National (U.S.)

"Disposed World War II explosives and munitions in the Gulf of Mexico pose a threat to offshore oil drilling, according to Texas oceanographers."

"BROOKLYN, N.Y. -- With each steady stroke, John Lipscomb inched the canoe deeper into an infamous urban waterway. The water surrounding the boat grew increasingly murky; the sulphuric stench more offensive."

"Rachel Carson wasn't someone you'd expect to spark a movement. She was a quiet, petite woman who grew up poor, lived most of her life with her mother and relished solitary walks along the beach, watching birds and fish. Yet 50 years ago Thursday, this marine biologist published Silent Spring, widely credited with spurring the modern environmental movement."

"A handful of environmental groups are amplifying calls Thursday for President Obama and GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney to speak up on climate change after a summer of devastating drought, fires, storms and heat."

"SALT LAKE CITY -- The operator of the Utah mine that collapsed in 2007, killing nine people, has reached a $949,351 settlement with the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration over safety violations."

"MONTPELIER, Vt. -- Nearly 20 years after the Vermont and Texas Legislatures first agreed to have Vermont ship low-level radioactive waste to the Lone Star State, the first shipments of waste have been made."

"With the worst drought in half a century driving feed prices sky high, pork producers are facing an untenable choice: drain their savings and gamble on a better future, or sell off their herd and get out of the business altogether."

The Army Corpts of Engineers changed the operating schedule for the Clearwater Dam on the Black River in Missouri in the 1990s in response to requests by Missouri farmers. On October 3 Arkansas is going to the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the Corps action has damaged the 23,000-acre Black River Wildlife Management Area 115 miles downstream. What's more, the state is arguing that the Corps should compensate it under the "takings clause," a favorite conservative legal weapon.

"WINNSBORO, Texas -- Two anti-tar sands pipeline activists were arrested in east Texas on Tuesday as demonstrators continue a three-day-old tree-sit to block TransCanada’s Keystone XL pipeline."

Shannon Bebe of Dallas and Benjamin Franklin of Houston delayed pipeline construction for most of the day when they locked arms around construction machinery being used by TransCanada to build the southern branch of a pipeline from the Alberta tar sands to refineries on the Gulf Coast.

The biosafety level 3 facility on Plum Island in Long Island Sound has been converted from biowarfare to studying animal diseases, harmless to humans, that could come into the U.S. from abroad. Some of those diseases could devastate U.S. flocks or herds. The secrecy and message-control surrounding the facility is intense. But is the secrecy meant to protect the U.S. public or to protect the financial interests of the agriculture industry?