National (U.S.)

"News broke on Friday that the American Petroleum Institute is urging member companies to recruit their employees, retirees, vendors, and contractors to attend 'Energy Citizen' events across the country over the August congressional recess. Today, we have some updates to the story."

A Duke Univ. study found the highest concentrations of toxic metals in coal ash to be in the smallest particles -- the ones most likely to be kicked up as dust and breathed in by people.

"Beetles and fire, twin plagues, are consuming northern forests in what scientists say is a preview of the future, in a century growing warmer, as the land grows drier, trees grow weaker and pests, abetted by milder winters, grow stronger. Dying, burning forests would then only add to the warming."

"Just as wild plants and animals have their environmental champions, so foodies are seeking to preserve the biodiversity of cultivated species and rescue rare delicacies such as California's Sebastopol Gravenstein apple. The big difference? With endangered foods, you save them by eating them."

"The Army on Wednesday won a court challenge to its plan to incinerate chemical weapons at storage sites around the country over objections from a watchdog group that says the practice releases toxic pollution."

"No fish can escape mercury pollution. That's the take-home message from a federal study of mercury contamination released Wednesday that tested fish from nearly 300 streams across the country."

"A new study has found that downloading music is substantially better from an emissions perspective than buying compact discs."

"Very low doses of some types of the herbicide Roundup can disrupt human liver cell function; the formulations' toxicity may be tied to their 'inactive' ingredients rather than the active weed-killing ingredient glyphosate."