National (U.S.)

"They rumble past schools, homes and businesses in dozens of cities around the country — 100-car trains loaded with crude oil from the Upper Midwest. While railroads have long carried hazardous materials through congested urban areas, cities are now scrambling to formulate emergency plans and to train firefighters amid the latest safety threat: a fiftyfold increase in crude shipments that critics say has put millions of people living or working near the tracks at heightened risk of derailment, fire and explosion."

"Hampton Creek, the food technology company, has apparently been the subject of much discussion at the American Egg Board—an egg research and promotion program overseen by the US Department of Agriculture. Newly released documents show high-level members of the American Egg Board, a USDA employee, and an outside PR firm discussing strategies for dealing with Just Mayo, Hampton Creek’s plant-based mayonnaise substitute, the Associated Press first reported."

"A court has vacated federal protections for the lesser prairie chicken, a Great Plains bird that was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act last year."

"Railroad tank cars equipped with defective valves still will be allowed to transport crude oil and other hazardous materials through the end of the year, despite a March directive from federal regulators requiring their replacement within 60 days."

"The top executives at the largest publicly held fossil fuel companies in the United States have made nearly $6 billion in the last five years -- enough to double the U.S. commitment to addressing climate change abroad."

"A magnitude 4.2 earthquake struck near Grand Coulee Dam, the largest U.S. hydropower facility, in northeastern Washington state on Tuesday, prompting an immediate inspection of the facility but leaving no visible damage, a spokeswoman said."

"President Obama on Monday night took shots at those who deny climate change during his trip to Alaska, saying they are “on their own shrinking island.”"

"Lifting the ban on exporting crude oil would not raise domestic gasoline prices and could even reduce them, a new report from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) predicted on Tuesday."

"Twenty-five years after the project began, the Waste Treatment and Immobilization Plant at Hanford is nearing a three-fold cost overrun, and not a single drop of waste has been treated".

"A rare, incurable brain disorder that resembles Parkinson's disease is caused by a misfolded brain protein called a prion, similar to the prions that cause mad cow disease, researchers reported on Monday."