Public

Cancer stories "are numbingly familiar to people who live in the vicinity of Tonawanda Coke Corp. The coke foundry recently was found by the state Department of Environmental Conservation to be emitting benzene, a carcinogen, up to 75 times higher than recommended guidelines. Those levels were up to 2ù times more than what the company reported to regulators."

New York "is asking local government agencies to regulate key aspects of the natural gas industry, raising yet more questions about who will pay for manpower to oversee multinational energy companies setting up shop in Southern Tier's backyards."

To get to the root of the obesity epidemic, one Canadian reporter went in search of a junk food farm. There were no fields of Dorito bags waving in the breeze. "What you do see are vast operations growing the raw materials for junk food: soybeans and corn."

"As U.S. Air Force officials marked the 50th anniversary of the deployment of nuclear missiles to sites in the rural United States this past week, residents in some of these communities are still grappling with another legacy — groundwater pollution from chemicals used to clean and maintain the weapons."

"The Obama administration is proposing a sea change in how we manage our oceans, including a comprehensive policy on fishing, offshore energy, and shipping."

"Citing danger to marine life, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration opposes opening large tracts of coast to drilling and recommends buffer zones off Santa Barbara."

"President Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize today in part for what the award's organizers said was a 'more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.'"

"As sea temperatures have risen in recent decades, enormous sheets of a mucus-like material have begun forming more often, oozing into new regions, and lasting longer, a new Mediterranean Sea study says."