondo well had no impact on the response to the spill."

"Around 100 people have been arrested outside the White House while protesting against mountaintop removal mining, including NASA scientist James Hansen."

"A long-delayed government epidemiological study of possible ties between diesel exhaust and lung cancer in miners may finally be published this fall -- but only after a mining industry group, represented by the Washington lobbying powerhouse Patton Boggs, finishes a pre-publication review of the study's drafts."

"A once-unthinkable day is looming on the Colorado River. Barring a sudden end to the Southwest’s 11-year drought, the distribution of the river’s dwindling bounty is likely to be reordered as early as next year because the flow of water cannot keep pace with the region’s demands."

"New efforts to measure what warming temperatures are doing to forests, streams and animals at a regional level are at the core of a strategic plan by the Fish and Wildlife Service to respond to the effects of climate change."

Asian stink bugs have invaded the East Coast, are spreading, and are getting into people's yards and houses. When disturbed, they emit an unpleasant smell.