"Southwest Airlines and SeaWorld said on Thursday they are ending a longtime marketing partnership, as the airline faces pressure from animal rights groups critical of the marine life conditions at its popular tourist attractions."
"Twelve states filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration on Friday seeking to block an Environmental Protection Agency proposal to regulate coal-fired power plants in an effort to stem climate change."
"At first she was surprised. Then she was disturbed. Now she’s a little alarmed. Each time a different batch of male fish with eggs in their testes shows up in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, Vicki Blazer’s eyebrows arch a bit higher."
"When Washington lobbyists fail to derail regulations proposed by federal agencies, they often find a receptive ear within the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, an arm of the White House Office of Management and Budget that conducts much of its business in secret."
Several hundred thousand residents of the Toledo, Ohio, area remained Monday morning under an advisory not to drink their tapwater. Labs found microcystin, a toxin produced by blue-green algae, in the water. The algae are blooming in western Lake Erie, from which the city draws its water, because of phosphorus frpm farm runoff, lawn fertilizer, and sewage overflow. At a 3 am news conference, Mayor D. Michael Collins said the advisory would ramain in effect for some hours although tests showed microcystin in the water returning to safe levels. The crisis disrupted people's lives on a massive scale as bottled water was distributed.
"GOP lawmakers are 'betraying the party's mascot' with legislation that would roll back protections for endangered African elephants, animal rights activists say."
"More than half of California is now under the most severe level of drought for the first time since the federal government began issuing regular drought reports in the late 1990s, according to new data released Thursday."
North Carolina lawmakers said Thursday they still haven't reached agreement on legislation requiring Duke Energy to limit pollution leaking from its coal ash dumps across the state, nearly six months after a spill coated 70 miles of the Dan River with gray sludge."
"The Department of Energy (DOE) gave conditional approval to a second Oregon facility to export liquefied natural gas to countries that don't have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the U.S."
"Dozens of the nation’s leading conservation scientists on Thursday expressed strong concern over a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service official’s order to override a recommendation by federal biologists that wolverines deserve threatened species status."
