National (U.S.)

"Leaky pipes are the 'super low-hanging fruit' of climate change."

"InsideClimate News reporter Lisa Song was threatened with arrest on Wednesday after she entered the command center for the cleanup operation in Mayflower, Ark., where a major oil pipeline spill occurred on Friday."

"The increase is the result of the government last year lowering the threshold for lead poisoning."

"MIAMI -- Responding to criticism after Superstorm Sandy, the National Hurricane Center said Thursday it would change the way it warns people about tropical storms that morph into something else."

"A federal agency has declared that more sick and dying sea lion pups have stranded themselves on southern California beaches so far in 2013 than in the previous five years combined, but scientists are still unsure what is afflicting the mammals."

"The Obama administration is inching ahead with a plan that would allow wastewater from fracking to be shipped on barges, fueling a debate whether it is safer than other transportation modes or risks polluting drinking water."

"Growing environmental objections to exporting coal from Washington state and Oregon have begun to endanger the coal industry’s hope to restore its flagging fortunes by shipping much more of the embattled fossil fuel to China and India."

"Rumors of Scripps begone -- geophysicist Marcia McNutt, who stepped down as head of the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in February, is returning to Washington, D.C., as the new editor-in-chief of Science. McNutt will take over the editorship on 1 June from Bruce Alberts, who announced his retirement last year."

"Crisscrossing Michigan are more than 3,100 miles of old wrought- and cast-iron natural-gas pipelines -- the type federal regulators consider the most at risk of corrosion, cracking and catastrophic rupturing. The state's two largest utilities have replaced less than 15% of these pipelines -- 542 miles -- in the past decade."

Rumors that the conservative billionaire Koch brothers could be poised to buy the Tribune Company raise questions about how that might affect Tribune news outlets' coverage of environment and energy issues, in which the Kochs have a substantial stake.