"First Bat at Mammoth Cave Park With White-Nose Syndrome"
"A bat from Mammoth Cave National Park has been confirmed to have developed the deadly white-nose syndrome, authorities announced today."
"A bat from Mammoth Cave National Park has been confirmed to have developed the deadly white-nose syndrome, authorities announced today."
"Barack Obama's top adviser on oil drilling and the management of America's last wide open spaces announced on Wednesday that he would leave the cabinet by March. The departure of Ken Salazar as interior secretary leaves Obama with virtually a clean slate to remake his energy and environmental team."
EPA bowed to industry, ruling in a January 3, 2013 memo that local drinking water utilities no longer have to notify their customers of contamination in writing. "The memo fails to set clear standards for electronic notification and delivery and makes it likely that segments of the public will have less access to these reports," the Center for Effective Government wrote in response to the EPA memo.

The Plum Book, a list of most major federal political appointments that is published every four years, has long been a starting point for juicy stories — but hard to use because it was only published in print. Now it has been digitized. That makes it grist for data journalists.
Should state freedom-of-information laws disqualify people or organizations from out of state from getting government records? Led by the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, some 53 news media groups have urged the US Supreme Court to say no.

The suicide earlier this month of open-access activist Aaron Swartz brings again to the fore the ongoing difficulty journalists have accessing published scientific studies that bear on key current and future policy issues. Photo of Swartz, credit Flickr/peretzp.
"A carcinogenic mold, its growth exacerbated by the warming climate, reached record highs in 2012."
"Leaked documents reveal the government has sought to change proposals that could prevent deepsea drilling operations."
"NASA and NOAA scientists say 2012 global temperature records further consolidate a pattern of global warming."
"DAVIS, Calif. -- What causes autism? The question has spurred about a billion dollars' worth of genetics research that has found no clear answer. But University of California, Davis, epidemiologist Irva Hertz-Picciotto has been pursuing another angle: Does the environment around a pregnant woman play a role in determining whether her child develops autism?"