National (U.S.)

"Japanese authorities are unable to control the radioactive water leaking out of the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plant. Now the government plans to install a wall of ice around the facility to contain the contaminated water. Ed Lyman, from the Union of Concerned Scientists, tells host Steve Curwood that the new ice wall plan is likely an act of desperation, and that some American reactors are at risk for the same kind of flooding disaster."

"MIAMI -- The 2013 Atlantic hurricane season, which forecasters had predicted would be more active than normal, has turned out to be something of a dud so far as an unusual calm hangs over the tropics."

"As the season heads into the historic peak for activity, it may even enter the record books as marking the quietest start to any Atlantic hurricane season in decades.

'It certainly looks like pretty much of a forecast bust,' said Jeff Masters, a hurricane expert and director of meteorology at the Weather Underground."

"ST. PETERSBURG -- Transcending their disagreements over Syrian chemical weapons, the G-20 leaders managed to reach agreement on confronting climate change in two ways. They will phase down refrigerant greenhouse gases and phase out inefficient fossil fuel subsidies."

"WASHINGTON -- The Environmental Protection Agency this week quietly withdrew two draft rules dealing with the regulation of chemicals. The potential rules were in limbo at the Office of Management for several years."

"The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has fined Royal Dutch Shell affiliates $1.1 million for emitting too many pollutants into the air during the 2012 drilling season offshore in the Alaska Arctic."

"The eight-state commission that sets water quality standards for the Ohio River wants a two-year delay on enforcement of a more stringent mercury standard while it considers relaxing those rules."

"In the 1980s, it was South Africa. In the 1990s, it was tobacco. Now fossil fuels have become the focus of those who would change the world through the power of investing."

"Manmade climate change played a substantial role in the exceptional warmth in the eastern U.S. during the spring of 2012, a major NOAA-led report concludes. Not only that, it greatly increased the odds of the punishing heat that baked the north central and northeast U.S. during the following summer."

"Federal regulators have reached a tentative deal with Carnival Corp. on a plan to reduce air pollution from nearly a third of its cruise ships, but the accord comes too late to reverse at least a temporary loss of lucrative cruise business for Baltimore."

"CAMBRIDGE, Mass. -- Polluted air causes roughly 200,000 early deaths each year across the United States, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology conclude after tracking emissions from industrial smokestacks, vehicle tailpipes, marine and rail transport, and commercial and residential heating."