Public

"Russia confirmed on Thursday it would not make cuts in greenhouse gas emissions from 2013 under the U.N.'s Kyoto Protocol, joining Canada and Japan in rejecting an extension of the plan for fighting climate change."

"Seeking to reduce runaway obesity rates, the New York City Board of Health on Thursday approved a ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, street carts and movie theaters, the first restriction of its kind in the country."

"AUSTIN -- Exxon Mobil Corp. has reported inadvertent emissions of large amounts of pollutants at its flagship refinery near Houston."

"Today [Thursday] the US Commerce Department declared disasters not of fishermen's making in three key fisheries on four US coasts: the North Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico, the Bering Sea, and the Gulf of Alaska in the Pacific Ocean. The declaration opens the door for Congress -- if they choose to accept the mission -- to appropriate funds to help struggling fishers."

"NEWARK, Ohio -- Becky and Andrew Snedeker spent their first year of marriage living with her parents while searching for their dream home. They found it on James Street in Newark, but now the Ohio Department of Transportation wants to buy and raze it to clean up a known carcinogen in groundwater feet below their property."

"Valley fever starts with the simple act of breathing."

"More than 191,000 gallons of toxic chemicals may have been released from the Stolthaven New Orleans petroleum and chemical storage and transfer terminal in Braithwaite during Hurricane Isaac, according to a company report filed Tuesday with the U.S. Coast Guard National Response Center. That's just one day after the Louisiana Department of Environmental Qualty assured the public that monitoring at the facility detected no offsite contamination."

After a study by Stanford researchers, published September 4, concluded that organic foods had negligible health benefits, controversy occurred. Now critics, mostly from the environmental health and organic food communities, are challenging the study's methods, its accuracy and completeness, its framing questions, potential conflict of interest stemming from funding support, and the competence of the news media in reporting it.

"KINSHASA, Democratic Republic of Congo -- Scientists have discovered a new species of monkey in a remote forested part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, only the second new species of monkey to be found in Africa in the past 28 years."

"The emerald ash borer, an invasive beetle that has destroyed millions of trees in North America since being accidentally introduced from Asia, has been identified in Massachusetts for the first time, state officials said on Wednesday."