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"Democrats on Thursday blocked the first major bill in the Senate that would have delayed the Environmental Protection Agency's clean air rules."

"Earlier this year, top officials with the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Energy and the Department of Justice hauled a handful of senior State Department officials into a White House meeting. The gathering was the governmental equivalent of being called into the principal's office."

As GOP presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney and Hermain Cain speak to the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity Foundation Friday, hundreds of protesters plan to rally against the billionaire brothers who bankroll anti-environmental causes. The Koch-Cain connection is the nexus of an evolving political scandal over alleged improper management of campaign funds by Cain's smoking campaign manager, Mark Block.

"Scientists from the National Aquarium and the Johns Hopkins University say they've found low but potentially harmful levels of toxic oil contaminants in the Gulf of Mexico months after the Deepwater Horizon well blowout was capped."

"A county Circuit judge in Virginia has sided with the University of Virginia's effort to restrict the release of personal emails from one of its former faculty members."

"Tokyo Electric Power Co. detected signs of nuclear fission at its crippled Fukushima atomic power plant, raising the risk of increased radiation emissions. No increase in radiation was found at the site and the situation is under control, officials said."

"The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) says that four members of a fringe militia used a book written by Fox News 'expert' Mike Vanderboegh as a basis for a plot to commit domestic terrorism. Federal law enforcement authorities on Tuesday arrested four Georgia senior citizens for allegedly plotting to kill government officials and spread terror with guns, explosives and the toxin ricin."

"Traditional agriculture methods could help protect food supplies and make agriculture more resilient to the effects of climate change, a report by the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED) said on Monday."

"All this month [October], the market has been saturated with pink-ribbon products sold in the name of breast cancer awareness, some with dubious ties to good health. How about some pink-certified wine? Or how about a Smith & Wesson handgun with a pink grip and engraved ribbon insignia?

"The pounding on my door jolts me awake. 'Get up!' a voice booms. 'They caught a jaguar!'

It's 2 a.m. I stumble into my clothes, grab my gear and slip into the full-moon-lit night. Within minutes, I'm in a boat with three biologists blasting up the wide Cuiabá River in southwestern Brazil's vast Pantanal wetlands, the boatman pushing the 115-horsepower engine full throttle. We disembark, climb into a pickup truck and bump through scrubby pastureland.