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"WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Transportation collects relatively small civil penalties against the railroads it regulates, as concern grows over the safety of shipping large volumes of crude oil and ethanol in tank cars long known to be deficient, federal documents show."

"WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama is sticking to a fossil-fuel dependent energy policy, delivering a blow to a monthslong, behind-the-scenes effort by nearly every major environmental group to convince the White House that the policy is at odds with his goals on global warming."

"Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been tapped to be U.N. special envoy for cities and climate change, sources familiar with the situation said on Thursday."

"CAMBRIDGE, Md. — Representative Henry A. Waxman of California, a diminutive Democratic giant whose 40 years in the House produced some of the most important legislation of the era, announced Thursday that he would retire at the end of the year."

"Life has never been easy for just-hatched Magellanic penguins, but climate change is making it worse, according to a decades-long study of the largest breeding colony of the birds."

"Dozens of protestors from around the globe rallied against Monsanto, the world’s largest seed company, on Tuesday urging its shareholders to consider the risks of growing and consuming genetically modified crops."

"BRIGHTON, UK -- Controversial pesticides ingested by bumble bees can seriously impact the insects’ ability to collect food, even at very low levels of contamination, finds new research from the University of Sussex and the University of Stirling."

"MEXICO CITY -- The stunning and little-understood annual migration of millions of Monarch butterflies to spend the winter in Mexico is in danger of disappearing, experts said Wednesday, after numbers dropped to their lowest level since record-keeping began in 1993."

"SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. – In a shallow arm of the bay, where Pacific tides cause hardly a ripple, hundreds of harbor seals lounge, mate and bear young. With placid expressions on bewhiskered faces and bulky bodies reclining on shorelines, the seals belie a disturbing burden they carry."