"Federal prosecutors in Brazil filed a 155 billion-real ($43.5 billion) civil lawsuit on Tuesday against iron miner Samarco and its owners, Vale SA and BHP Billiton, for a collapsed tailings dam in November that killed 19 people and polluted a major river."
"ISLE DE JEAN CHARLES, La. — Each morning at 3:30, when Joann Bourg leaves the mildewed and rusted house that her parents built on her grandfather’s property, she worries that the bridge connecting this spit of waterlogged land to Louisiana’s terra firma will again be flooded and she will miss another day’s work."
"Fort McMurray fire officials are prepared for another challenging day Wednesday as firefighters try to save the oilsands city from a massive wildfire that has destroyed homes and businesses, and forced the largest wildfire evacuation in Alberta’s history."
"Hawaii, Alaska and the Southwest face an above-average threat of wildfires this summer, but most of the country should see normal or below-normal problems, forecasters said Sunday."
"A CSX freight train derailed in northeastern Washington [DC] on Sunday, spilling hazardous material near a subway station and disrupting commuter rail and long-distance Amtrak passenger trains but causing no injuries, authorities said."
"Government says 330 million people are suffering from water shortages after monsoons fail".
"A grandmother and four of her grandchildren were killed and another person also died in floods in Texas caused by storms that unleashed tornadoes, damaging hail and torrential rains on several central U.S. states, officials said on Saturday."
"The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted Wednesday to pass a bill to reauthorize the federal government’s safety oversight for hazardous pipelines."
Many local and state agencies, set up under a 1986 federal law to inform the public, are a great resource for stories at the local, state, and even national level. Some don't — often based on a fear that terrorists could use the information to harm people. Here's how to find yours.
"Six years on, scientists are continuing to tally the ecological harms caused by the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."
