National (U.S.)

"The White House announced new initiatives on Friday to promote the health of honeybees and other pollinators, which have suffered enormous losses in recent years. The memorandum, signed by President Obama, called for research into the causes of the severe decline and the role of pesticides, and formed a 'pollinator health task force' of more than 14 federal agencies, saying, 'It is critical to expand federal efforts and take new steps to reverse pollinator losses and help restore populations to healthy levels.'"

"The House Appropriations Committee approved a $34 billion spending bill for the Department of Energy (DOE) and Army Corps of Engineers Wednesday."

"A study of abandoned oil and gas wells in Pennsylvania finds that the hundreds of thousands of such wells in the state may be leaking methane, suggesting that abandoned wells across the country could be a bigger source of climate changing greenhouse gases than previously thought."

"The outsized, hump-shouldered bruins were hunted, trapped and poisoned to the edge of extinction in the lower 48 states before being added to the federal endangered and threatened species list in 1975."

"BILLINGS, Mont. — U.S. transportation officials said Wednesday that details about volatile oil train shipments are not sensitive security information, after railroads sought to keep the material from the public following a string of fiery accidents."

"The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee [Wednesday] confirmed Norman Bay to take the helm of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission after receiving assurances from the White House that he will remain a commissioner for at least nine months."

"The proposed Clean Power Plan, which aims to slash carbon emissions from existing electric power plants burning fossil fuel, may allow some of the most polluting coal-fired power plants in the country to continue operating without having to slash their emissions."

"Four Republican former administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency had a message for the Senate on Wednesday on climate change: It's real, it's bad and the United States should do something about it."

"ORCAS ISLAND, Wash. — Drew Harvell peers into the nooks and crannies along the rocky shoreline of Eastsound on Orcas Island. Purple and orange starfish clutch the rocks, as if hanging on for dear life. In fact, they are."

"Behind the scenes at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, there's a vast, warehouse-like room that's filled with metal cabinets painted a drab institutional green. Inside the cabinets are more than half-a-million birds — and these birds are not drab. Their colorful feathers make them almost seem to glow."