A July 19 fire at Citgo's Corpus Christi refinery released deadly hydrogen fluoride, maimed one worker, and threatened a poor, largely minority community at its fenceline. Now larger questions are being asked -- about how authorities responded to it and whether it could have been prevented.

"Age-old farming methods helped to cultivate this country's wealth of plant and animal species. But now, as rural areas empty of people, that rich biodiversity is put at risk."

In Brazil's epicenter of deforestation, an environmental group is offering farmers cash to let the forest stand. The question is whether they can make more by clearing the land and farming it.