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

"They’re back. Seventeen years after a major swarm of bug-eyed cicadas staged one of nature’s weirdest — and loudest — mating rituals, their offspring are preparing to rise in Washington’s suburbs and the Mid-Atlantic."

"Two Arkansas women sue ExxonMobil after its Pegasus pipeline ruptured, spewing oil onto lawns and roads. The $5 million class-action suit charges the pipeline spill has permanently diminished their property value."

"A 'rank' odor that has spread across parts of greater New Orleans may be linked to a leak from the 192,500-barrel-per-day Chalmette refinery, the U.S. Coast Guard investigating the smell said on Thursday."

"Coal production in Kentucky last year reached its lowest level since 1965, while shedding more than 4,000 jobs, nearly all of them in Appalachian counties, according to a new state report."

"Even as a Red Tide algae bloom is wiping out a record number of manatees in southwest Florida, a mysterious ailment is killing dozens more manatees on the state's east coast. So far, state biologists have been unable to pinpoint the cause."

"COLUMBIA, SC -- As SCE&G and other utilities work to complete atomic power plants, the law that made construction possible gives power companies less incentive to use solar, wind and other forms of alternative energy."

Rescuers are struggling to save manatees in Florida, there a Red Tide algal bloom has killed 181 of the mammals so far this year.

After CDC researchers confirmed that dengue fever had returned to the U.S., a Key West health officer said no new cases had been reported since October 2010.

"Forty years ago, when North Carolina banned using deep wells to permanently dump industrial waste, some thought the issue had been decided for good. Now state lawmakers who want to turn North Carolina into the nation’s next fracking hotspot are reopening the case for injecting brines and toxins deep underground."